Issue of the day Darth Vader’s belongings up for sale
STAR Wars items owned by the late actor Dave Prowse, best known for playing Darth Vader, are to be put up for auction next month.
More than 700 possessions, including his script for the second Star Wars film The Empire Strikes Back, a piece of the Millennium Falcon and a Darth Vader helmet the actor wore at conventions, are now for sale in Prowse’s home city of Bristol following his death last November at the age of 85.
Hold on a minute. Didn’t James Earl Jones play Darth Vader?
No, James Earl Jones provided the voice of the Jedi Knight seduced by the dark side of the Force, but Prowse was the man in the black armour. His Bristol accent was not considered suitable for the movie.
What’s special about this auction, then? The main item is likely to be that script for The Empire Strikes Back because it doesn’t include the famous line revealing that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father.
Dave Prowse was a former bodybuilder, wasn’t he?
Yes. He also appeared in Doctor Who, The Saint, Space 1999 and a couple of Hammer films playing Frankenstein’s creature, though his most famous role other than Darth Vader was as the Green Cross Man in a series of public information films in the 1970s.
Sadly, he suffered from dementia in his later years. His assistant Julian Owen, who helped organise the auction, said, “It was so hard to see Dave’s decline with Alzheimer’s disease. We worked together most weekends and every time I saw him, there would be a little less of him there.”
As a result, a percentage of proceeds from the auction will go to Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Celebrity auctions are quite the thing at the moment?
Indeed. Last year Christie’s auctioned a collection of jewellery owned by Elizabeth Taylor for almost £75 million. And Janet Jackson is also hoping to raise millions when she puts more than 1,000 artifacts up for sale next month, with a portion of the money going to the Christian charity Compassion International.
Auction items even include Jackson’s wedding dress, her 1965 Chevy pickup truck and even her Spanish homework book from high school.
Who’s putting on that sale?
Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles. The same auction company that sold Kurt Cobain’s 1959 Martin D-183 guitar, which the Nirvana frontman played while recording the famous MTV Unplugged show in 1993, for an eye-watering $6 million (£4.9m) last year.
The auctioneer was also behind the sale of the dress worn by Marilyn Monroe when she sang “Happy Birthday Mr President,” to John F Kennedy on his 45th birthday in 1962.
The Jean Louis gown, covered in 2,500 crystals, was bought by the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum chain for a record-breaking £3.9m, making it the world’s most expensive dress.