Mark Hamill was born on September 25, 1951 in Oakland, CA, and is one of seven children by William and Suzanne Hamill. Mark's father was in the navy, and their family moved around quite a bit when Mark was growing up. In fact, Mark went to hish school in Japan, at Yokohama High School.

It was at Yokohama that the acting bug hit Mark, as he starred in numerous stage productions at his high school. After graduating from high school, Mark enrolled at Los Angeles City College as a theatre major, and began landing small TV and stage roles. He made his professional acting debut in 1971, on The Bill Cosby Show, and went on to guest star in such shows as The Partridge Family and The Streets of San Francisco. Eventually, he landed a recurring role on General Hospital as Kent Murray, Nurse Jessie Brewer's troubled young nephew.

But 1976 turned out to be the breathrough year for the young actor. At the age of only 24, Mark beat out thousands of other hopefuls and won the pivotal role of Luke Skywalker, the idealistic farmboy who dreamed of adventure in George Lucas' space opera masterpiece, Star Wars. He went on to star in all of the original Star Wars trilogy movies, gaining legions of fans (like me :-)) around the world.

Mark continued to spread his wings as an actor, often playing very different roles from Luke, both on stage and in films. During the years that the Star Wars trilogy was out, Mark starred in films such as The Big Red One, Corvette Summer, and The Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia. He also became an accomplished stage actor, starring in many Broadway and off-Broadway productions such as The Elephant Man, Amadeus, Harrigan & Hart (for which he won a prestigious Drama Desk nomination for best actor in a musical comedy), Room Service, and The Nerd.

In 1989, Mark returned to Hollywood, and made several film and TV appearances. Today, he is a highly sought after voiceover actor (he voices the infamous Joker on the animated Batman series), and is working on his own project, "The Black Pearl," a screenplay he wrote with his writing partner, Eric Johnson. TBP was a best-selling graphic novel series by Dark Horse and was developed into a CD-ROM game. Mark plans to direct this as a feature film soon (can't wait to see it! :-)).

Mark married his wife, Marilou, in 1978, and they have three children: Nathan, born in 1979, Griffin, born on 1983, and Chelsea, born in 1988. The Hamills live in Malibu, CA.