Short answers, pulled from the story.
Kenny Baker, an English actor, played R2-D2 in all three original Star Wars films. Deep Roy served as Baker's stunt double in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, providing stunts and filling in when Baker was unavailable.
Sound designer Ben Burtt created R2-D2's sounds using an ARP 2600 analog synthesizer combined with his own vocalizations, both processed through additional effects.
R2-D2 was inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame in 2003 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A replica of the droid is on display at the Carnegie Science Center in that city.
R2-D2 makes non-canon cameo appearances in Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Poltergeist, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. In an early draft of The Lego Movie (2014), R2-D2 was set to be a main character but was written out when the rights could not be obtained.
R2-D2 was renamed C1-P8 in the Italian dubbing of the original trilogy because anglicisms were uncommon in Italian during the 1970s and 1980s, and various character names were changed for easier pronunciation. The original name R2-D2 was restored in the Italian dubbings of the prequel and sequel trilogies.
R2-D2 was designed in artwork by Ralph McQuarrie and co-developed by John Stears, with Peteric Engineering building the first physical props. Tony Dyson of the White Horse Toy Company later fabricated revised fibreglass models for The Empire Strikes Back, commissioned by special effects supervisor Brian Johnson.