~

  Hamill regards the stage as the prov- ing grojp%d, so he spent this summer @6T6-c-@ating his wife, son, video gadgets and board games to a $600,000 co-op on New York's West Side. He has
left behind a $750,000 country house near Malibu. "I need my self-respect," he explains. "Lately the offers
I've been getting are mostly for hor-
ror mov'ies. I didn't go to drama
school for five semesters for that. I
was ready to soar."
  After hitting New York, Hamill nar- rowly missed being chosen to replace Tim Curry in Amadeus, Broadway's current smash. He did, however, land the title role of The Elephant Man. He was the eighth in a line that started with Philip Anglim, stretched over two years

As the deformed lead in The Elephant Man, Hamill made it to Broadway, but 21 days later
the drama closed. "I'll try again," he vows.

and included rock star David Bowie. "The show needed a shot in the arm to live," admits producer Richmond Crinkley. "We thought Mark would be it." Crinkley nudged things along, over Mark's protests, by using an ad showing Hamill in his Luke Skywalker costume. The billboards baldly declared, "And the Force Continues ... on Broadway!" Apparently, Crinkley didn't check his prophecy with Yoda. Three weeks af- ter Hamill opened, the show closed.
   "I'm not down about it," the actor says. "I've learned a lot. The theater community knows I'm interested.
I've just auditioned for a musical, even

Hamill says he did The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia to work with Kristy McNichol. Of the film, he says, "There's no message."

though I've done nothing like,
high school. I like to explorers
-no matter how off the waIL" To - demoonstrate that he's taking full re- sponsibilityforhiscareer,Mgrk -1 I "amicably" fired his manager of seven years because "she was always look- ing for a good deal, while I was
looking for a good role."
   For the moment his Broadway job hunt is limited by a previous commit- ment, the January shooting start of Revenge of the Jedi, his third and final Star Wars flick. "It'll be like high school graduation," he says of that reunion
with co-stars Carrie Fisher and Harri- son Ford. "A lot of fun, and then we'll be grown-up and free.",Meanwhile Hamill
is on view in The Night the Lights
Went Out in Georgia, in which he pur- posely exploded his teen-dream image by playing a stocky (he gained 15 pounds) state trooper romancing Kristy McNichol. Hamill has also just accept- ed a small role in Britannia Hospital, a Lindsay Anderson film to be shot in September. "I've always loved Peter Sellers and Alec Guinness movies," Hamill says. "This will give me a chance to do a real English comedy."
   Despite his watershed 30th birthday, Hamill remains a gee-whiz kid. In New York he has been stunned to be treat- ed as a mythical hero instead of a neophyte. He was thrilled when Barnum star Jim Dale knocked on his dressing room door. At celebrity-heavy Elaine's, Mia Farrow greeted him. "She did not say,'Come on over; Woody [Allen] wants to talk to you about a movie,'
 but she did say hello," he reports. Af- ter a Jefferson Starship concert, Hamill was charmed when Grace Slick ex- claimed she was Darth Vader's wife.
   Between celebrity sightings, Hamill explores new playgrounds and comic- book shops (he's a buff) with son Na- than, 2. The actor retains h is own pi things-puppet, dragon and robot collections that he's been putting to gether for 15 years. "I'll send away for anything on the back of a cereal
 box," he says. "I've always loved fan- tasy." In a more serious vein, he is planning to take a course in contract reading "to learn the business of this business." Only once during the summer have Mark and his wife, Mar- ilou, flown back to California-to celebrate the Fourth of July at George Lucas'ranch in Northern California.
                                   CONTINUED Mark enjoys greeting Luke Skywalker fans,
 whose parents complain they're going broke from buying Star Wars toys.