Sad news arrives as the owner of EFX, Bryan Ono, has passed away. A key figure in the world of licenced replicas, Bryan was instrumental in the development of a number of lines, as well as being a dedicated and enthusiastic lover of all things Star Wars, something we spoke about back in 2009.
Lightsabre – Well you’re clearly a big Star Wars fan yourself. When did you first fall in love with Star Wars?
BO – Believe it or not I’m one of the crazy people back in 1977 who actually saw Star Wars in the theatre 38 times. Back then there was no video, no DVD, no laserdiscs, nothing, so this was literally going to the theatre. Me and my friends saw it every weekend, all through the summer, at least twice. Luckily I never had to go by myself (Laughs) Luckily I still had friends at the end of that summer!
When Empire Strikes Back was coming out me and another friend actually waited in line for 16 hours. Now back in 1980 no-one ever did this. I actually got my picture in the LA Times, sitting in line in front of the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. They took the picture eight to ten hours before the film started and made a big deal about it, ‘ it’s eight hours before the film opened and these guys are already in line!’ So that was exciting, we got into the 12.01 showing at the Egyptian and that was incredible.
Then we had to do it again in 1983 for Return of the Jedi, but unfortunately when we first got there we actually waited 32 hours in line from the day before and we were about 75th in line, but we didn’t even get into the first showing because too many people cut in front of us. There was no crowd control whatsoever. I wasn’t too happy about that. So I’m one of the original Star Wars fanatics from when it was first released. I got to admit that in 1977 I did not see it opening day, I waited until June to see it.
It was really interesting in LA, and I don’t know if it happened around the country but people were paying to see the trailer leading up to the opening of Star Wars. There was a guy back then in charge of publicity, his name was Charles Lippincott, and I actually still have his business card for what was then called The Star Wars Corporation. He set up this kind of viral marketing campaign around the opening and obviously he did a great job and people in LA were actually paying to go see the trailer when they found out what theatre it was playing at and weren’t even staying for the feature.
I’m a true Star Wars fan from way back when.
To Bryans family and many friends, colleagues, we send our deepest condolences.
