Director Irvin Kershner died 27 November 2010 of lung cancer. Born Isadore Kershner in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 29 April 1923, he changed his name to Irvin after serving in the US Army Air Forces as an airplane mechanic and flight engineer during World War II. He won a Saturn Award for Best Director for Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and a life career award from the same Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films earlier this year. He was also nominated for an Emmy for directing Raid on Entebbe (1976).
His first moviemaking job was as a documentarian for the United States Information Service in Iran, Greece, and Turkey. After returning to the US, he got his first feature film break directing Roger Corman’s Stakeout on Dope Street (1958).
Kershner was one of George Lucas’s teachers at USC, and in a statement, Lucas said “I knew him from USC—I attended his lectures and he was actually on the festival panel that gave the prize to my ‘THX’ short. I considered him a mentor.” Thus, after making Star Wars, Lucas turned to Kershner for the second film of the series because, he said, he wanted someone he could trust and who would give the sequel humor and maturity. On Empire‘s DVD, Kershner explained why he didn’t return for Return of the Jedi: “I think it went beyond Star Wars. You had some humor, you got to know the characters a little better. I saw it as the second movement in an opera.”
Kershner’s other genre works include: an episode of SeaQuest 2032 (1993), RoboCop 2 (1990), an episode of Amazing Stories (1986), Never Say Never Again (1983), and Eyes of Laura Mars (1978).
He was married and divorced twice, and is survived by two sons. Variety notes that donations may be made to the Settlement Music School, P.O. Box 63966, Philadelphia, PA 19147.