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Mark Hamill's 50 facts.
1. Mark Richard Hamill is best known for his portrayal as Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy.
2. He will reprise a role in the upcoming film Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015.
3. Hamill has also ventured into voice acting.
4. He has voiced the Joker in various Batman animations, beginning with Batman: The Animated Series in 1992.
5. Hamill's early career included a recurring role on the soap opera General Hospital and a starring role on the short lived sitcom The Texas Wheelers.
6. He portrayed the oldest son, David, in the pilot episode of Eight Is Enough, though the role was later performed by Grant Goodeve.
7. He also had guest appearances on The Bill Cosby Show, The Partridge Family, One Day at a Time and other series.
8. He appeared in multiple television films such as The City and Sarah T. - Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic.
9. Robert Englund was auditioning for a part in Apocalypse Now when he walked across the hall where auditions were taking place for George Lucas's Star Wars. After watching the auditions for a while, he realized that Hamill, his friend, would be perfect for the role of Luke Skywalker. He suggested to Hamill that he audition for the part; Hamill did, and won the role.
10. Released in the summer of 1977, Star Wars was an enormous unexpected success and made a huge impact on the film industry. Hamill also appeared in the Star Wars Holiday Special in 1978 and later starred in the successful sequels The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
11. For both of the sequels, Hamill was honored with the Saturn Award for Best Actor given by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films.
12. He reprised the role of Luke Skywalker for the radio dramatizations of both Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back.
13. After the success of Star Wars, Hamill found that audiences identified him very closely with the role of Luke Skywalker. He attempted to avoid typecasting by appearing in the 1978 film Corvette Summer and the better known 1980 World War II film The Big Red One.
14. He also made a guest appearance on The Muppet Show as both himself and Luke Skywalker.
15. To further distance himself from the role, Hamill started doing little film work aside from the Star Wars films, instead he acted on Broadway, starring in plays such as The Elephant Man, Amadeus, Harrigan 'N Hart, Room Service and The Nerd.
16. For Harrigan 'N Hart he received a Drama Desk Award nomination.
17. When word came of that Amadeus was being adapted to film, Hamill auditioned to reprise the role for the big screen, but lost to Tom Hulce.
18. He made television appearances in a 1986 episode of Amazing Stories and a 1987 episode of The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
19. Hamill has gained a reputation as a prolific voice actor.
20. He first did voice acting work in the early 1970s voicing the character Corey Anders on the Saturday morning cartoon Jeannie by Hanna-Barbera Productions.
21. He later played Sean in the Ralph Bakshi film Wizards, which was released just three months before Star Wars in 1977.
22. Though the voice role he is most known for is Batman's archenemy the Joker, his success as The Joker has led him to portray a wide variety of characters in television, film, anime, and video games.
23. Hamill was the voice of The Hobgoblin in the 1990s Spider-Man animated series, and his other Marvel superhero genre roles include the Gargoyle in the animated series of The Incredible Hulk, Maximus in Fantastic Four, Klaw in Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and multiple characters in Ultimate Spider-Man.
24. Hamill voiced Solomon Grundy and Trickster in the DC animated universe series Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, the murderous gangster Tony Zucco in The Batman, an animated series unrelated to the various DC animated universe series.
25. He voiced Spectre in an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
26. Non comic related television roles include the deranged shock jock anchorman Dr. Jak in Phantom 2040, Christopher "Maverick" Blair in Wing Commander Academy, the classic Walter Lantz character Buzz Buzzard in The New Woody Woodpecker Show, the flamboyant robot Lawrance "Larry" 3000 in Time Squad, the pirate Captain Stickybeard in Codename: Kids Next Door, the ruler of the Fire Nation Fire Lord Ozai in Avatar: The Last Airbender, the evil Skeleton King in Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!, multiple roles in Metalocalypse and the groundskeeper Skips in Regular Show.
27. Notable video game voice roles include Detective Mosely in Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, Assistant Director Wilson in Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix, Adrian Ripburger in the LucasArts game Full Throttle, two installments of Crash Bandicoot series, Wolverine in X2: Wolverine's Revenge, which was the tie-in game to the film X2, Goro Majima in Yakuza, Malefor The Dark Master in The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, The Watcher in Darksiders and Master Eraqus in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep. He also narrated Call of Duty 2: Big Red One, the title being a reference to the 1980 war film he starred in.
28. Hamill's acclaimed role as the Joker began in the 1992 series Batman: The Animated Series and continued to many later spin-off series, video games and films. Hamill had initially played a guest voice role as corrupt businessman Ferris Boyle in the episode "Heart of Ice", and was delighted when offered the role of the Joker, one of his favorite characters, after the previous choice Tim Curry dropped out.
29. The most prominent feature of his portrayal that has garnered such acclaim is his dynamic use of laughter to express the Joker's mood. Hamill referred to Joker's laugh as being like a musical instrument and would practice laughing maniacally while driving to recording sessions.
30. Hamill received critical acclaim for his performance, which put him in high demand as a voice over actor of cartoon villains.
31. Hamill is the co-writer of The Black Pearl, a comic book miniseries published by Dark Horse Comics.
32. He wrote an introduction to the Trade Paperback Batman: Riddler Two-Face which reprints various stories involving The Riddler and Two-Face to tie in with Batman Forever.
33. He has also written several stories for Simpsons Comics, including "Catastrophe in Substitute Springfields!", which parodies DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths and also references several other classic comics.
34. On December 17, 1978, Hamill married Marilou York.
35. York is a dental hygienist.
36. The couple married in a private civil ceremony.
37. They have three children together: Nathan, Griffin, and Chelsea Elizabeth.
38. His son Nathan was born during the production of The Empire Strikes Back and had a cameo role in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, playing one of the Royal Guards of Naboo.
39. On January 11, 1977, one day before he was set to shoot one of the needed scenes in Star Wars, Hamill was in a car accident in which he fractured his nose and left cheekbone, requiring seven hours of surgery. As a result, a double was used for the landspeeder pickup shots.
40. Hamill stated in that interview that some of the real scars from the crash made an appearance in The Empire Strikes Back.
41. Mark Hamill was born in Oakland, California.
42. He was however raised in Virginia.
43. His father William Thomas Hamill was a Captain in the U.S. Navy.
44. He is one of seven children.
45. He has two brothers and four sisters.
46. His mother was of half Swedish descent.
47. When Hamill was a child, his father's career forced the family to move on numerous occasions, and he subsequently attended different schools.
48. By his junior year, his father was stationed in Japan, where Hamill attended and graduated from Nile C. Kinnick High School in Yokosuka.
49. While in Nile C. Kinnick High School in Yokosuka he was a member of the Drama Club.
50. He later enrolled at Los Angeles City College and majored in drama.
Source: Wikipedia.org
