LOS ANGELES — Marcia Lucas, the Oscar-winning film editor of "Star Wars," died Wednesday in Rancho Mirage after a battle with cancer. She was 80.

"Marcia will be remembered as a brilliant storyteller, a trailblazer for women in film, a loving mother and grandmother, a generous host, and a loyal friend whose humor and sparkle filled every room she entered. Her influence on film is indelible, but those who knew her best will remember the way she made life feel more vivid, more beautiful, more fun, and more full of love," a family statement said. "Her work was known for its emotional intelligence, rhythm, and humanity — a rare ability to find the truth of a scene and bring heart, momentum, and clarity to the screen."

Marcia, who was married to George Lucas for more than a decade, was widely regarded as instrumental in making the "Star Wars" trilogy the juggernaut it became. But she garnered urban legend status for making the call to kill off one major and beloved character.

"If there was anything that was dramatic or emotional, George gave it to Marcia and George always said: keep one person whose opinion you trust to the very end, and that was Marcia," said editor and director Duwayne Dunham.

She also co-edited "American Graffiti," which nabbed her an Oscar nomination, Martin Scorsese's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," "Taxi Driver," "New York, New York," and then in 1978, she won an Oscar for "Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope," alongside co-editors Richard Chew and Paul Hirsch.

Mark Hamill, who starred as Luke Skywalker in the "Star Wars" franchise, posted a tribute to Lucas on social media, writing that he and his wife, Marilou York, are deeply saddened by the loss of their "lifelong friend, Marcia."

"Not just a gifted, innovative artist, she also happened to be a genuinely nice person," he continued. "Smart, funny, & just plain fun to be around. Thankfully, her memory lives on and we will never stop missing her."

Lucas was born Marcia Lou Griffin on Oct. 4, 1945, in Modesto but was raised in North Hollywood. She told True West Film Center that she was a "real rags to riches story" and was raised by a single mother. "We lived hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck," she said. "I never knew anybody in the film business, the music business, the radio business. ... I didn't go to school with people who were kids that were associated with the industry. But when I used to go home after school, I would sit and watch old movies. It was like I was getting an education in movies."

When she was 18, she landed a job as an apprentice film librarian at the Sandler Film Library in Hollywood. When the library was slow, the assistant editor taught Marcia about postproduction and TV commercials. When he left, she took over.

By the mid-1960s, Marcia was ready to move on from the Sandler but was told editors "didn't want women in the cutting room," so she worried her ambition to make it big in the field was at a dead end. "But then I had a friend who had a friend who knew a woman in Van Nuys — Verna Fields — who liked to hire women."

Marcia was hired.

It was while she was working for Fields as an assistant that she met George Lucas, then a USC film student whom Fields considered talented. Because Marcia was the most experienced assistant, Fields asked her to help the young filmmaker.

Marcia described him as "very intense" in the cutting room. "We worked together, and then after the film was done, we started dating," Marcia told True West Film Center. "I used to say, 'I don't understand why you're such a cold fish,' and George would say, 'I may be a cold fish, but you're full of beans' — and that was our chemistry. That chemistry worked for us for many years."

The couple married in 1969 and divorced in 1983, but during their time together they made the original "Star Wars" trilogy. The couple split before "Return of the Jedi" was released but waited to publicly announce their divorce until shortly after the film hit theaters.

"I'm sort of known in Star Wars," Marcia told True West Film Center. "I killed Obi-Wan Kenobi."

According to Marcia, George was convinced he'd be laughed out of Hollywood because in the original script characters were running around and shooting at one another and nobody was getting hurt. "I said, 'What if Obi-Wan Kenobi let Darth Vader strike him down?' and George said, 'I kind of like that.'"

Marcia suggested that Obi-Wan Kenobi could then be a ghostly presence. She said that the change to the script added a spiritual strangeness to the film and gave the second act a real climax, because no one expected to lose the Jedi master.

"Anyway," she said. "I killed him."

Marcia is survived by daughters Amanda Lucas and Amy Soper; grandchildren Felix Hallikainen, Aeliana Hallikainen, and Knox Soper; and her chosen family Sarah Dyer and Jon Taylor.

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