[ad_1]
The Englishman worked on the first three “Star Wars” films, but it was James Earl Jones’ voice, not his, that was heard. He could have played Chewbacca instead.
David Prowse, the English weightlifter and bodybuilder champion who provided his 6ft 7in frame – but not voice or deep breathing – to portray Darth Vader in the original Star wars trilogy, died early Saturday morning from a short illness. He was 85 years old.
Prowse’s death was confirmed at The Hollywood Reporter by his agent Thomas Bowington on Saturday night. Bowington Management too sharing the news on Twitter, announcing his passing with “great regret and heartbreaking sadness to us and millions of fans around the world.”
Appropriately, the strapping Prowse portrayed Frankenstein’s Monster in three films: The James Bond Parody Casino Royale (1967) and, for Hammer Films, Frankenstein’s Horror (1970) and Frankenstein and the monster from hell (1974), the last opposed to a future Star wars co-star, Peter Cushing.
In Stanley Kubrick’s A clockwork orange (1971), Prowse appeared as the muscular servant working for author Frank Alexander (Patrick Magee), and he then helped slim Christopher Reeve to secure a place for the role of the Man of Steel in the movies. Superman.
Prowse was well known in the UK for playing the Green Cross Code Man – a superhero-like character used in public advertisements to help children cross the streets safely – from 1967 to 1990. For this, he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2000.
“It’s one of the greatest things I have ever done,” he once said.
Born July 1, 1935 in Bristol, England, Prowse was wrongly diagnosed with tuberculosis of the knee and forced to wear a leg brace for four years when he was young (he turned out to be suffering from osteoarthritis). Still, he competed for the Mr. Universe bodybuilding title in 1960 before winning the British Weightlifting Championship three years in a row, from 1962 to 1964. (At 50, he was still able to lift 700 pounds.)
Prowse’s early forays into theater included concerts on The Beverly Hillbillies, The Saint and Doctor Who, and he went on to play the role of “The Mighty Tonka” in a toy commercial directed by Ridley Scott.
George Lucas had seen him in Clockwork Orange and offered him a role in the first Star wars (1977).
“Lucas told me, ‘You have a choice of two characters in the movie,” Prowse recalls in an interview in 2016. “He said,’ There’s a character called Chewbacca, who’s like a huge bear in plush, or else there’s the main villain in the room. ‘ Well, there’s no choice, is there? Thanks a lot, I’ll get the villain’s piece. “
Prowse didn’t realize that his head and face would be covered by that now iconic samurai-inspired helmet and mask or that his outfit, made of fiberglass and leather, would weigh 40 pounds and be extremely, uncomfortably hot.
“Once [the mask] was adjusted, I became virtually blind and the heat generated by the suit obeyed the laws of physics and traveled upward, straight into the mash, ”he wrote in his 2005 memoir, Straight from the mouth of the force. “It immediately fogged up the eyepieces, which was inconvenient to say the least, but it wasn’t an insurmountable problem as long as I could look through the triangular cutout under the nose molding of the mask and use it as a peephole. “
Prowse spoke his lines in his West Country accent during filming in London as Carrie Fisher playfully dubbed him “Dark Farmer” due to his rural tone. He said he realized his voice was difficult to make out through the thick mask, but was told his dialogue would be added later.
But months later, back in the US, Lucas replaced James Earl Jones’ deep voice for his own during post-production. “I think [Jones] did a great job, but I still think I would have done just as well if I had the right opportunity, ”said Prowse.
Meanwhile, even Vader’s deep, threatening breathing was not performed by Prowse – it was an effect created by sound designer Ben Burtt, who recorded himself with a scuba breathing respirator.
Jones, who reportedly received $ 7,000 for his work on the first film, then returned, as did Prowse, once again in hiding, for The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983).
Prowse said he thought he would be seen – finally! – in Return of the Jedi when Vader’s mask is removed, but moviegoers saw the scarred face of British actor Sebastian Shaw instead. And Prowse was replaced again by stuntman / fencing trainer Bob Anderson in scenes of lightsaber duels in Episodes V and WE.
With a nod to an actor who appeared in Episodes II and III, Star wars Legend Mark Hamill clarified this Darth Vader affair very well in June 2018 Tweeter:
A-David Prowse IS Darth Vader.
B-James Earl Jones is his voice.
C-Bob Anderson is his double.
D-Hayden Christensen at my son’s age.
#HowIMetMyDads
To be sure, Prowse was proud of what he brought to the trilogy.
“Body action and weight training are more closely related than most people would imagine, and everything I did to impress judges in my early years [paid] dividends, “he writes in his book.” From inside the black leather suit, I treated Vader’s every move like a weight lifting pose, refining here and exaggerating there, until my character ` “ speaks ” with every tilt of his head or movement of his arms. “
It was the subject of a 2015 documentary, I am your father, and a screenplay for an unreleased film about this life, titled Strong man, appeared on the 2017 blacklist.
Prowse, who in his later years did advertising work for Welsh singer Jayce Lewis, had been married since 1963 to Norma Scammell and had three children.
The actor said Lucas wrongly accused him of disclosing Vader’s death to the media and ultimately barred him from attending the official ceremony. Star wars conventions. (A reporter who broke the story would reveal years later that Prowse was not his source.) Still, he remained in high demand, but in October 2017 he announced he was retiring and would no longer be doing business. public appearances.
Of course, “no one will ever forget Darth Vader,” he said in 2012, “and it’s a great honor for me to have played the ultimate villain of all time.”
[ad_2]
Source link