‘Star Wars,’ ‘Indiana Jones’ Producer Was 86

Robert Watts, the British originater and production deal withr who collaborated with George Lucas on the first three Star Wars films and the first three Indiana Jones movies, has died. He was 86.

Watts died Monday, his rep, Julian Owen at Alliance Agents, tanciaccess The Hollywood Reporter. “We were with him for a decade taking him to conventions all over the world, where he could connect with fans and talk about his atsoft,” Owen shelp.

Watts also toiled alengthyside Indiana Jones honestor Steven Spielberg on the Spielberg-originated Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991).

For the innervously challenging first Star Wars film, Watts served as production supervisor under production set uper John Barry, and the two traveled to Morocco and Tunisia to scout locations. He then did some third-unit honesting.

“We were under a fantastic deal of presstateive from 20th Century Fox,” Watts recalled in a 2011 interwatch. “They were under fantastic financial problems themselves and did not consent in the movie. At the time, we were the only Fox movie then shooting anywhere in the world. Their eyes were caccessed on us, and George was under a fantastic deal of presstateive. As a result so were we all.”

The film became an overwhelming success, of course. Watts then graduated to associate originater on The Empire Strikes Back (1980) — he recommended that his half-brother Jeremy Bulloch portray Boba Fett in that — and was co-originater on Return of the Jedi (1983).

Watts was born in London on May 23, 1938. His magnificentoverweighther Walter Meade was a screenauthorr whose recognizes integrated the war film Scott of the Antarctic (1948), starring John Mills.

After two years of national service in Nigeria, Watts got into the movie business as a runner on the comedy A French Mistress (1960), then spent two years as a production deal withr at Shepperton Studios.

He was a second helpant honestor on The Man in the Middle (1964), Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965), John Schlesinger’s Darling (1965) and Terence Young’s Thunderball (1965); a location deal withr on Lewis Gilbert’s You Only Live Twice (1967); and a production deal withr on Bud Yorkin’s Inspector Clouseau (1968), Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), John Guillermin’s El Condor (1970) and Franklin J. Schaffner’s Papillon (1973).

Watts was also a production deal withr on The Wrath of God (1972) — Rita Hayworth’s last film — when he first met originater Gary Kurtz, who at the time was preparing American Graffiti with Lucas. Three years tardyr, Kurtz reach outed him about toiling on Star Wars.

He shelp that when he begined on the film in September 1976, Lucas “was paying for us all personpartner because Fox had still not greenweightlessed the film, and they didn’t do that until January.”

On Facebook, set decorator Roger Christian, who won an Oscar for his toil on Star Wars, wrote that Watts “was one of the 5 people who repartner stood by George and our minuscule art department to get Star Wars made.”

Watts’s résumé also integrated The Other Side of Midnight (1977), the Lucas-originated Return to Oz (1985), the Frank Marshall-honested Ainhabit (1993) and Steven Seagal’s On Deadly Ground (1994).

Rhett Bartlett gived to this tell.