David Prowse

Prowse won the British heavyweight weightlifting championship in 1962 and the following two years. He represented England in the weightlifting event at the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth, Western Australia.

Prowse was brought up on the Southmead housing estate in Bristol, winning a scholarship to Bristol Grammar School. Prowse was tall, standing 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m), and developed an interest in bodybuilding. His early jobs included a bouncer at a dance hall, where he met his future wife, and a helper at Henleaze Swimming Pool. Following his successes from 1961 in the British heavyweight weightlifting championship, he left Bristol in 1963 to work for a London weightlifting company.

Prowse made two uncredited appearances on The Benny Hill Show. On Hill's first show for Thames Television in 1969, he played a briefs-clad muscleman in the "Ye Olde Wishing Well" quickie, and in 1984 he showed off his muscles in a sketch set to the song "Stupid Cupid". The earlier routine was also featured in the 1974 film The Best of Benny Hill, in which he was credited.

Among his many non-speaking roles, Prowse played a major speaking role in "Portrait of Brenda", the penultimate episode of The Saint broadcast in 1969.

He had a role as F Alexander's bodyguard Julian in the 1971 film A Clockwork Orange, in which he was noticed by the future Star Wars director George Lucas. He played a circus strongman in 1972's Vampire Circus, a Minotaur in the 1972 Doctor Who serial The Time Monster, and an android named Coppin in The Tomorrow People in 1973. He appeared in an episode of Space: 1999, "The Beta Cloud", in 1976 right before he was cast as Darth Vader. Around that time, he appeared as the Black Knight in the Terry Gilliam film Jabberwocky (1977) and was supposed to play Minoton in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977), but the part went to Peter Mayhew instead.

In the United Kingdom, Prowse is well known as the Green Cross Code Man, a superhero invented to promote a British road safety campaign for children in 1975. As a result of his association with the campaign, which ran between 1971 and 1990, he received the MBE in 2000.

Prowse helped train Christopher Reeve for the role of Superman in the 1978 film and its sequels after lobbying for the part himself. In a television interview, he related how his response to being told "we've found our Superman" was "Thank you very much." Only then was he told that Reeve had been chosen for the role and he was to only be a trainer. He trained Cary Elwes for his role as Westley in The Princess Bride.

He had a small role as Hotblack Desiato's bodyguard in the 1981 BBC TV adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He appeared in the first series of Ace of Wands on LWT and as a bodyguard in the big screen version of Callan. He played Charles, the duke's wrestler, in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of As You Like It in 1978.

Prowse has suffered from arthritis for much of his life. That has led to replacements of both hips and his ankle being fused, as well as several revisionary surgeries on his hip replacements. Prowse's arthritic symptoms first appeared at age 13, but seemingly disappeared when he took up competitive weightlifting. However, they reappeared in 1990.

In 1999, it was rumoured that thieves broke into Prowse's home and stole the lightsaber he used in the Star Wars trilogy and several of his other possessions. However, after a discussion with Prowse on 4 May 2007, he said that the "lightsaber" was actually a toy and not an original prop. He explained that the story printed about the break-in concentrated on the supposed "lightsaber" and not on the jewellery and other valuables taken. He further said that he was never given any of the props from the Star Wars films.

Prowse was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to charity and to road safety in the 2000 New Year Honours.

In 2001, Prowse's left arm became paralysed, followed by his right. He was diagnosed with septic arthritis caused by an infection which nearly killed him. The amount of surgery he has had drastically reduced his height from the 6 feet 6 inches (198 cm) of his younger days.

Since 2002 Prowse has been an honorary member and honorary leader of the 501st Legion, a fan group dedicated to Star Wars costuming.

