Before They Were Stars: Mark Hamill on “The Bill Cosby Show”

When Lando Calrissian rescued Luke Skywalker at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, it was not the first time a black guy had to bail Mark Hamill’s ass out of trouble. Long before his more famous sitcom from the 1980s, Bill Cosby lent his name to another sitcom called The Bill Cosby Show, which featured Cosby as a high school phys-ed teacher. In this 1970 episode, a 19-year old Hamill had one of his first roles as a sensitive poet who is picked on by bullies until Cosby comes to his rescue.