CT Who was the original actor cast as the Emperor?

I was just reading this article on the BBC website

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-41345887

It is an interview with Ian McDiarmid.

In it is a factoid I did not know.. he was not the original actor cast in ROTJ

An older actor was and may have not been able to handle the contact lenses and make up.

Did we know this? Who was the actor?

I thought I knew everything ROTJ wise..guess not!

UKS

 

Interesting... I didn't know that.

 

I own that book as well. Guess I should read it.

 

Here's the original actor and original Emperor.
Clive Revill
Of course this is from The Empire Strikes Back.

To watch you have to click it a second time and it will send you to YouTube to watch it

 

Clive Revill is the voice actor of the original Emperor.

He does not appear on screen. I believe it was a female LFL or ILM employee that put was put in front of the camera for it.

 

You are correct. For a very long time that person was thought to be Elaine Baker. Recently it was shown that Baker was only filmed for test shots - and it was confirmed that the person who appeared in the final film was Marjorie Eaton.

 

Marjorie Eaton (1901-1986). Look it up and you'll see.

Unless you mean the actor for ROTJ who McDiarmid replaced, that was Alan Webb. He became too sick to do the role, and he dropped out.

 

I believe they replaced her eyes with a monkey or chimpanzee...so, it took two people and an ape to bring the original Emperor to the screen...

 

Replacing Webb with McDiarmid certainly turned out to be a good thing when it came time to cast the prequels.

 

A lot of special effects magic went into making the Emperor in The Empire Strikes Back, so I assume they wanted to expedite the process by bringing in a male actor to also voice the character (and ditch the monkey eyes). I think a woman actress would have been too telling for all the screen time Palpatine gets in Return of the Jedi. At least that's how I imagine they'd come to the conclusion of recasting Eaton, who was still acting at this point.

While no photos of Webb in costume have surfaced, there's still theories that he may be in the final film in some long shots.