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Star Wars Collectors Unite!

I have been collecting Star Wars autographs since 1998. Not all of my signatures are on Star Wars memorabilia. For example, when I met Warwick Davis at a comic convention in New York City, I had him sign a Willow photograph. I also have publicity photos of Sir Alec Guinness and Christopher Lee from the 1970s, and a Natalie Portman signed The Diary of Anne Frank theater poster from her performance on Broadway back in 1998. My current wish list includes Peter Cushing, Terence Stamp and John Williams. I am interested in knowing about the collections and wish lists of other members.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Shepherd on January 28, 2015 at 6:09pm

Very cool Steve. You are very fortunate that your parents never got rid of them.

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Permalink Reply by Pete Bendu on December 23, 2014 at 8:36pm

I haven't been buying a lot of Star Wars items lately....mainly because there just aren't many names left for me to add to the collection. Then out of the blue things click. An autograph from the Star Wars universe pops up that no one has ever seen before.

I am sorry about the length of this post, but I believe it's worth the read for any true Star Wars fan.

Greedo & Jabba's Voice Larry Ward.

Years of being the only guy who believed that the information out there was wrong, (or maybe being the only guy who cared?) and a whole lot of research, followed by months of ongoing contact between his sister and my buddy Ant or K9 as he is known among the serious SW collectors.

I was able to add the only surviving sample of Lawrence Anderson Ward's autograph to the collection. Larry was the linguistic expert who with Ben Burtt created the Huttese language and performed the voice of Greedo in Star Wars and returned years later to do the same for Jabba in Return of the Jedi. He based the work on the Andean language of Quechua.

Larry was born October 2, 1944 and he attended Piedmont High School and graduated in 1962. He went on to attend UC Berkeley and studied linguistics. He was a veteran of the US Navy and saw combat off the coast of Vietnam. Larry was a scholar of numerous languages and a fluent speaker of Spanish, Russian, Arabic, the languages of Native American peoples and the Indian Subcontinent.

“Larry had many problems, but also had a keen intellect and incredible sense of humor. He made friends easily and always was eager to befriend people of diverse backgrounds, often speaking to them in their native language. Larry Ward was a remarkable person, who possessed a deep faith. He will be remembered fondly by many whose lives he touched."

Larry passed away on October 15, 2007, he had been in poor health for several years and confined to a wheelchair after a fall several years earlier. His sister was in California and at his side in his final days. She has been beyond kind to us, she spent months going thru items that she had saved and the only item that had an example of his autograph was the guest book from their mom's wake/funeral service. She was more than willing to share his story with us and even sent that page as well as some baby photos of Larry and some of his writings in (my best guess) arabic.

Our promise to her was that we would indeed share Larry's story with our fellow Star Wars fans, and indirectly "his fans."

For years the linguist Larry Ward's credits as well as birth and death dates were mixed with the info for the character actor Larry Ward online and on IMDB. That has now been corrected. Sadly the passing of actor Larry Ward in 1985 kept Star Wars fans from searching out the correct Larry. I am positive that fan letters and well wishes would have made Larry's last years much more enjoyable and he would have known the love and respect of the Star Wars fan family.

Larry passed more than 7 years ago, and as his sister mentioned he never got any of the recognition he so deserved in life. We told her that we would gladly send on any comments you may have about Larry so that she can see the thoughts of the fans he touched.

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Permalink Reply by Bradford on December 23, 2014 at 9:14pm

Incredible, Pete. So let me get this straight: she let you take the page from the funeral register? And if so, you have the only one you've ever seen or anyone else to you knowledge? Wow. Please offer her our condolences and let her know the profound impact her brother had on many fans. The voice and language was amazing. Many of us can quote those lines in the language he used.

2 questions: what problems did he suffer from?
How did you and Ant track sister down?

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Permalink Reply by Pete Bendu on December 24, 2014 at 5:45am

Yes, she did indeed take the page from the register and offered it to us instead of just a photo copy. We told her how much something like that would mean to us as collectors, and we also made some donations to charities of her choice including Wounded Warrior, the Salvation Army, and charities involved in aiding Vets with addiction problems. The "Larry Ward" autographs that have come to market for the last few decades were just that, spelled Larry Ward and no one can be sure if this was the character actor or any other multiple persons with that same name.

The piece we received is a small page with a couple of other signatures, and Larry wrote out Lawrence Anderson Ward. It is the only one of it's kind and the provenance is beyond question.

From her charity choices alone, conclusions can be made that his service in Vietnam changed him forever, whether it was addiction or PTSD, the issues he faced throughout his life were not discussed at length.

As for the last question.....I have been doing research on him for a very long time... sometimes that kind of diligence pays off.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on December 24, 2014 at 9:28am

Great story... thanks for sharing Pete.

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Permalink Reply by Bradford on January 5, 2015 at 10:05pm

Genuine?

Attachments: No photo uploads here

image.jpg, 471 KB

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Permalink Reply by Pete Bendu on January 5, 2015 at 10:55pm

Not at all genuine. This is a perfect sample of a card that looks like a pack pulled autograph, but all it is....an unsigned card that was mailed to a fan mail address and handed over to Carrie's latest secretary so that s/he can scribble on it.

Side note....JSA has been authenticating these as genuine, for about a year now.

So if you really like it.....they will likely give it a thumbs up.... for Beckett to slab. Hahahahahha "Joke"

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Permalink Reply by Bradford on January 6, 2015 at 8:00pm

Pete....my friend. Alas. 100,000 comedians out of a job and here you are working on behalf of those suffering from a bad economy :)

Thanks for your opinion and sense of humor.

By the way, I hope to add a Ford auto to my collection soon. Let me know if you see anything that would be a decent score.