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Two
Darths
July
11-12
When Darth Vader talks, everybody listens!
The career of Dave prowse has spanned more than 30 years.
He has been successful in the fitness world, entering Mr
Universe in 1960, he held the title of British
heavyweight weightlifting champion from 1962-64, went on
to be a competitor in the Highland games and was even
Britain's Strongest Man.
His acting career has also taken a varied path, his first
role as a stage actor had him playing 'death' in Don't
Let The Summer Come, a role which had him dressed from
head to foot in black, so none of him was visible, a
pre-cursor for future roles perhaps? He continued with TV
commercials, got roles in films such as Casino Royale and
Clockwork Orange, played several monsters in the Hammer
Horror series, was a comedy actor and was the Green Cross
Code Man, the figurehead in the British governments road
safety campaign, from 1976-90. But, to this day, the most
asked about character that he's played, and indeed,
movies that he's been in, has to be that of Darth Vader
and the Star Wars trilogy.
"People ask me, "What has Star Wars done for
you?" and I have to say, it has definitely given me
a passport to international travel, I do virtually
nothing else but travel all over the world, making
personal appearances. It's a wonderful life being Darth
Vader!" he chuckles as he adjusts his seating. He is
perched on the stage of an auditorium of the Plano
Center, one of the many stops on his science-fiction tour
of the U.S.
"I finished a nine week tour before I came up on
this tour, I went to places like Denmark, Sweden, all
over America, Germany, then I was at home for about 10
days, then I came back and kicked off in a show in
Charlotte, North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Dallas,
Chicago, then I go home for 10 days, then during that
time I've got three shows in Great Britain, and one in
Northern Ireland, then I go to Germany, then onto Tokyo
and Osaka, then back to Germany again, then onto Paris,
then a big show in London, that takes me up to the middle
of October."
The prophetic words said by George Lucas when he accepted
the part of Vader seem to have rung true: "I think
you've made a wise decision, nobody will ever forget
Darth Vader:"
Prowse himself comes across as a familiar favorite uncle
that you enjoyed listening to for hours on end. He talks
willingly about the biggest career move of his life, he
gives the air of a well seasoned and confident actor,
proud of the seven years of work he put into the
portrayal of Lord Vader. It may have been the role he is
most remembered for, yet it was not without its problems,
taking 20 minutes during the filming of the trilogy to
donne the basis of the costume and having to endure long
and sweaty days during the filming.
"You were left with the helmet and mask on, and that
was when all the problems used to arise. The suit was
made from quilted leather and fiber glass and weighed 40
pounds total. The worst thing was, you used to put it on,
and you just used to sweat buckets. We filmed Star Wars
during the hottest summer we've ever had in Britain, and
the sweat just used to just pour out of me, I used to
lose about five pounds a day, so I had it stipulated in
the contract that I had to have a constant supply of milk
and water and orange juice on set all the time because I
used to lose so much in perspiration. As soon as you put
the helmet on and you'd just move and the heat from the
costume would rise up and inside the costume and mist up
the eye pieces and you couldn't see where you were going.
So then they had to take the helmet and mask off, wipe
the eye pieces out and you'd have to start all over
again. And it was murder when we came to do the fight
scene in the carbon freezer room, with myself and Luke,
because, all I had to do was move practically. The set
itself was like a sauna bath, 130 degrees in heat, and of
course there was all this steam rising everywhere. And of
course, I'll always remember, Jeremy Bulloch, who played
Boba Fett was exactly the same, he had this costume on
and he was sweating buckets underneath it. And he had to
follow me down the stairs on the carbon freezer scene and
I used to, come down the stairs and I used to be worried
to death because the mist would fog my eye pieces up and
I couldn't see where I was going. And Jeremy was worried
to death because he was frightened to death that he was
going to step on my cape. And what used to happen, I used
to get down to the bottom of the stairs and I used to
have to stop and I couldn't see where I was going, and
then they'd shout 'cut' and the little Ugnols, the little
dwarves, they used to come and catch hold of my hand and
then turn me around and walk me back up the stairs, I
then used to take the helmet and the mask off, they'd
wipe it all out and we'd have to start all over again. We
had lots of problems with the costume."
