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Ralph McQuarrie; artist drew ‘Star Wars’ characters

By T. Rees Shapiro

 |  Washington Post  

  March 08, 2012

WASHINGTON - Ralph McQuarrie, an artist whose paintings of a gold-plated robot in an otherworldly desert and an intergalactic sword duel between a scraggly youth and a black-masked villain helped persuade film executives to gamble on a young director named George Lucas and his visionary story, “Star Wars,’’ died March 3 at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 82.

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