Don Bies (filmmaker)
Don Bies, one of the very few who can claim to be R2 operator has been with Lucasfilm for many years. Both Don Bies and Nelson Hall played Boba Fett in The New shots in Return of the Jedi (special EDition).
His first job at Industrial Light and Magic was in 1987 as a puppeteer on The Witches of Eastwick, and later that year joined Lucasfilm Ltd. as their official R2-D2 operator for a series of Japanese commercials. In 1988, Don became the second Lucasfilm Archivist and helped organize the first major exhibition of Lucasfilm memorabilia for the 1988 Marin County Fair. As the Archivist, he coordinated the move of the archive collection to Skywalker Ranch in June, 1991. In 1993, he supervised the restoration of over 100 items for Japan's "George Lucas Exhibition" and coordinated that exhibition which traveled throughout Japan for 15 months. During his tenure as archivist, he arranged personal appearances of many of the Star Wars characters, and operated R2-D2 for most of them.
He continued working at both Lucasfilm and ILM for the next 8 years, where at the latter he worked as a puppeteer/creature maker on Ghostbusters II and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, well as countless commercials, including the infamous "Darth Vader vs. The Energizer Bunny".