Mark Hamill

Mark Hamill Bio

Mark Hamill was born on September 25, 1951 in Oakland, California. He graduated from the Los Angeles City College with a major in Drama, which led to his acting debut in 1969 on The Bill Cosby Show. He went on to earn a recurring role on popular American soap opera General Hospital. He then co-starred on the comedy The Texas Wheelers.

His big break came when he auditioned for and landed the role of Luke Skywalker for the first of instalment of the star wars franchise; Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977.) Star Wars unexpectedly became an overnight sensation and spawned an instant cult following that remains strong to this day. Hamill starred in 2 more sequels Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983). Through the franchise’s success Hamill became an instant Hollywood heartthrob of his generation. He most recently appeared in the franchise’s latest instalment Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) and is slated to reprise his role in the two remaining films of the trilogy.

Mark Hamill was very aware of the possible typecasting that might follow after the enormous success of Star Wars and made a conscious decision to take hugely different roles from the character of Luke Skywalker and appeared in several films. Among his notable works are Corvette Summer (1978), The Big Red One (1980), and even appearing on the Muppet Show (1980). He continued to appear in different roles and often times playing himself or a parody of himself in comedies. Hamill is also a prolific voice actor and is well regarded for his voice over of Joker on Batman: The Animated Series and other subsequent Batman instalments.

Hamill also is a co writer of a comic book called the Black Pearl and regularly makes appearances in Comic-con and other similar events.