Dianne Crittenden, Casting Director for ‘A New Hope’, Has Died at 82
We must unfortunately report that Dianne Crittenden, who was the casting director for the original Star Wars movie, has died. She was 82.
Crittenden leaves behind an impressive legacy consisting of over 40 years of work in television and film. Before she worked in Hollywood, Crittenden spent some time as an elementary school teacher. She began her career in Hollywood in the early 1970s when she worked with photographer and director Howard Zieff on movies, advertising campaigns, and TV commercials. She made her debut as a casting director for the film Badlands, which was released in 1973 and directed by Terrence Malick. That experience marked her first time working on a movie that would later be revered as a classic as well as her first job working with a widely-acclaimed filmmaker. It wouldn’t be her last.
Crittenden would later cast dozens of movies over the next several decades, including Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, The In-Laws, Witness, Pretty Woman, Black Rain, Spider-Man 2, and, of course, Star Wars. Her work on the first installment of the epic space saga is particularly notable for how thorough she was in seeking out performers to bring George Lucas’s characters to life. As Crittenden explained in an interview with Empire Magazine in 2005, she and her team watched more than 3,500 auditions before they chose the cast audiences would cheer on the big screen:
“George’s feeling was that it was the technology and the story that people were going to see. They were the stars of the film, rather than the actors. So we saw everybody. Anyone even vaguely in the right age-group came in to see us. I always said that anyone who had an agent and didn’t come in to see us should get a new agent.”
In addition to her many film credits, Crittenden did casting work for TV shows as well like Sybil, The Awakening Land, and The New Dick Van Dyke Show. On occasion, she would even step in front of the camera for cameo roles in a few movies like Crocodile Dundee II. The last film she worked on was the 2015 World War II-set drama Little Boy.
While Crittenden didn’t work on any more films in the series after the first, it’s undeniable that her contributions to Star Wars played an essential role in making it the phenomenon it would become. The original movie’s cast have long been iconic as their characters, and few fans today can imagine different actors from that time playing Luke, Han, Leia, Obi-Wan, Darth Vader, or any of the other roles. Without Crittenden’s oversight of the casting process, the film may not have become the classic that audiences have loved for nearly half a century now.
We here at Star Wars News Net wish nothing but the best for Dianne Crittenden’s family and friends as they mourn her passing. May the Force be with her.
Eric has been a fan of Star Wars ever since the age of five (or so) when his parents sat him down in front of a TV with pizza and a Sprite and showed him the original trilogy. He keeps trying to convince more fans to read the amazing 1980s Star Wars newspaper comics by Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson. When he's not reading, watching or playing Star Wars media, he's often enjoying other great fantasy and science fiction sagas or playing roleplaying games with his friends.
