'STAR WARS' AT 45: MARDJI AND THE TUSKENS!

Bob Spiker would ride Mardji the Asian Elephant in his role as a Tusken Raider.

There's an old saying out there that Elephants never forget, and I don't think the late, great female Asian Elephant called Mardji, of California's Marine World Africa USA Amusement Park, would certainly have ever forgotten her iconic role in the original Star Wars, playing a Bantha creature during last-minute additional Tatooine sequences, filmed by George Lucas and a small unit at Death Valley, California in January, 1977, featuring those fearsome desert nomads, the Tusken Raiders (aka Sandpeople), with their unique beasts of burden.

Alan Fernandes, also playing a Tusken.

ILM veteran Doug Beswick with the then 22 year old Mardji.

Carroll Ballard and Lucas prepare for filming.

https://skywalkingthroughneverland.com/meet-alan-fernandes-the-tusken-raider/

Mardji with the Bantha 'costume' at Marine World Africa USA.

'STAR WARS' AT 40: BACK TO THE CANTINA...

On a hastily built set within a downtown Los Angeles studio, George Lucas and fellow film-making chum Carroll Ballard (later director of the children's classic, The Black Stallion) as his director of photography, prepare to film a 24th January, 1977 shot of a Hammerhead creature for an aliens insert scene set in the Mos Eisley Cantina, for the original Star Wars.