Voice of Boba Fett: Jason Wingreen
by Rich Handley, from Star Wars Insider 49 (p. 20)

With barely any lines, and only a few minutes of screen time, Boba Fett became one of the most popular characters in Star Wars history. For years, convention-goers have enjoyed appearances by Jeremy Bulloch, who gave life to Fett's famous armor, but the indentity of the man who spoke those words has remained unknown. Until now. Jason Wingreen, veteran actor of stage and screen, has been confirmed by the Insider as the voice of Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back.

Airplane! fans will recognize Wingreen as Dr. Brody of the Mayo Clinic, but he's best known as Archie Bunker's bartender. A native New Yorker, raised in the Howard Beach area of Queens, Wingreen was a natural for the role of Harry Snowden, whom he portrayed for three seasons of All in the Family and four seasons of its continuation, Archie Bunker's Place. "Before I came out to Hollywood," Wingreen told the Insider, "I was in a Broadway play called Fragile Fox, and I played a character named Private Snowden, so I figured after the war, Snowden became a bartender!"

The actor was amazed to learn how popular his Empire work has become with fans--especially since he recorded Fett's dialogue in only 20 minutes. "My agent called me and said to go over to the recording studio, where I met Gary Kurtz and Irvin Kershner," he recalled. "Normally, you see the face of an actor you're dubbing, so you have to lip-synch. But that was no problem here--I could say the lines at any time. I got into position, they ran the film a few times, and I said the lines. Kershner came out and made a suggestion or two and went back in the control room, I did it again, and I was finished."

Wingreen suspects he got the job because they remembered him from an audition for the voice of Yoda. "I was up for it right up to the very end," he said. When Lucas wooed Frank Oz to the role, Wingreen accepted Fett's voice instead. But since the film was produced under a British contract and he earned no royalties, Wingreen did not make much money off Fett--until Underoos unveiled its line of Empire underwear. "The advertising agency doing the campaign decided they wanted the actor who did the voice to do the promotion," he said, "and the residuals for the commercial were about 20 times what I made doing Fett on film!"

Wingreen, 80, has since retired after a 54-year career and is living comfortably in Studio City, California. "I decided when I was 75 that I'd had enough," he said. "My wife was ill, and after she died, I said 'I don't need to get up at 4:30 in the morning and trip over the cables anymore.'" His final acting jobs were an episode of Seinfeld called "The Opera" and a two-hour episode of In the Heat of the Night that reunited him with All in the Family's Carroll O'Connor one last time. Other roles he recalls fondly include the Conductor in the Twilight Zone episode "A Stop at Willoughby" and Dr. Linke in the Star Trek episode "The Empath."

Wingreen still gets a lot of fan-mail for the role of Linke, and can probably expect a lot more now for Fett. But his favorite role will always be Harry the Bartender. "Playing the character for seven years was a lot of fun," he said. "And it allowed me to retire, too!"