When The Farce Was With The Ormonde

If it’s good enough for The Beatles

he only thing that would have made it cooler in the eyes of Star Wars fans when Graham “I am not your father” Spurling jumped up on The Ormonde roof as Darth Vadar would have been a lift of the lightsaber being greeted with a sudden flash of forked lightning.

Now, that would have sold a gansey load of extra tickets.

As it was, The Empire Strikes Back didn’t really need all that much help in conquering the world’s box office back in 1980, but, famously, the Spurling lad was never one to miss an opportunity to push for a few dollars more.

And he did a fine job this time out, Graham having always been prone to channelling the power of the Dork Side.

Mind you, we’re still not sure why he has a pouch of Capri-Sun around his neck. Perhaps he was worried he might get stuck up on that roof all night…?

Gotta be proud of the brave young men of Greystones too, at least two of whom openly keen to bring the fight to Emperor Palpatine’s righthand Jedi.

Last we checked when it comes to Rock, Paper, Lightsabre, the fist never comes out well when going up against the latter.

As luck would have it, the very bould Dermot Hackett was on hand to record this historic moment when Hollywood almost met Greystones, the two boyos clearly having quite the ball up on the roof of The Ormonde. Well, they were young, footloose and harness-free, man.

Asking young Graham earlier today what he remembers of his Star Wars In Your Eyes moment, and all he will say is that it’s a great memory to have, but one very much clouded by time.

Time has also clouded some of these slides, with colours drained and red flashes streaking across shots that have, in some cases, nearly faded entirely to blue. Still pretty feckin’ priceless though…

You can grab a little history of The Ormonde with Graham right about here, and check out Hollywood’s on-and-off again love affair with Greystones through the years here.

You can jump back through the history of The Ormonde here.