This week brought the terrible news that the Star Wars community has lost Gerald Home, the man who to Star Wars fans was Squid Head and a Mon Calamari Officer, to others was Mr. Muscle, and to me, perhaps, I can go as far as saying he was a good friend.

I first met Gerald in August of 2002 when he welcomed fellow collector Vinny Petrosini and myself into his home for his first ever paid Star Wars signing. I did not know at the time, as Gerald welcomed us like long lost acquaintances, that visits with Gerald would become a regular feature of the next near 20 years of my life. Every time, Gerald would be so incredibly welcoming, always informing me he had been out and bought a cake or a trifle “for your sweet tooth”, with a gleam in his eye that said we both knew he was going to enjoy it just as much as me. Of course I quickly learned that one did not simply pop in on Gerald for a quick visit, you cleared your schedule for the day, and the same was true for visiting Gerald’s table at conventions.

The first of those conventions came a year later in April 2003 when I booked him to Jedicon 8 in the lowly surroundings of Basildon Sports Centre. What followed from that humble beginning was a global flowering of friendships as Gerald embraced the fan community and found his place in it. Seeing Gerald travel to countries as far flung as Chile, Canada, Turkey and Mexico, attend multiple Celebration events, travel to every corner of Europe and across the United States, leaving in his wake a trail of smiling faces and new friendships, was truly wonderful.

Gerald would never describe himself as a fan or a collector, but he was a proud performer whose work had become a part of him. That vitality in his performance was never more evident than as he struck poses or contorted his body to show fans how he created his different characters, or as his eyes lit up when a fan recognised who he played purely by watching his body language.

His attention to detail and passion for historical accuracy were legendary. He delighted in educating everyone who visited his table (he had been a teacher before a performer after all). Be it about his roles, the filming process, the difference between a performer and an extra, Gerald was never happier than when he was teaching you something. No question was ever too big or too small, no answer too time consuming to be given properly. Some may have doubted his memory could be so detailed, except that he could also tell you the names of all the fans he met around the world, where he had last met them and what he had talked to them about.

Of course the greatest manifestation of this passion for detail and accuracy was his thread on the Rebelscum forums: “ROTJ History: Gerald Home’s Creature Info” (you can read that HERE.) Ten years of an actor engaging with his fanbase to answer every question in every conceivable detail. I read through it all in the last few days and the wealth of information is astounding. It reminded me of things I had forgotten I knew and taught me things I never knew before. Information he shared, right from that very first meeting in 2002, led to the identification and contacting of countless other Star Wars performers. We even got to read entire scenes of dialogue that were never used in the final film, lost to history had Gerald not kept the script pages.

You might not know however that he spent hours agonising over every word of every reply, be it to a public post, a private message or an email. Why? Because he knew that his audience was global, and perhaps were not fluent English speakers. So every word was chosen carefully, so that the meaning would be as clear to a native English speaker as to someone reading his posts in Malaysia with the help of Google Translate. Overkill? The word did not exist in Gerald’s vocabulary.

Seeing Gerald interact with fans made you realise just how global Star Wars really is. There are comments on his Rebelscum thread from Asia, Australia and all over Europe and the Americas. He recorded videos and did presentations for conventions not just in English, but in French and Spanish too. In 2007 he even narrated a 30^th anniversary concert in Valencia, Spain, in Spanish.

Of course that is the great thing about Gerald, he will never truly be gone because he left so much of himself behind. His Rebelscum posts are there for everyone to read. He did innumerable print interviews and appeared on many podcasts. I heartily recommend his episode on Talking Bay 94 (you can find that episode HERE.) for anyone who wants to hear his voice and remember him for who he was.

I said at the beginning perhaps I can say he was a good friend because that is how our relationship felt, but reading through the comments on his Rebelscum thread and tributes since he passed one thing has become abundantly clear: everyone felt that way about their relationship with Gerald. It is not that I had a special relationship with Gerald, but that Gerald had a special relationship with everyone. We all lost a friend this week. I will miss my friend Gerald.

Gerald Home (18 October 1950 – 6 October 2021)

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