Lucy Autrey Wilson

Lucy Autrey Wilson was the Director of Publishing for Lucasfilm. In 1974, she became the first permanent employee at Lucasfilm. As an assistant to George Lucas, she typed his handwritten script for 4. After managing Lucasfilm's accounting for over a decade, she became Director of Finance at Lucasfilm Licensing in 1987.

In 1989, Wilson showed interest in launching a new Star Wars line of fiction, in books and comics. After approaching Howard Roffman and George Lucas with the idea, they agreed, and she became Director of Publishing for Lucasfilm Licensing in 1991. She selected Timothy Zahn to launch the new Star Wars book line at Bantam Spectra, with the novel Heir to the Empire, and she negotiated moving the comic book license from Marvel Comics to Dark Horse Comics, launching their comic line with Dark Empire. This started a wave of Star Wars fiction, and Wilson spearheaded the production of the following material, including commercially successful projects such as Shadows of the Empire and the New Jedi Order.

By the end of her tenure as Director of Publishing in 2003, Wilson had worked on over 1,500 titles for the company. Celebrated with launching the Expanded Universe as it came to be known, Bantam editor Tom Dupree would deem Wilson "the godmother of the Star Wars publishing program."

Text and facts from the “Lucy Autrey Wilson” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.