| C-3PO Award: Children's World Premiere | |
| This is an extremely obscure crew gift. Over the years of collecting cast and crew items, I have only ever seen 2-3 of these ever sold. It's a C-3PO award made of out Kenner's 12" C-3PO action figure with limbs and head glued in place and affixed to a wooden base. There's one on display at Lucasfilm's offices in the Presidio in San Francisco and it is known that director Irvin Kershner has one on display as well.
These items were made specifically for an event dubbed the Children's World Premiere which was the debut public screening of The Empire Strikes Back on May 17th 1980 held at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. This sequel extravaganza was organized by Lucasfilm's Sid Ganis and Eunice Kennedy Shriver on behalf the Special Olympics foundation. In addition to the movie cast and other people of importance receiving these, 3 Special Olympians received them as well and the event was documented in this May 19, 1980 Washington Post article This particular award came from a high level board member of an advertising firm in Washington DC. It was given in appreciation to the firm for their efforts in organizing the event and the reads: "With Deep Appreciation of All Your Efforts in Organizing the World Premiere of "The Empire Strikes Back" Lucasfilm LTD. May 17, 1980." There are awards with various plates known to exist, each specific to the person that the piece was awarded to. Some were more general to the various crew of the film, and also one specific to Harrison Ford for his special contributions to Special Olympics. Another obscure item from this event, which was available to general attendees, is this goodie bag as shown above and included some small takeaways for the children. Below are some press photos of the event including Eunice Kennedy Shriver awarding C-3PO and R2-D2 with Special Olympics Volunteer sashes. R2-D2 was a remote-controlled version operated by one of the LFL employees and C-3PO was another person in costume as Anthony Daniels was hospitalized at the time. The main photo shows the cast and crew including Irvin Kershner, Frank Oz, Sid Ganis and Gary Kurtz together with Eunice Kennedy Shriver. The final image shows the cast with Amy Carter, then-President Jimmy Carter's daughter, with her attendance possibly due to the fact that the event was originally going to be called the Special Olympics Presidential Premiere as outlined in the letter linked above.
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| Description by: | Gus Lopez, Chris Georgoulias |
| Photo: | Gus Lopez |
| From the collection of: | Gus Lopez |
| Country: | United States |
| Film: | Empire Strikes Back |
| Licensee: | Lucasfilm, Ltd. |
| Year: | 1980 |
| Category: | Cast and Crew / Miscellaneous |
