The Times - UK (2022-05-26)

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Cantwell’s Star Wars designs including the X-Wing Starfighter and the Death Star

After three days spent staring at a blank
piece of paper, Colin Cantwell turned
his thoughts to the pub.
The Californian graphic designer was
familiar with British hostelries after his
stint on the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey,
which was filmed at Shepperton Studios
in Surrey. Now tasked with designing
spaceships for a grandiose space epic by
a young Hollywood director named
George Lucas, Cantwell struggled for
inspiration until an improbable thought
popped into his head: darts.
He recalled the pub players’ pinpoint
accuracy as they hurled their miniature
missiles at the dartboard, the aerody-
namic shape of their sharp arrows and
the X-shaped flights at the rear of the
barrel. Then he put pen to paper, adding
the manoeuvrability of a Second World
War fighter plane, the slim body of a
dragster and weapons that fired from
expanding wing tips “like a cowboy
drawing his guns in a gunfight outside of
the saloon”.
Cantwell had sketched concept art for
what became known as the X-Wing
Starfighter. More galactic vessels
followed, including the Death Star, TIE
Fighter, Star Destroyer, Y-Wing and
T-16 Skyhopper. Refined by other artists
including Joe Johnston and Ralph
McQuarrie (obituary, March 5, 2012),
Cantwell’s ideas helped to define the
striking visuals of Lucas’s film, Star Wars.
His linear early design for the Millen-
nium Falcon, based on a lizard poised to
attack, was revised because it resembled
a ship from the British science-fiction
drama Space: 1999. A rounder version
was developed instead and Cantwell’s
original was used for another craft.
For the colossal, planet-killing Death
Star, Cantwell made a spherical model
out of polystyrene, but the two pieces
did not join seamlessly. Lucas incorpo-
rated this defect into the plot to set up a
thrilling climactic scene in the 1977
blockbuster, as Luke Skywalker and his
fellow Rebels attack the sinister space
station at its weak point.
Lucas hired Cantwell in 1974, visiting
his workshop and peering intently at his
models, which were built using anything
he could lay his hands on, such as pill

for a dramatic opening. It would then go

into the Dawn of Man sequence with

apes.”

Cantwell also participated in real-life

space adventures. In the early Sixties he

joined forces with the Nasa Jet Propul-

sion Laboratory near Los Angeles, pro-

ducing animations to educate the public

about forthcoming missions. When

Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969,

Cantwell was a Nasa media communi-

cations liaison, feeding updates to the

CBS television anchorman Walter

Cronkite as he presented live studio cov-

erage of Neil Armstrong’s “one small

step”. Cantwell was, he joked, an equiva-

lent for Cronkite of 2001 ’s HAL 9000

computer.

Colin James Cantwell was born in San

Francisco in 1932, to the former Fanny

Hanula and James, a graphic artist for

CBS. The family later moved to Arizona.

Afflicted with undiagnosed myopia as a

young boy, he became a prodigious

reader since his world was blurry be-

yond arm’s length. Books on space were

among his favourites.

As a child he suffered a partially de-

tached retina and contracted tuberculo-

sis. “The cure was to confine me to a

dark room with a heavy vest across my

chest to prevent coughing fits,” he wrote.

“I spent nearly two years of my child-

hood immobilised in this dark room.

Suffice to say, nothing else could slow

me down after that.”

He began an undergraduate art

degree at the University of California,

Los Angeles, but switched to engineer-

ing before persuading his teachers to let

him study animation, arguing that it

blended creativity and technology. He

then essayed some designs of buildings

and talked his way into a meeting with

Frank Lloyd Wright, who had a home

and campus in Arizona. Wright invited

him to train at his school, Cantwell said,

but he decided not to pursue the oppor-

tunity because the architect died soon

afterwards. Cantwell did not marry or

have children and is survived by his

partner of 24 years, Sierra Dall.

Cantwell moved into the emerging

field of computer graphics in the Seven-

ties, which earned him a trial with Stev-

en Spielberg. The director wanted cut-

ting-edge flying saucer visual effects for

his UFO film, Close Encounters of the

Third Kind (1977), but decided that the

nascent digital technology was too slow,

expensive and unconvincing.

