Star Wars makeup artist Stuart Freeborn, rip

[ARNie]

"Star Wars" makeup artist Stuart Freeborn, who helped create Chewbacca, Yoda, Jabba the Hutt and the otherworldly creatures in the trilogy's famous barroom scene, has died, Lucasfilm said Wednesday.

He was 98.

A creature effects artist, Freeborn also worked on other film classics and was responsible for creating the apelike human ancestors in the "Dawn of Man" sequence in "2001: A Space Odyssey."

He also did the makeup for Peter Sellers in "Doctor Strangelove," Lucasfilm said on its starwars.com website.

"Stuart was already a makeup legend when he started on 'Star Wars,'" said George Lucas, creator of the films...

...Playful, impish and imaginative, Freeborn played a pivotal role in developing the character Yoda for "The Empire Strikes Back."

Director Irvin Kershner said Freeborn put his own image into Yoda the Jedi Master, giving the character inquisitive and elfin features with "more than a passing resemblance to Freeborn himself," Lucasfilm said.

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