The Crossroads - A Willow Webpage
MISCELLANEA

Movie Credits
 
Ever wonder how many stuntpeople were in Willow? Do you lie awake at night wondering who the possum handler for the movie was? The answers to these questions and many more can be found in the credits. The credits raise a few questions too, such as what the heck is a Foley A.D.R. Recordist, and why are the Vohnkar Warriors listed ahead of Franjean and Rool in the closing credits? It's a mystery to me....

All questions aside, here are the full movie credits for Willow, in the order they roll across the screen. Since the closing credits are very long, they are presented in several sections to make them a little more manageable.

Opening Credits
Closing Credits Part 1
Closing Credits Part 2
Closing Credits Part 3

 
Sometimes they leave things out of the credits! Kenny Baker (aka R2D2) has an uncredited role in Willow as the villager who says "Well, who'll do that?" after the High Aldwyn says the baby must be taken to the crossroads. He's also a member of the Nelwyn band.

Uncredited appearances were also made by :

  • Jack Purvis...Nelwyn Band Member
  • Gerry Crampton...Lieutenant in Snow Village
 
Cast and Crew Birthdays
 
Here's a list of all the birthday information I could find for the Willow cast members, listed in movie-credit order. Selected crew birthdays are at the end of the list, too.

How old were they when Willow was made? Filming began on April 27, 1987 and the movie was released on May 20, 1988 - figure it out yourself!

Please write to Connie if you have any additional birthday information.

Val Kilmer (Madmartigan) - December 31, 1959
Joanne Whalley (Sorsha) - August 25, 1964
Warwick Davis (Willow) - February 3, 1970
Jean Marsh (Bavmorda) - July 1, 1934
Patricia Hayes (Raziel) - December 22, 1909
Billy Barty (High Aldwin) - October 25, 1924
Pat Roach (Kael) - May 19, 1943
Gavan O'Herlihy (Airk) - April 29, 1954
David Steinberg (Meegosh) - unknown, sometime around 1965
Phil Fondacaro (Vohnkar) - November 8, 1958
Tony Cox (Vohnkar Warrior #1) - March 31, 1958
Robert Gillibrand (Vohnkar Warrior #2) - unknown
Mark Northover (Burglekutt) - March 27, 1950
Kevin Pollak (Rool) - October 30, 1958
Rick Overton (Franjean) - August 10, 1954
Maria Holvoe (Cherlindrea) - unknown
Julie Peters (Kiaya) - unknown
Mark Vande Brake (Ranon) - July 28, 1980
Dawn Downing (Mims) - 1982
Michael Cotterill (Druid) - unknown
Zulema Dene (Ethna) - unknown
Joanna Dickens (barmaid) - unknown
Jennifer Guy (The Wench) - unknown
Ron Tarr (Llug) - 1937
Sallyanne Law (Mother) - unknown
Ruth and Kate Greenfield (Elora) - April 16, 1987

George Lucas (Executive Producer) - May 14, 1944
Ron Howard (Director) - March 1, 1954
James Horner (Composer) - August 14, 1953

 
Pop Culture Tributes and References
 
A quirky little song called Willow Don't Cry was written by Leslie Hall of Leslie & the Lys for her second album Door Man's Daughter. The song has its own website here where you can listen to the music and watch a rather hilarious 5-minute video (of which the first two minutes are not directly related to Willow). The playback is kind of rough with numerous small glitches, but it's fun. The website includes behind the scenes information and other small extras.

There's a metal band in England named Eborsisk.  There's also a Chicago metal band called Bavmorda.

A Finnish metal band, Nightwish, which features an opera-trained female vocalist, mentions Willow in the first song on their first album, Angels Fall First. You can read the lyrics here - the Willow reference comes near the end of the song Elvenpath. The band's albums are available in the U.S. Thanks to Britton for the information.

But that's not the only Willow reference on the album. Quentin Scouflaire reports that the music at the beginning of Nightwish's Once Upon a Troubadour - one of the last tracks - comes from the movie's tavern scene! But according to Britton, this song is only available on SOME copies of the European version of the album. It's hard to find, and not available at all on the U.S. version.

The harcore punk screamo band Kane Hodder has several Willow-related tracks on their album The Pleasure to Remain So Heartless. The titles include The Child Of Prophecy, Crushing Everything In Sight, Attack On Tir Asleen, and Assault At First Light. Most of the Willow content is in the titles rather than the lyrics, but you can read the lyrics to Attack on Tir Asleen here. Not recommended for the squeamish!

 
Webpage History
 
This website was built through the efforts of many people.

In the early days of the internet, the most prominent Willow pages included Joe Frese's Big Big Willow/Shadow Moon Homepage, Dave 'Taalcon' Tayman's 13 Realms webpage, and Andrew Pitino's Willow webpage. Joe's page became inactive and Andrew's went offline. They bequeathed their material to Taalcon; he arranged to make his new blended page a subdomain of Lucasfan.Com, called Willow.Lucasfan.Com, and absorbed the material from Lucasfan's existing Willow section. This was in 1999.

The page grew rapidly for several months due to the efforts of Taal and several contributors including Connie Green. But then, alas, other responsibilities caught up with Taal and he was no longer to keep up his work on the Willow page. So Connie volunteered to help out, and became co-webmaster in August 2000. Taal provided advice for several months, but Connie eventually assumed sole control of the page. At least 80% of the current content is the result of her work.

Server problems developed in early 2001, and it gradually became obvious that the best solution was to move the page to another server with more space. The new address made the existing name obsolete, so when the page moved to the new server in June 2001 it was rechristened The Crossroads.