Nov. 22 , 1963 : While visiting Texas and driving through a parade road in an open - aviation vehicle , President John F. Kennedy is fatally shot by one Lee Harvey Oswald .
Now cut to the late William Hootkins getting waste to bits in " Star Wars : Episode IV - A New Hope " as Jek " Red Six " Porkins . You ’d never guess that those two event , one fictional and one not , were related . But Hootkins was , for a brief time , a someone of interest in the FBI ’s investigation of Kennedy ’s assassination .
Naturally , the FBI launched a massive investigation into Oswald and all of his move lead up to that fateful day in November . They query everyone , no matter how tangential , hoping to determine whether there was aconspiracyand if therewas , who was in on it .
presently enough , their investigation top them to Ruth Paine . Paine taught Russian and was a close acquaintance of the Oswald and his married woman Marina . At the time of the character assassination , the Oswalds were break up , and Marina was inhabit in a house owned by Paine . The arm that pop the president was even hidden in Paine ’s garage for a time , leading agents to inquire if Paine was involved .
As the FBI looked into Paine , they also check out her students , one of whom was 15 - class - quondam William Hootkins . The teenager was studying nearby at St. Mark ’s and needed a Russian private instructor . Ruth Paine filled that role , but her proximity to the Oswalds made him a subject of the probe , too . So the FBI stepped in and interrogate Hootkins and his family . you’re able to interpret theFBI ’s report of the conversationwith Hootkins ' mother here .
Eventually , the investigating agents realized that Paine was oblivious to the game to kill the president , the gun being hold in her service department was something she did n’t know about , and Hootkins really was just her scholar .
After the excitement , Hootkins finally end up at Princeton where he found a dear of do . regrettably , he was there at the same time as Tommy Lee Jones , and Jones got all the best leading parts while Hootkins played the endorse roles . That worked out , since Hootkins build a career out of them , perhaps most notably in his serve against the Empire trying to destroy theDeath Star .
Hootkins passed away in 2005 of pancreatic cancer . And his connection to the Kennedy assassination was n’t something he peach about . We spoke to John Morton , Hootkins ' friend and fellow actor who play Luke Skywalker ’s co - pilot Dak in " The Empire Strikes Back , " who said he did n’t even know about this story until we bespeak a remark from him . It was n’t something Hootkins had verbalize of . Morton differentiate us that they talked of many other things , though :
When inquire if Hootkins maintain his Russian terminology skills , seeing as he had one of the most far-famed teachers ever , Morton could n’t think of a fourth dimension Hootkins had ever speak it . But he was able to remember the humour of the gentleman’s gentleman : " I ca n’t think of any time I ’d ever spent with Billy where he did n’t have a smile on his face . He saw the humor in everything he look at . In a positive way , not in a electronegative or ironic horse sense . He was just uplifting . "
