Darth Vader Actor From Original 'Star Wars' Trilogy Dies at Age 85 (reuters.com) 46
Reuters reports:
David Prowse, the English actor who played Darth Vader in the original Star Wars films, has died aged 85, his management company said on Sunday...
The champion weightlifter-turned-actor starred as the body, but not the voice, of one of cinema's best-known villains. Director George Lucas opted to dub another voice onto Prowse's portrayal of the towering, masked antagonist Darth Vader in "Star Wars", "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi".
More from the Los Angeles Times: Born in Bristol, southwest England, in 1935, Prowse represented England in weightlifting at the Commonwealth Games in the 1950s before breaking into movies with roles that emphasized his commanding size, including Frankenstein's monster in a pair of horror films [and also in the 1967 comedy Casino Royale].
Director George Lucas saw Prowse in a small part in "A Clockwork Orange" and asked the 6-foot-6-inch actor to audition for the villainous Vader or the Wookiee Chewbacca in "Star Wars." Prowse later told the BBC he chose Darth Vader because "you always remember the bad guys."
Physically, Prowse was perfect for the part. His lilting English West Country accent was considered less ideal, and his lines were dubbed by actor James Earl Jones. Prowse was also known to a generation of British children as the Green Cross Code Man, a superhero in a series of road safety advertisements.
An anonymous reader writes: In 2011 he authored an autobiography titled Straight from the Force's Mouth (with a foreword by bodybuilder/Incredible Hulk actor Lou Ferrigno), and his differences with Lucasfilm are chronicled in a 2015 documentary about his career titled I Am Your Father. (You can watch its trailer on its page on Amazon Prime, though the full documentary is currently listed as "unavailable.")
Wikipedia lists some of Prose's other roles, including:
The champion weightlifter-turned-actor starred as the body, but not the voice, of one of cinema's best-known villains. Director George Lucas opted to dub another voice onto Prowse's portrayal of the towering, masked antagonist Darth Vader in "Star Wars", "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi".
More from the Los Angeles Times: Born in Bristol, southwest England, in 1935, Prowse represented England in weightlifting at the Commonwealth Games in the 1950s before breaking into movies with roles that emphasized his commanding size, including Frankenstein's monster in a pair of horror films [and also in the 1967 comedy Casino Royale].
Director George Lucas saw Prowse in a small part in "A Clockwork Orange" and asked the 6-foot-6-inch actor to audition for the villainous Vader or the Wookiee Chewbacca in "Star Wars." Prowse later told the BBC he chose Darth Vader because "you always remember the bad guys."
Physically, Prowse was perfect for the part. His lilting English West Country accent was considered less ideal, and his lines were dubbed by actor James Earl Jones. Prowse was also known to a generation of British children as the Green Cross Code Man, a superhero in a series of road safety advertisements.
An anonymous reader writes: In 2011 he authored an autobiography titled Straight from the Force's Mouth (with a foreword by bodybuilder/Incredible Hulk actor Lou Ferrigno), and his differences with Lucasfilm are chronicled in a 2015 documentary about his career titled I Am Your Father. (You can watch its trailer on its page on Amazon Prime, though the full documentary is currently listed as "unavailable.")
Wikipedia lists some of Prose's other roles, including:
- A Minotaur in the Doctor Who serial The Time Monster
- The Black Knight in the Terry Gilliam film Jabberwocky
- A small role as Hotblack Desiato's bodyguard in the 1981 BBC TV adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
RIP (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember the Green Cross Code ads. Never connected that it was the same guy.
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Darth Vader was briefly married to American singer Ella Fitzgerald. She divorced him when she realized her married name was now Ella Vader.
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You're surprised you didn't recognize the actor from a role where he wore a full body costume 99% of the time and had someone else dubbing his lines?
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You're surprised you didn't recognize the actor from a role where he wore a full body costume 99% of the time and had someone else dubbing his lines?
100% of the time? The one time they took his mask off, they decided to use another actor for his face. Never thought much of it, but now in hindsight seems like a dick move.
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Prowse was a lovely guy. (Score:5, Insightful)
He comes from my area of the world, so he was a bit of a "local hero".
I do remember him from the "Green Cross Code" days, which was a set of commercials put out as a Government service, which taught children how to cross the road safely, and (gently) let them know the consequences of not following the code would be painful, so it'd best not be followed. He led by example in the form of "The Green Cross Code man", who was a mock up of a superhero. Most of the kids I remember being around watching those with in the early days loved it, and emulated their "superhero", which kept us safe (and we felt good about doing it too).
He put appearances in locally, and he always came across as an amiable kind of person (yet with a touch of mischief that always follows a rugy fan).
He's been quiet in the media for many years, but still remembered well when he's mentioned. RIP Dave!
Re:Prowse was a lovely guy. (Score:5, Funny)
Prowse was a lovely guy
So you're saying there was good in him?
Re:Prowse was a lovely guy. (Score:4, Informative)
Excelling in strength sports takes sacrifice and mental discipline that's unimaginable to most people. It's all about forcing your body to do things that it really doesn't want to, over and over again. Nobody does that without regular motivational kicks in the pants.
