George Walton Lucas, Jr. was born on May 14th, 1944 in Modesto, California. He grew up in the small town reading comic book and watching hours of television. As a teenager he spent his time listening to rock and roll and developing photographs in his spare bathroom. Lucas went to Downey High School where his struggled with his grades.This is also about the time that he discovered one of the more significant influences in his life; racing cars. His first car was a light weight, twocylinder Fiat Bianchina. Lucas modified it for increased horsepower began racing at the local track. He dreamed of one day becoming a professional race car driver. When he wasn’t at the track he was cruising up and down the streets of Modesto with his friends. But Lucas’ life was changed forever on June 12th, 1962 when an automobile accident nearly took his life.After the incident Lucas spent two weeks in the hospital, followed by three or four more months of bed rest at his home. It was during this time that he really started to reflect on his aimless life and search for direction. He knew that his racing career was over and grades in high school were not good enough to get him into a university, so he applied to Modesto Junior College where he studied hard and earned his associate in arts degree. He applied for his junior year at San Fransisco State, but when his friend John Plummer told him about the film program at the University of Southern California, he applied and was accepted.Lucas produced many award winning short films at USC including “Herbie”, “Freiheit”, and “Look at Life”. Later, Lucas won a spot among three other filmmakers to produce short promotional films about the Columbia Pictures project McKenna’s Gold. After graduation he took a job teaching film to military personnel at his alma mater. With these students he produced his short film “THX 1138:4EB”, which he would later flesh out into his first full length feature film with his friend and mentor, Francis Ford Coppola.

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