David Charles Prowse MBE (1 July 1935 – 28 November 2020) was an English actor, bodybuilder, strongman and weightlifter. He portrayed Darth Vader (voiced by American actor James Earl Jones) in the original Star Wars trilogy and a manservant in Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film A Clockwork Orange. In 2015, he starred in two documentaries concerning his Darth Vader role, one entitled The Force's Mouth which included Prowse voicing Darth Vader's lines with studio effects applied for the first time, and the other titled I Am Your Father covering the subject of the fallout between Prowse and Lucasfilm.
David Charles Prowse was born on 1 July 1935 in Bristol. He was the son of Gladys (née Burt) and Charles Prowse. He was brought up on the Southmead housing estate in Bristol, gaining 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, 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 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. During his bodybuilding course, Prowse became friends with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno.
Among his many non-speaking roles, Prowse played a major role in "Portrait of Brenda", the penultimate episode of The Saint broadcast in 1969.
Prowse played Frankenstein's monster in three films, Casino Royale and the Hammer horrors The Horror of Frankenstein and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell. 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 "Scuttlevision" 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.
He had a role as Frank Alexander's manservant, Julian, in the film A Clockwork Orange (1971), in which he was noticed by the future Star Wars director George Lucas. He played a circus strongman in Vampire Circus (1972), a Minotaur in the Doctor Who serial The Time Monster (also 1972), and an android named Coppin in The Tomorrow People in 1973. He appeared in an episode of Space: 1999, "The Beta Cloud" (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, who later played Chewbacca in Star Wars.
In the United Kingdom, Prowse was well known as the Green Cross Man, a superhero invented to promote a 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 reprised his role of Darth Vader for the video games Star Wars: The Interactive Video Board Game (1996) and Monopoly Star Wars (1997). In 1977, Prowse appeared as a contestant on the syndicated version of the game show To Tell The Truth, hosted by Joe Garagiola.
In 2008, he was one of the cast members featured on Justin Lee Collins's Bring Back...Star Wars. In the episode, 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 University of California, Berkeley, in 1978. However, this was shortly after the release of Star Wars and nearly two years before The Empire Strikes Back 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 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 Callan (1974), a feature film version of the TV series. He played Charles, the duke's wrestler, in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of As You Like It in 1978.
After making his last professional film appearance as Vader in 1983, he returned his major focus on weightlifting and continued to appear on some strength demonstrations in the United Kingdom until the late 1990s.
Prowse suffered from arthritis for much of his life. This led to replacements of both hips, and to his ankle being fused, as well as several revisionary surgeries on his hip replacements. His arthritic symptoms first appeared when he was 13. Though they seemingly disappeared after he took up competitive weightlifting, they reappeared in 1990.
Prowse was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to charity and road safety at the New Year Honours in 2000.
In 2002, Prowse became an honorary member and honorary leader of the 501st Legion, a fan group dedicated to Star Wars costuming.
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 March 2009, Prowse revealed that he was suffering from prostate cancer. From early 2009, he underwent radiation therapy at the Royal Marsden Hospital in South London. In 2009, he was said to be in remission.
Prowse stated 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 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.
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 had given Prowse no reason, other than stating that Prowse "burnt too many bridges" between Lucasfilm and himself.
In 2011, Prowse wrote and released his autobiography Straight from the Force's Mouth.
In November 2014, the Daily Mirror reported that he had dementia. Prowse denied this, but admitted that he had problems with his memory, which he put down to age.
The two became business partners with Prowse taking on a management and public relations role. He was also featured in the music video for "Shields" on the album Orderart. On 1 October 2015, Lewis created a mini-documentary entitled The Force's Mouth, which gave Prowse the opportunity to hear himself voicing Darth Vader's lines with studio effects applied for the first time.
In October 2016, Prowse retired from all public appearances and events, due to ill health and the wishes of his family. His final onscreen appearance was filmed with the Welsh musician and his long-time friend Jayce Lewis in a sci-fi music video titled Shields. it's documented that upon completing production Prowse was quoted saying; Well, that's that and Jayce responding; Job done, Legacy made!
Prowse died at a hospital in London, England, on 28 November 2020, aged 85, after a short, unspecified illness.