Prowse played the physical form of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy. Prowse spoke the dialogue during filming, but George Lucas claimed he wanted a "darker voice"—a deeper, more reverberating voice–and had James Earl Jones provide the voice instead, deeming Prowse's West Country accent unsuitable for the character. Prowse claims he was originally told that he would be seen and heard at the end of Return of the Jedi when Vader's mask was removed. Instead, actor Sebastian Shaw was used. In the 2004 documentary Empire of Dreams, actress Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia in the original trilogy films, quipped that they nicknamed Prowse "Darth Farmer" (a jibe regarding his urban Bristolian accent). In the lightsaber fight scenes between Vader and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Prowse, who was not a very skilled swordsman (he kept breaking the poles that stood in for the lightsabers), was replaced by the scene's fight choreographer, the stuntman and fencing coach Bob Anderson. Prowse felt sidelined by Anderson during the making of Return of the Jedi in particular, and claims that he was only able to persuade director Richard Marquand that he should be the one to throw the Emperor off the balcony after Marquand had tried and failed for a week to film the scene successfully without him.

In July 2007, Prowse joined many others from the Star Wars films for the first ever Star Wars Celebration event held outside the United States. It was run by Lucasfilm Ltd. and the Cards Inc. Group, at the ExCeL Exhibition Centre in London. The occasion was to mark the 30th anniversary of Star Wars.

In 2008, he was one of the cast members featured on Justin Lee Collins's Bring Back...Star Wars. In the film, Prowse commented that he had a dispute with Lucas after he allegedly leaked reports of Darth Vader's death to the press. Prowse had previously suggested that Darth Vader could be Luke Skywalker's father in a speech he gave to UC Berkeley in 1978. However, this was shortly after the release of Star Wars and nearly two years before The Empire Strikes Back (which he considers to be his favourite of the trilogy) was released, and the script had not even been written at the time. Gary Kurtz, the producer of The Empire Strikes Back, said in the 2015 documentary I Am Your Father that Prowse's apparent plot spoiler was simply "a good guess."

Prowse claims his contract for Return of the Jedi included a share of profits on the film, and although it grossed $475 million on a $32 million budget, Prowse explained in an interview in 2009 that he has never received residuals for his performance. Due to "Hollywood accounting", the actual profits are sent as "distribution fees" to the studio, leaving nothing to distribute to others.

Prowse publicly declared his support for the United Kingdom Independence Party in the 2009 European Parliament election: "I've looked right and left and right again and the only party I can safely vote for is UKIP," and "I have two messages for those considering how to vote. Firstly, stop, look and listen to what is being said. Only UKIP is actually telling us the truth about the European Union and why we need to leave it. Secondly, may June the fourth be with you."

In March 2009, Prowse revealed that he was suffering from prostate cancer and has undergone radiation therapy since the beginning of 2009 at the Royal Marsden Hospital in South London. He discovered that he had the cancer following his participation in a charity event in aid of a prostate cancer charity, where a representative of the charity asked whether, as a man over 50, he had had a PSA test. The conversation stayed in his mind, and on a future visit to a general practitioner, he requested the blood test that eventually led to diagnosis. In 2009 he was still in remission.

In May 2010, he played Frank Bryan in The Kindness of Strangers, an independent British film produced by Queen Bee Films. The film screened at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

In July 2010, Prowse was banned by Lucas from attending official Star Wars fan conventions. Lucas has reportedly given Prowse no reason, other than stating that Prowse "burnt too many bridges" between Lucasfilm and himself.

In November 2014, the Daily Mirror reported that Prowse had dementia. However, Prowse himself denied this, admitting instead he had problems with his memory, which he put down to age.

A 2015 Spanish documentary, by filmmaker Marcos Cabotá, entitled I Am Your Father, details Prowse's current life and his blackballing by LucasFilm, which the documentary suggests is unjustified. The leaks featured in the documentary originated from a technician working on the films.

On 1 October 2015, Prowse and Welsh Musician Jayce Lewis created a mini documentary entitled The Force's Mouth, enabling Prowse a chance hearing of his voice effected as the Darth Vader villain, a notable association and widely known business venture between the pair that had begun with Prowse providing management and public relations for the Welshman since 2007.

In October 2016, Prowse announced his retirement from all public appearances and events, later attributing the decision to ill health and wishes from his family. A final onscreen appearance was later announced and filmed with Welsh musician and long-time friend Jayce Lewis in a sci-fi music video titled "Shields".

r/StarWars - Today is David Prowse’s 85th birthday. He was the man behind Darth Vader in the original trilogy and sadly never got the respect nor the appreciation he deserved for it. Happy birthday David

r/StarWars: Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise, created by George Lucas and centered around a film series that began with the …