Cantwell’s computer-generated ser-

vices were more appreciated by the

makers of Buck Rogers in the 25th

Century. For the feature-length 1979

pilot of the television series, Cantwell

used a computer to design a spaceship

cockpit and programme software that

could determine optimal camera angles

for scenes with moving models.

For War Games, the 1983 thriller star-

ring Matthew Broderick, Cantwell used

Hewlett-Packard computers to create

graphics for a scene in which banks of

screens depict a nuclear conflict. He also

worked as a software consultant for the

company, helping to enhance the colour

capabilities of its monitors. In his spare

time he researched quantum physics.

An independent spirit — he turned

down a managerial role at Lucas’s visual

effects business Industrial Light &

Magic — the cowboy hat-wearing Cant-

well moved to Colorado and abandoned

his publicity-shy instincts in his final

years, attending Star Wars fan conven-

tions, giving interviews and auctioning

movie memorabilia that he had stored

in his basement. He published a pair of

science-fiction novels in his eighties.

They were, naturally, set in space.

Colin Cantwell, concept artist, was born

on April 3, 1932. He died of complications

from dementia on May 21, 2022, aged 90

Baroness Afshar

Iranian-born politics scholar and self-styled Muslim feminist who fled from Tehran to become one of the first ‘people’s peers’

Haleh Afshar, a self-styled “Muslim
feminist”, wrote of the Ayatollahs’
regime in her native Iran: “They’re
scared of educating women because
educated women can actually read
classical Arabic, access the Koranic
teachings, and demand their rights.”
As a professor of politics and
women’s studies at the University of
York, and of Islamic law at Robert
Schuman University in Strasbourg,
Afshar devoted much of her adult life to
promoting the rights of women in gen-
eral, and of Muslim women in Britain,
Iran and the Middle East in particular.
She wrote or edited more than a dozen
books on the subject and sat on the
Women’s National Commission, advis-
ing the government on women’s views
until its abolition in 2010. She fought Is-
lamophobia and the stereotyping of
Muslims after the 9/11 terrorist attacks
and co-founded the Muslim Women’s
Network. At the behest of Patricia He-
witt, the former Labour minister, she ap-
plied to become one of the first “people’s
peers” and was made a baroness in 2007,
travelling from York to London three
days a week to sit as a crossbencher.
Afshar was diminutive in stature, pos-
sessed a mischievous charm, and laugh-
ed often and loudly, but she was also
tough and determined. Friends said that

youthful Ranulph Fiennes, who ferried

her around on his motorbike. She was

interviewed for a place at Girton Col-

lege, Cambridge, but considered it

“worse than boarding school” and opt-

ed instead to read social sciences at

York University, “a place with no walls,

no rules and no regulations”.

After graduating in 1967 Afshar

earned a PhD in land economy from

New Hall, Cambridge. She returned to

Iran in 1972 to become a civil servant in

the Ministry of Co-operation and Rural

Affairs, while writing newspaper articles

and resisting an arranged marriage. Her

job took her to remote villages. “I loved

talking to the women, who were not

even aware of the Islamic rights they had

— the right to property, payment for

housework, all kinds of things,” she said.

However, she offended the Shah by al-

luding to one of his sister’s affairs in an

article for Kayhan International, an En-

glish-language newspaper. She realised

she was in “deep, deep trouble” when she

tried to renew her passport to leave the

country and was told it had been “lost”. A

cousin who was a senior minister or-

dered the bureaucrats to return the

document so she could accompany him

to a conference in London. Once in En-

gland “I resigned from everything and

stayed”, she said. That same year, 1972,

she married Maurice Dodson, a New

Zealander whom she had met at York

and who later became a mathematics

professor there.

In 1979 Islamic fundamentalists led

by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

seized power in Iran. Many of Afshar’s

friends were executed and she never re-

turned. For nine years she lectured at

Bradford University. In 1985 she re-

turned to York as a lecturer in politics,

becoming a full professor there in 1999.

She had two children: Ali, who worked

in advanced technology before becom-

ing his parents’ carer; and Molly, a music

teacher. As Afshar’s health declined, her

husband had prolonged her life by do-

nating one of his kidneys to her in 2011.