Suffering for your art seems definitely to come to mind,
yet during the filming of Return of the Jedi physical
comfort was in very short supply for Prowse, the studio
decided that seeing any trace of the actor himself was
definitely out of the question, and proceeded to alter
the costume to blank him out:
"They changed the lenses, because they kept on
saying they could see my eyes. They suddenly decided they
didn't want to see anything of me what-so-ever, apart
from the back of my head in Empire Strikes Back. Then
they decided they could see my eyes flickering and
decided they'd give me amber lenses. So the amber lenses
lasted for a short period and they said they could still
see my eyes, and they could also see my lips moving. The
triangular pieces at the front of the mask, which I used
to use to look down onto the floor and see where my marks
were, they covered my face up with black greasepaint, so
you shouldn't see anything of me what-so-ever, then they
darkened the lenses down even darker, so it was so dark
you couldn't see where you were going, and then they
covered up the two triangular pieces with black gauze, so
you couldn't see out of the bottom of it. I used to have
to pace out the distance from where I came on, to where
the camera position was. I used to have to think, well,
I've got 27 paces to get up to there, and I used to have
to remember the dialogue and count 1 to 27 to get to this
mark, at the same time."
He may have been a Sith Lord on the silver screen, but
Prowse seemed to have little or no control of what went
on behind the scenes and on set. During the filming of
the trilogy, he was kept totally in the dark about the
voice of Vader,
"What happened was, I did the voice of Darth Vader
for all three movies. I had to learn all the dialogue and
deliver all the dialogue, because all the other actors
have to work with you, you know, you just can't stand
there doing nothing while everybody else is acting their
hearts out. All the way through Star Wars, I kept on
saying to George, "What are we going to do about the
voice of Vader, because everything I was saying, is
coming through the mask and it's not really audible, not
for reproduction purposes. It's okay as far as all the
other actors are concerned, but as far as reproduction's
concerned, it all sounds very muffled." And he said
"Well don't worry, we'll go into the sound studios
and re-record all your lines at the end of the
movie." So I assumed they were going to use my
voice, all the way through I learnt the dialogue."
However, the studio went ahead and re-dubbed the movie,
giving way to an uneasy political situation in the U.S, a
situation that could have been the ruin of the film,
"They got to the end of the movie and chased back to
America, because they couldn't find all the special
effects. And when they were in America, they suddenly
realized that they'd made a big mistake, they'd filmed
Star Wars, in its entirety, with no black people in it
what-so-ever, and they were worried to death that
black people in America would boycott the movie because
there was no black in-put. And so, the only thing they
could do at that stage, was to take my voice off and give
Darth Vader an obvious black voice, and James Earl Jones
was the most famous black actor in the world, at that
time, with a wonderful, deep resonant speaking voice and
he got offered the role of the voice of Vader. By the
time the film came out in May 1977, I hadn't heard
anymore from the film company, Lucasfilm, or 20th Century
Fox, so I assumed that they'd obviously done something
either with my voice, or they'd over-dubbed it. About two
weeks after the film came out, I got a cable from Russ
Meyer, a very famous Hollywood film director saying,
"Congratulations, you're in the biggest movie of all
time, by the way, did you know they'd over-dubbed your
voice?" That was the first time I knew of it. I
realized they'd obviously done something before, but that
was the first I knew of it. They had all sorts of
excuses, they said "We didn't want to play Darth
Vader with your accent," or " we didn't want to
play Darth Vader with an English accent," but I said
"I can't see what the difference between my doing
the voice of Darth Vader and with all the other English
people, because everybody in the film was practically
English, with Peter Cushing and Sir Alec Guiness and all
the extras and all the small parts, apart from the three
Americans, everybody else in the film was English, so
that really didn't alter it. Eventually I went to see the
20th Century Fox people in Hollywood and they confided in
me that this was a major political problem, with having
no black people in Star Wars. Then of course, Billy Dee
Williams came in on Empire Strikes Back and Return of The
Jedi, to be your token black, to appease the black
faction in America. That was the reason for that."