Consequently hard core gyms are extreme places. Some follow a toxic model, where athletes taunt and goad each other into risky lifts, hoping to eliminate rivals for the attention of the father figure like coach. Others are the extreme opposite, where athletes celebrate each others' PRs and are incredibly generous with their time and help.
In other words there's a dark side and a light side, and both produce extremely powerful men. Dave Prowse was by all reports one of the Good Guys.
Re:Prowse was a lovely guy. (Score:4, Funny)
Excelling in strength sports takes sacrifice and mental discipline that's unimaginable to most people.
Especially us Slashdotters.
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Excelling in strength sports takes sacrifice and mental discipline that's unimaginable to most people.
LOL
It is not a surprise that jocks consider strength training a moral virtue, but it always funny when they force a nerd to repeat it.
I mean, if you're one of the nerds who doesn't repeat their shit, then it is funny.
It's all about forcing your body to do things that it really doesn't want to, over and over again.
You told yourself training was the same as over-training, so you never needed a second excuse not to do it.
It is no surprise that some meathead wanted to be an actor, scored a bigger role than most actors ever do, and then was so bitter and pathetic about it for the rest of his life that he ne
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There is such a thing as overtraining, but there is no such thing as training without overload. Training is the body's adaption to stress. Overtraining comes when you don't give your body enough rest for that adaptation to occur. Injuries in strength training mostly come from chasing weight -- trying to lift as much as possible without regard to form. That happens naturally because your brain has evolved to make the body get the job done any way it can, so if the target muscles can't do the job it will
Only two left (Score:2)
Of the original six actors, seven if you include Obi Wan Kenobi, only Harrison Ford and Mark Hammill [9cache.com] are still around.
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C3PO is still with us, though not in the photo.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Truly the greatest theatrical masterpiece of all time.
I'd never even heard of it until `98 when somebody on slashdot linked to a copy. In fact, that's probably why I'm still here! Rarefied culture.
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He also played the caretaker in "A Clockwork Orange"!
And the Black Knight and Red Herring Knight in "Jabberwocky [wikipedia.org]", just as completely hidden as he was in the Darth Vader costume, although they did at least use his real voice.
The Emporer (Score:2)
Hey if Darth Vader and Kylo Ren could have been so evil yet redeemed, how come they didn't do that with the emperor? I mean, the emporer too must have an angle that could have brought him to the good side. Maybe someone used to steal his lunch money as a kid and he got upset about that, couldn't ignore or reconcile his anger and became the emperor.
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you're cute but generally speaknig mass murdering dirtbags are irredeemable, they're better off dead.
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I didn't know who played Darth Vader. I also don't know who played Chewbacca, C3PO or R2D2, nor do I care. They all played their role to perfection, that's all I need to know.
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Never heard of him. Never even watched Star Wars until I had kids. I still think of them as kids' movies. Enjoyable but insignificant.
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Was he ever paid by Lucasfilm? (Score:3)
LucasFilm Tells Darth Vader that Return of the Jedi Hasn’t Made a Profit!? [slashfilm.com]
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I remember he came up with some lyrics for the Star Wars theme:
Star Wars
Made me a fortune
Paid off the mortgage
Bought me a car
Though that was back in the day before RotJ
where is your darth now (Score:1)
The Tomorrow People (Score:3)
For anyone who remembers the 70s British series The Tomorrow People (that played in reruns on Nickelodeon in the 80s), David Prowse played a small role as an android painted in silver body paint on that series. I didn't make the connection until I was watching an episode on YouTube and saw his name flash by during the credits.
Here he is hitting his head on a cage during one of his scenes:
https://whatculture.com/film/9... [whatculture.com]
He may not have spoken, but Prowse made Vader (Score:5, Insightful)
Vader is I think, the most iconic character across all movies.
Part of that for sure, is due to the epic voice of James Earl Jones, and that heavy respirator sound.
I think Prowse deserves an equal, if not greater than equal, measure of credit for making Vader such a memorable character - a huge part of Vader is the physicality. The ominous stride, the way Vader moved his hands of made a threatening fist while talking... the things we remember visually from Vader are all from Prowse.
Luckily I think most people realize that as he was hugely popular at Star Wars conventions, I just wish I had a chance to say hello and thank him before he passed on... but that would have been for me, as he had many many people thanking him for his work over the years for which I am glad that he knew how well he was admired for his work..
Met him once (Score:4, Interesting)
But will they give Prowse the Star Wars treatment? (Score:4, Funny)
Covid-19 Death (Score:3, Informative)
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Pray I don't change the deal further, (Score:2)
The Force (Score:1)
"Not in the faces, Jedi" (Score:1)
Lucas was an * to take away Prowse's closeup because he thought that Prowse had given away “Empire Strikes Back” plot secrets to the UK press during production - mainly that Vader was Luke’s father.
Then again Lucas has 4B of Mickey Mouse money for his plagiarized space opera so he must be more right.
This year (Score:1)