Egbert Sushil Kumar Sen, a Pakistani actor, lived from approximately 1932 until his death on March 14, 2019. He is known for portraying Willrow Hood in the 1980 original trilogy movie, Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back. Since then, the character has gained a dedicated fan base among Star Wars enthusiasts, leading to the creation of "The Running of the Hoods," a cosplay event at Star Wars Celebration conventions starting in the 2010s.
Egbert Sen was born around 1932 in India during the era of British-ruled. In 1957, he moved to the United Kingdom, where he secured a position as a musician performing Indian music for the BBC in England. He also contributed to the soundtrack of the 1965 Beatles film Help!. An agent seeking non-white actors contacted him, and he, residing in south London, traveled to Elstree Studios to participate in film and television productions such as The Saint during the 1960s. For The Empire Strikes Back, Sen's daughters, Dolly and Paula, were also present in a scene set in Cloud City, appearing as part of a group of children running with their teacher while Lando Calrissian guides the rebels through the corridors. This particular scene was shot on stage 2 at Elstree between April 5 and April 12, 1979.
Sen's scenes portraying Willrow Hood also took place in the corridors of Cloud City, where he is seen running during the evacuation of the city, carrying a camtono. Throughout the 1980s, he continued to find work as a supporting actor in various films, including Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984, both Lucasfilm productions directed by Steven Spielberg, as well as acclaimed British films like My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), and installments in the James Bond and Superman film series. Despite discussing his film career, Sen never mentioned his involvement in Star Wars in a Channel 4 documentary or an interview with The Guardian, both published in 2011. He passed away in 2019 while residing at the Aashna House care home in south London. His daughters, Dolly and Paula, discovered his following as Willrow Hood in 2023 when Nicolas Delage, a Star Wars fan investigating the actor behind Hood, contacted them. They expressed pride in their late father's following, stating that the phenomenon represented the recognition he had always desired.