News Desk
Dave Prowse, the British weightlifter-turned-actor who was the body, though not the voice, of arch-villain Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, has died. He was 85. Prowse died on Saturday after a short illness, his agent Thomas Bowington said Sunday. Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films, tweeted that Prowse was “a kind man & much more than Darth Vader”. Ant-Man director Edgar Wright also paid tribute to Prowse on Twitter. Born in Bristol, southwest England, in 1935, Prowse was a three-time British weightlifting champion and represented England in weightlifting at the 1962 Commonwealth Games before breaking into movies with roles that emphasised his commanding size, including Frankenstein’s monster in a pair of Hammer Studios horror films.
