Femi Taylor (born 8 April 1961) is a Nigerien-born British

dancer Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoi ...

and actress best known for portraying

Jabba the Hutt Jabba Desilijic Tiure, more commonly known as Jabba the Hutt, is a Character (arts), fictional character and minor antagonist in the ''Star Wars'' franchise. Created by George Lucas, Jabba is voiced by Larry Ward with several puppeteers inside a ...

's Twi'lek slave dancer

Oola Oola ( or ) is a village in County Limerick in Ireland. It is near the border with County Tipperary in the midwest of the country. The village is home to a church (Church of The Sacred Heart), a petrol station, a convenience store, two publi ...

in the 1983

motion picture A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

Return of the Jedi ''Return of the Jedi'' (also known as ''Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi'' is a 1983 American epic space opera film directed by Richard Marquand. The screenplay is by Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas from a story by Lucas, who ...

''.

Career

Taylor portrayed the slave dancer Oola in ''

'', the last film of the original trilogy. She reprised the part fourteen years later, filming new scenes for the 1997 Special Edition release, and was the only performer from the original to do so. Because of this role, she appears at

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

and ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...

'' conventions around the world. Taylor was cast as Tantomile in the 1981 original London production of the musical ''

Cats The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of t ...

'', during which she learned she had been cast as Oola for ''Return of the Jedi.'' She appeared in the 1998 TV movie version of ''Cats'' as Exotica, a character that was created specially for her and exclusively for the film.

Personal life

Femi lives in

Odense Odense ( , , ) is the third largest city in Denmark (behind Copenhagen and Aarhus) and the largest city on the island of Funen. As of 1 January 2022, the city proper had a population of 180,863 while Odense Municipality had a population of 20 ...

, Denmark, has two children and is married to Claus Skytte Kamper.

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

*
TheForce.Net
- Interview with Femi Taylor
2021 interview
Living people British film actresses English female dancers Nigerian female dancers Place of birth missing (living people) Nigerian emigrants to the United Kingdom British emigrants to Denmark Yoruba actresses 20th-century British actresses Black British actresses 1961 births 20th-century English women 20th-century English people Nigerian film actresses {{UK-film-actor-stub