He grew up in traveling shows, sleeping under canvas and learning that comedy could deflect cruelty faster than anger ever could. That instinct—to disarm before being dismissed—followed him all the way into R2‑D2. Hidden from view, he gave the droid a stubborn tilt to its dome, a sulky slump to its frame, a jittery excitement that felt unmistakably alive. Children believed in the robot, never realizing they were watching one man’s lifetime of resilience translated into movement.

Away from the cameras, the stakes were more intimate. He and Yvonne faced the brutal math of heredity and probability, and chose love in spite of it. Their average‑height children arrived like quiet rebellions against every chart and warning. When Yvonne died, he refused to rewrite his life with someone new, honoring the shape of the love they’d built. By 2016, the world still barely knew Kenny Baker, yet each joyful chirp and defiant spin of that little droid remains a distilled echo of his unseen courage, his humor, and the full, uncompressed height of his life.