It would seem that was not the last of the tough blows
delt to Prowse, he was also not informed of a critical
plot detail, that is, the relationship between Luke and
Vader, an issue that it is assumed he would have known
about, given that he was one of the principal roles,
"I didn't know that I was Luke Skywalker's father
until I went to see the movie, because they gave me false
dialogue. They were actually paranoid, when we came to do
the movie, they were paranoid about secrecy, and they
were worried to death about information on the movie
getting out to the press, and other big companies getting
wind of their ideas before they were able to do anything
with them, as it were.
When I was up on the gantry and I said, "Come, come
and join me, together we will rule the Empire
forever," and eventually when I go and see the film,
I'm up on the gantry and I'm going "Luke I am your
father," and I thought, God, it's news to me! I
didn't know anything about it till the premier of the
movie, and it was quite funny, because Mark Hamill was
sat a couple of rows in front of me at the premier, and
he said he was frightened to death because he thought I
was going to jump over these two rows and smash him in
the face for not telling me the real dialogue! And also
there was a biography done on Harrison Ford and he said
he always remembers that Dave Prowse got up out of his
seat at the end of the movie and went over to Irvin
Kirshner, the director, and thumped him on the shoulder
and said' "Why didn't you tell me I was Luke
Skywalker's father?" I never did anything of the
sort, I don't know where they got that story from! But as
I said, this was happening all the way through the movie,
so Empire Strikes Back I never got a script at all. All I
ever got was my pages, they used to send you pages in the
post, and you would have to learn them over night, then
go in the following day and do your acting bit and have
to give the pages back, this is how paranoid they were,
so I never saw a script for Empire Strikes Back or Return
of the Jedi, to this day, I've never read the script to
Return of the Jedi."
Yet again, during the filming of Jedi, Prowse was given
another tough blow, he had played the role of Vader for
many years and was not offered the part of the unmasked
Annakin,
"It was a real dirty trick, the worst thing they
could possibly have done, I'd been playing the role for
seven years, and I think it was a real dirty trick, to
unmask someone else."
Prowse shifted around uncomfortably, a strong tone of
betrayal in his voice,
"This was because they were unmasking Annakin
Skywalker and not Darth Vader and I think that really,
they didn't want me to get into too strong a negotiating
position for future movies. They obviously realized that
Annakin Skywalker was going to be seen in episodes two
and three and obviously, if I'd been seen as the dying
Annakin Skywalker, it would have out me in a position
whereby they would have had to have used me whether they
wanted to or not. But they didn't want to let me get into
that sort of position, so they used a very a very old
actor called Sebastian Shaw, who I thought looked like
Uncle Fester (Adams Family). The number of people that
have come up to me and said "We were all expecting
to see you", because Darth Vader was avery physical
character, and I think they expected to see someone a lot
stronger looking, then Uncle Fester shows up! Sometimes I
look at him, I think he looks like an old Ray Milland as
well! But I think Uncle Fester is a better description."
However, things were not all doom and gloom on the dark
side, Prowse beams heartily at the thought, mis-haps were
abundant!
"We had one great one. In Empire Strikes Back. The
opening in Star Wars was the greatest entry that anybody
could ever wish for, when you first saw Darth Vader in
Star Wars, I thought it was a fantastic entry. And so
they tried to duplicate this on Empire Strikes Back and
so what they did, was they had this ice cave, we were on
the ice planet and they had this ice cave and they put
myself, two stuntmen and about a dozen stormtroopers all
in this ice cave and then covered all of the front of the
ice cave up with polystyrene, to look like snow blocks.
The idea was, they were going to blow all the front of
this ice cave out and Darth Vader was then going to make
his big entrance into the movie. So what happened was,
they positioned us in this ice cave, and they covered all
the front up with these polystyrene blocks in front of
the cave entrance, sealed everything up, and there's my
two stuntmen in front of me, Peter Diamond was one of
them, he was in front of me, then there was me, then
there was about a dozen stormtroopers behind me. So
anyway, they put these explosives into the front of the
cave and on 'action' this explosion goes off and it
practically blows the studio up, I mean it was enormous!