Initially she had not wanted children, re-

garding motherhood as “de-skilling”.

After her first pregnancy she made a

point of inviting her students into the

maternity ward for a tutorial, and

described her children as “the best thing

I ever did in my life”.

Baroness Afshar OBE, professor and

Muslim feminist, was born on May 21,

1944. She died of kidney failure on May
      12, 2022, aged 77

bottles. The script and budget were far

from settled, so the director was open to

possibilities. “We didn’t originally plan

for the Death Star to have a trench, but

when I was working with the mould, I

noticed the two halves had shrunk at the

point where they met across the mid-

dle,” Cantwell said. “It would have taken

a week of work just to fill and sand and

refill this depression. So, to save me the

labour, I went to George and suggested

a trench. He liked the idea so much that

it became one of the most iconic mo-

ments in the film.”

Seven years earlier he had come to the

attention of Stanley Kubrick through

friends working on 2001 and the director

invited him to England to work on the

animated space scenes, which were far

behind schedule. It was a gruelling shoot

but Cantwell got on well with Kubrick

and often went to his home for late-

night meetings. “It may have been diffi-

cult for others to work with his intensity

but we understood each other and were

very compatible,” he said.

Cantwell claimed to have discussed

the 1968 film’s opening sequence with

Kubrick, who was unhappy with the

score provided by the American

composer, Alex North, and considering

using classical music. Kubrick also

planned to start the movie with a

scientific discussion but Cantwell felt

this would not strike the right tone.

“One night I was having turkey

sandwiches with Stanley at midnight

and he had just heard the soundtrack

and it was a total loss,” he said.

“He seemed really distraught, so I

asked what was wrong. He said he had

fired his fourth composer. I had already

spent some time thinking about the

music, so I suggested to Stanley... that

the opening scene of the film [could] be

one minute long with title graphics of

the Earth in space at sunrise and the

Also sprach Zarathustra music playing

Watching a game of

pub darts inspired his

starfighter prototype

Colin Cantwell

Concept artist who helped to define the striking visuals and galactic vessels of the Star Wars films after working for Nasa

Email: [email protected]

she “pushed boundaries and prodded at

privilege” and that Shakespeare’s line in

A Midsummer Night’s Dream — “though

she be but little she is fierce” — might

have been written for her.

It was a mindset forged by her early

experiences in her native Iran. Haleh

Afshar was born into a well-to-do

family in Tehran in 1944. Her

father, Hassan, a law pro-

fessor, served as one of

the Shah’s ministers,

and spent two years

as a government

representative in

Paris, during which

time he had Per-

sian rice delivered

in the diplomatic

bag for his young

daughter. Her mother,

Pouran Khabir, cam-

paigned for women’s rights,

especially the right to vote. Her

maternal grandmother refused to wear

a hijab, and in the 1920s her grandfather

threw the first party in Tehran to which

women were invited without having to

cover their heads. “Being a feminist

comes with the blood,” Afshar said.

Raised by a nanny and servants, Afs-

har had everything done for her until,

aged 14, she read Jane Eyre in French

while studying at Tehran’s prestigious

Jeanne d’Arc School. Charlotte Brontë’s

novel describes a woman who has to

support herself after losing everything.

“I realised, if you left me on the side of

the road, I wouldn’t be able to get my

clothes on, let alone be a carer for

somebody,” Afshar recalled. “So I said

‘I’m going to England’.”

Her father reluctantly

agreed. That summer her

parents drove her 3,500

miles from Tehran to

Britain, where they en-

rolled her as a boarder

at St Martin’s School in

Solihull and gave her

the money for a return

flight if she wanted one.

Initially she found life

hard. She spoke no En-

glish. “It was very dark and

so drab,” she recalled. The food

was “inedible”. Then her mother was

killed in a car crash — news she learnt

when the headmistress announced it

during morning assembly.

She persevered, mastered the lan-

guage and moved to St David’s College

in Brighton. That she enjoyed: she par-

tied “like mad”, won tickets to a Beatles

concert in London through her poker

prowess, and was befriended by a