What were your normal responsibilities?

My job was to follow George around and work with John Dykstra to get all the different elements together and into the optical department. Everyone had a steep learning curve. We had to fail at things to keep learning. I messed up once when someone from the machine shop asked me to send a part out to be iodized. I had no understanding of what that was, so I waited until the next morning to send it out, and they let me have it because it held everything up. So I learned my lesson and started asking a lot of questions. How important is this? Do I need to make this happen right now? Everyone was helping each other, and I loved being the center of information in my role, and making sure people had what they needed.

After that first film, did you continue with ILM when they moved to northern California?

Though I was invited to move north to the Bay Area to work on The Empire Strikes Back, I chose to stay behind in Los Angeles. I worked as a production manager with John Dykstra and his company Apogee on Battlestar Galactica. I’m a natural leader and crave efficiency so it was a great opportunity to grow. I then became very interested in making a film about women’s’ issues. At that time, women were gaining more equality in the military and serving in combat units. So I decided to go undercover in basic training and make a diary of it. It was the most fascinating time of my life. I was 26. That project was later developed by producer Philip Barry and sold to ABC. From there it sadly grew into a presentation that I thought was trivial, so I decided to call up ILM and see if they wanted me back!

When did you rejoin the company?

I returned to the company in the early 1980s and worked as a producer on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. After that, all of ILM came together to make Return of the Jedi, on which I was the production supervisor. We never had more fun than on those original Star Wars films. We were working with some of the smartest people on the planet, and facing these impossible challenges, kind of like the Rebel Alliance! We were thrilled with the world’s reaction to the films.

After Return of the Jedi, I became pregnant and started my family. Soon after I was pregnant, I saw George Lucas in the hall and he jokingly said that he hoped he wouldn’t see me for five years! In the end, George was so generous. When I was on maternity leave he made sure I was included among those receiving part of the revenue from Return of the Jedi, and that allowed me to stay home for 18 months!