It was tremendous and there's smoke and debris and
polystyrene bits everywhere, and then you hear
"action", and so with this, the two stuntmen,
this is Peter Diamond and the other guy, they start to go
in, to make their entrance into the scene, and
immediately, of course, they can't see where they're
going because of all the debris all over the place, and
they fall over the debris, which is all on the floor,
these polystyrene blocks, which have all come from the
cave. Now, of course, I don't know this has happened, and
so the two stuntmen are lying on the floor and I hear
"action", the second call, which is my cue, and
I start to walk and I start to stride in, and some idiot
stormtrooper stood on my cape behind me, and so I can't
move, so eventually I lurch forward and the cape snaps
around the neck and I go in, of course I can't see where
I am going and I fall over the two stuntmen on the floor,
and with that you hear the tramp of a dozen
stormtroopers! There was a huge big pile of bodies all
over the floor! That was the worst of the bloopers I was
personally involved in! It was was a horrendous scene but
we never repeated it!"
What's your favourite movie from the Star Wars series?
A: Oh, Empire Strikes Back. It was the best of the three.
I thought it was much more of an adult movie. When I
started work on the movie, Irwin Kirshner, the director,
came up to me and said " This is going to be the
thinking mans' Darth Vader,I want you to slow up, I don't
want all the smash, bash and crash that we had in Star
Wars." I think it suffered from one thing, that was
the end of the movie, poor old Han Solo was taken away by
Boba Fett and that left you up in the air andyou thought,
God, I have to wait for three years to find out what
happens to him whether he's going to come back! I think
that was the only thing that had an adverse effect on the
success of the movie, obviously it was a very successful
movie, but it wasn't as successful as Star Wars,
financially anyway. But I thought it was a much better
movie, I think I was much more impressed by the direction
of Irwin Kirshner, for instance, than I was with George
Lucas. I got virtually nothing in the way of direction
from George all the way through the movies, the only
thing he would ever say to me was, "You come in
here, and you come to your marks in front of the camera
here and you deliver your dialogue and you walk off
there. That was the only direction I ever had. Where as
Kirshner was completely different, he would sit down with
you and discuss everything. He would discuss your
motivations, what you should be thinking about, where you
were going, where you'd been and all sorts of things. He
was a wonderful, wonderful director to work with.
Although the part of Darth Vader has taken up a large
portion of Prowse' life, and he is still reaping the
benefits of his work as the character, the most
fulfilling role he has had in his long career is not that
of Vader, but of a lesser known 'superhero',
"The Green Cross Code Man was my favourite without
a doubt. In 1976 the British government asked me if I
would front a program as a 'Superman' type character. I
was then given the job of going round the schools and
giving talks at the schools. And we reduced the road
accident figures in Britain by over half, they went from
40,000 a year to under 20,000 a year. The campaign was so
successful because all the kids knew that although I was
dressed as Superman, it was really Darth Vader that was
talking to them!
Darth Vader's been great, but the road safety campaign
was the greatest job I've ever had. I mean I've enjoyed
the weight lifting, I've enjoyed the body building, the
Highland games, I've enjoyed my career, it's been
wonderful working. I've worked with some wonderful
people, some lovely people, met some lovely people around
the world, but the road safety campaign for me was the
greatest job I've ever had."
Being a veteran of playing the infamous Lord Vader,
Prowse was compelled to see The Phantom Menace, but
unlike all the other Star Wars veterans who were getting
involved in the huge media circus, he decided to see it
in a low key fashion, in a very small venue indeed!
"I saw Episode One in a tiny little town in North
Carolina called Wilson, and I went to the one minute past
midnight showing of the film and I got mobbed on the way
into the cinema, walking across the car park 'cos
everybody recognised me going into the cinema. And then
when I actually got into the cinema I was sat right band
slap in the center of the movie theatre and they
introduced me to the audience and everybody got up and
applauded, I got a standing reception, it was wonderful.
