Mr. Prowse went from being a weight lifting champion in Britain to helping portray one of the most memorable villains in movie history. But his voice did not make the edit.
Dave Prowse, the British actor who gave the imposing physical presence — but not the voice — to Darth Vader in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, died on Saturday in a hospital in London. He was 85. Mr. Prowse’s death was confirmed by Thomas Bowington, his agent. Mr. Prowse’s family did not release a cause of death, but he retired in 2016 because of ill health, Mr. Bowington said. Standing 6-foot-6 and with a physique honed by years of weight lifting (he was once the British heavyweight champion), Mr. Prowse had the perfect presence for the role of Darth Vader, whom he played in 1977’s “Star Wars,” in “The Empire Strikes Back” in 1980 and in “Return of the Jedi” in 1983. He was scouted for the role by George Lucas, the franchise’s creator, who had seen Mr. Prowse play a bodyguard in Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange.” Mr. Lucas actually offered Mr. Prowse a choice of roles for the original “Star Wars”: Chewbacca, the hairy, gentle giant and a hero in the franchise; or Darth Vader, the arch-villain. Mr. Prowse told the BBC in a 2013 interview that the choice had been simple. “I said, ‘Well, don’t say any more, George, I’ll have the villain’s part,’” Mr. Prowse recalled. “You always remember the bad guy.” There was another reason he turned down Chewbacca, he added: “I thought, ‘Oh, God no, three months in a gorilla skin, no thank you very much.
