R.I.P. Mark Dodson, voice of Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi’s Salacious B. Crumb

Voice actor Mark Dodson, one of those unsung Hollywood heroes who could be reliably called on to play a zombie or an alien or any number of other fantasy and sci-fi creatures—including a couple of famous ones in particular, like Jabba The Hutt’s court jester Salacious B. Crumb in Star Wars: Episode VI—Return Of The Jedi and as one of the eponymous little monsters in the Gremlins movies—has died following a “massive heart attack” while attending Horror Con in Indiana. This comes from TMZ, which says the news was confirmed by Dodson’s daughter. Dodson was 64.

Dodson had a career in Hollywood going back to the ‘80s, with Salacious B. Crumb—whose trademark screeching giggle served as the exclamation point to Jabba’s various villainous schemes—being one of his very first film roles. The character, a Kowakian Monkey Lizard, naturally has a whole backstory of what he was up to before he met the evil space-gangster, and he remained loyal to Jabba until he died (along with most of Jabba’s crew) when Luke Skywalker and his friends arrived to rescue Han Solo. Dodson returned to voice the little guy a couple of years ago in Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga.

Dodson could be heard in Gremlins a year later, apparently providing voices for some of the eponymous Gremlins and for a Mogwai (the nice thing that turns into a Gremlin). He did the same in Gremlins 2, the delightfully wackadoo sequel. Dodson was also a regular in the world of video games, with roles in a few Nancy Drew games, Painkiller, Neverwinter, and in both Ghostrunner and its recently released sequel (which is now one of his final roles).

Dodson’s daughter told TMZ that her father “never ceased making me proud.”