"I Just Felt That My Career Was Over": Mark Hamill Underwent A Complicated Surgery That Changed Part Of His Face After A Car Accident

Mark Hamill is one of the most trailblazing stars in Hollywood. It’s strange — if not a little eerie — to think that Star Wars was almost the actor’s final movie, as well as his first.

On January 11, 1977, a bit more than five months before one of the most iconic movie’s release, Mark Hamill got into a horrible car accident. He was driving his new BMW along a freeway in Southern California. He was driving very fast while listening to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

He soon realized he was about to miss his exit, and swerved really hard across four lanes in an attempt to reach it. The newly-bought German car flipped onto its side and rolled off-road.

Batman: The Animated Series star broke his nose and both cheekbones. His original face was about to change significantly. Hamill once said:

I just woke up, and I was in the hospital, and I knew that I had hurt myself very, very badly. And then someone held a mirror up to my face, and I just felt that my career was over.

Surgeons had to repair much of the damage, using cartilage from his ear to rebuild his nose. Such a transformation changed Mark’s appearance, and it’s evident in his next movie, teen comedy Corvette Summer, in which he starred only six months after the accident.

Hamill tries to avoid talking about the life-changing crash — only to acknowledge it did happen to him, and that his dramatic facial scarring at the opening of The Empire Strikes Back was only partly artificial.

In May 1981, a year after the release of The Empire Strikes Back, the American celebrity relocated to New York with his wife, Marilou York, whom he’d met between making the two Star Wars movies, and their first-born son, Nathan. He planned to broaden his range, do a little theatre, before returning to Elstree Studios in early 1982 to shoot Return of the Jedi.

Despite the change of appearance, which differs from his debut in Star Wars, Mark Hamill has become one of the most recognized actors in the world, anyway.

Speaking of Star Wars movies, people have wondered for three decades whether or not the car accident influenced the Wampa scene in Empire Strikes Back. While some say the scene wasn’t written because of the accident, some others said it was. Hamill hasn’t confirmed either story.

Although the award-winning actor underwent a partial ‘reconstruction’ of his face after the terrifying car accident, he still became one of the best celebrities worldwide. Mark Hamill is 68, and he still thrives as ever!