Return of the Jedi Artist Reveals 40 Year Fight For Credit in Creating Leia’s Look for the Movie

Marilee Heyer helped design Princess Leia’s iconic bikini in Return of the Jedi… but she’s still fighting for recognition 40 years later.

During an interview with SFGate, the artist and illustrator explained her struggle for recognition after being left out of numerous books and exhibits about the legendary costume.

“I would like to be remembered if this is my legacy,” she explained. “If this is what I’m most noted for, I want to make sure I’m getting credited when I’m no longer around. I view my artwork like my children. You have to be able to send them out and give them the tools they need to fight.”

Heyer was hired back in 1981 as an illustrator – essentially bringing Princess Leia design concepts to life during Return of the Jedi’s early production.

It was a three-week freelance job that earned her a place in the galaxy far, far away. “My first meeting, [director Richard Marquand] asked me to get him a cup of coffee,” she revealed. “I was the only woman in the room.”

Nevertheless, her work was crucially important: “There wasn’t any other work that showed her as a pretty woman,” she explained.

Heyer’s designs came at a crucial point in development when Leia was shifting into a new era.

“At the time, the focus was moving the Leia character into a different moment in her life,” Heyer said. “It was going beyond the cinnamon buns or the white robes. She needed a forest look as an infantry person, the woodsy look at the end with her hair down and crimped, and — you know — the slave girl in bondage.”

Although many of her Princess Leia designs failed to make the film’s final cut, her work has since been chronicled in production books and exhibits, often without crediting her. One major example of this is The Art of Return of the Jedi – a book published by Ballantine Books containing much of the film’s production design.

There, on the pages, were Heyer’s designs… attributed to someone else – hairstylist Paul LeBlanc.

“[Paul] was incredible to work with, and I think his career speaks for itself,” she said. “But he didn’t have the ability to sketch out what he needed to, to convince George. That’s, I guess, where I came in.”

LeBlanc originally provided Heyer with rudimentary sketches to show how the hairstyle should inform Princess Leia’s overall look. However, it was her sketches that convinced George Lucas to rethink Leia’s design.

Despite this, she often goes uncredited, despite her work appearing in numerous books as well as an exhibit at the Smithsonian.

And that book she appeared in? Lucasfilm did apologize for the oversight.

“I just wanted to say how badly I feel that I gave the wrong credit to Ballantine for your illustrations, especially since they are the prettiest illustrations that have been done of her,” said Lucasfilm archivist Kathy Wippert in a letter to Heyer. “I really thought I had everyone credited and credited correctly. Please accept my apology. It was totally my fault. It should be taken care of in the next pictures. Thanks, Kathy.”

The 1997 reprint of the book properly attributes Heyer and her work.

More recently, Heyer saw her original Princess Leia designs show up in comic book form, on a variant cover for Star Wars Age of Republic Princess Leia # 1.

Although she knows there’s no money involved, Heyer last year hired an attorney in an attempt to force Disney to attribute her work properly. “There were no royalties,” she revealed. “I know that for sure.”

All she wants is proper attribution – for her legacy to continue for years to come.

Want to read more about Star Wars? Check out how Andor teases a major Star Wars villain as well as Christian Bale’s stormtrooper aspirations.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.