And I sat and watched the movie, and of course, I came
out and all the television people were there, it got
round that I was in this tiny little town, Wilson of all
places, everyone wanted to know why I wasn't in Los
Angeles or New York for the premiere, why was I in this
tiny little place called Wilson? And they said "What
do you think of the Phantom Menace?" and I said
"It definitely ain't Star Wars!" It worried me,
first of all I found it very difficult to follow, I don't
know whether it was because I was tired, or after
everything which had happened, I'd been on a major tour,
I watch the film, everybody was hyping it up to be the
greatest film ever,it was going to out gross the Titanics
and everything else. It was a great piece of film making,
to be honest, but I think it lacked the sensitivity of
the Star Wars movies. One of the things I felt about how
it fell short was when Star Wars came about, there was
nothing to link it to anything earth bound. You saw the
characters, Darth Vader, Han Solo, Princess Leia, all
theses people, and you never thought, "Ooh, that's
Harrison Ford playing Han Solo and that's so-and so
playing whoever." Whereas, this film, everything now
is geared towards having the named stars come in, and you
think, "Ooh, Liam Neeson is playing Qui Gonn and so
and so is playing Jar Jar Binks." Who I hated, I
just wanted to wring its neck! I couldn't understand a
word he said throughout the whole movie, which affected
my opinion of the movie. Also the Brian Blessed part, the
king of the Gungans, he used to say tw lines and then go
"Bluuuu", and that upset me and I couldn't
understand what he was saying! I thought there was some
good bits in it, I thought the pod racing scene was
fantastic and I thought Senator Palpatine, Ian McDirmond,
who is one of Englands foremost actors, and I thought he
was absolutely fantastic all the way through the movie,
he was the best bit in the movie. The scene when he was
addressing the senate and he was in his pod thing
revolving round and that huge great scene. But I think it
suffers from two things, primarily, number one, it was
too much computer animation, number two, I thought the
film was very much a merchandising exercise. Every scene
you saw introduced new characters, and I thought, ther's
another toy figure that I'm going to be signing before
long. That was my main thing, I thought it was a great
movie, a great piece of film making, but it lacked the
appeal that the first three had."
He was not terribly happy with the fact that The March
theme, which is commonly known as Darth Vaders Theme, was
used to introduce Darth Maul,
"Actually, to be perfectly honest with you, I was a
bit pissed off that they used the Vader March for Darth
Maul. I thought, how dare you use my music?! (Laughs!) I
was in Denver for the Star Wars celebration which they
had, and they introduced Darth Maul onto the stage, they
told me I was unwelcome there to start with, which
frustrated and then when I heard they were playing the
Darth Vader March to introduce Darth Maul, I thought that
was a bit off, I didn't like it very much. But no, I must
go and see the movie again, the people that I know and
have spoken to about Phantom Menace, say that it improves
with seeing it a couple of times over, and I think that's
probably what I'll have to do. They're having the
premiere next week in London, but I don't think I'm going
to be there for it."
And on the whole subject of the newest Star Wars villain,
Prowse believes that Darth Maul is not nearly as powerful
character as Darth Vader,
"I don't think he had the presence of Darth Vader.
And to get rid of him after 10 minutes in the movie, if
he'd been more impressice or more ominous. Darth Vader
had a much more sinister feel about him. I think Darth
Maul is obviously a great martial artist, and martial
artists are the big thing in the cinema at the present
moment. Although I did think with all the back flips and
somersaults that were being done, Darth Maul spent most
of his time on the retreat. If you look at it, he always
seemed to be running away and then stopping and them
coming back. But no, I thought he was good, but I didn't
think he had the menace Darth Vader had. I'm not saying
that because it was me, but, I didn't think he was quite
as good. Great martial artist."
With two further episodes of the Star Wars saga looming
in the background, Prowse is hopeful that he will be
asked to step back into Darth Vaders boots,
"I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they ask me to
reprise the role when it comes up. I'm thinking of
getting a petition up for George Lucas, saying,
"Please let Dave Prowse play Darth Vader!"
We'll see Dave, we'll see.
Copyright © 1999 C. Charlotte Pollnitz.
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