Mark Dodson, the actor who lent his voice to many beloved sci-fi and video game characters, has died. He was 64.
The Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens actor, was in Evansville, Indiana for Horror Con, when he suffered a ‘massive heart attack’, his daughter told TMZ.
Dodson was well known in the industry for his ability to create multiple characters with his voice.
His first big role was as the creepy Salacious Crumb in 1983’s Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, and later for ewoks in Ewoks: The Battle for Endor.
In an interview on the Diabolic Shrimp podcast, Dodson said he was inspired to get into show business, after attending a Charlie Chaplin film festival when he was a child.
Mark Dodson, known for his voice roles in Gremlins and in the Star Wars franchise, has passed away at age 64
‘He could make me laugh and cry, all in the same movie,’ he explained.
‘I remember thinking, “I would love to be a film director and make movies like that some day,’ because Chaplin, ‘helped me feel things that I didn’t even know I felt.’
He even made his own movies in his teens and moved to California in 1978, after he graduated from high school at age 18. He was able to get in with Lucasfilm two years later and began as a carpenter helping to construct Skywalker Ranch in Marin county, with the intent of moving into film production when that project was finished.
He went on to provide the voices of several of the characters in the hit 1984 film Gremlins.
‘It’s easier to tell you who I didn’t do [in Gremlins]’ the Missouri-born star told a reporter at Ohana Comic Con in February 2023.
‘I didn’t do Stripe and I didn’t do Gizmo… I’m the majority of all the rest of the Gremlins in Gremlins One, everybody from the fan gremlin to the caroling gremlins to the gremlins in the theater to the gremlin on Santa Claus… I’m most all of them,’ he said.
‘It was improvising, it was all improvising,’ he explained, ‘you can’t really script what a gremlin says.’
‘We would just try stuff, and basically if we got a laugh from the people in the crew and the other actors, I was there with Howie [Mandel] and Frank [Welker], it was like, “okay, good, let’s move on to the next gremlin.”‘
Dodson’s first big role was as the creepy Salacious Crumb in 1983’s Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi
The actor later provided the voices for ewoks in Ewoks: The Battle for Endor
The multi-talented artist was a popular voice actor in video games, and created the sounds Zombies make in Day of The Dead, written and directed by George A Romero
Dodson provided some of the sounds for the Zombies in Day of the Dead, written and directed by George A Romero.
The man of many voices shared his talents for some 40 years in Hollywood and the video game industry.
His credits include: Star Trek Online and Heroes of Newerth. More recently, he was hired for Ghostrunner II and Bendy and the Dark Rival.
The actor was a favorite of cartoon producer, who turned to him for projects such as Bonker and Darkwing Ducks.