I  drove past Maureen Charlton last week – she’s the Watford housewife who was offered a fortnight’s acting work as a dwarf in the third Star Wars film currently being shot at Elstree Studios.

Remembering her excitement when I met her a month before shooting began, I pulled up to ask how she had got on.

Maureen, of Queen’s Road, could say only that it had been great fun and it was equally nice to be an ordinary housewife again. As for the rest, I had to phone the film’s production office because Maureen had been sworn to secrecy in her contract.

A spokesman for Lucas Films, makers of The Revenge [sic] of the Jedi, confirmed that the gag was on. He told me: “All I can say is that the film lives on surprises and Mrs Charlton’s part is one of them.

“The film opens in America in May. I’m afraid you will have to wait until then to find out.”

[From the Watford Observer of February 19, 1982]

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