Entertainment
Star Wars Actor's Career Was Destroyed By A Bizarre Lie
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
While James Earl Jones provided the iconic voice for Darth Vader, it was bodybuilder David Prowse who actually wore the intimidating suit, using his prodigious height to absolutely terrify moviegoers around the world. Sadly, Prowse had an epic falling out with franchise creator George Lucas that began with the actor telling a bunch of fans in 1978 that Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father.
This led to Prowse getting iced out of the franchise that made him famous and even banned from official Star Wars conventions, but here’s the wild part: he had no idea what the plot of The Empire Strikes Back was going to be at the time, and he told fans a lie about Vader being Luke’s Daddy that ended up being true completely by accident!
The Force Was With Him
It all started in 1978, when over a thousand fans came to Berkeley to see David Prowse, who had become famous thanks to the success of the first Star Wars movie. He answered fan questions and told them when the second film would go into production and that it would be followed by another sequel. Of that third movie, Prowse proclaimed that Luke and Vader would square off in a “do-or-die lightsaber duel” and that “Father can’t kill son, son can’t kill father.”
In retrospect, this whole thing seems crazy; Prowse just casually spoiled the big plot twist of The Empire Strikes Back (Vader’s declaration of “I am your father!” to Luke Skywalker) two years before the movie came out. However, things aren’t actually that cut and dry. The sequel film was still being written at the time, so Prowse would literally have no way of knowing that Vader was Luke’s father.
His Lack Of Faith Disturbed George Lucas
Nonetheless, Prowse’s comments were published by The San Francisco Examiner. Surprisingly, the apparent spoilers for the next Star Wars movie didn’t travel very far, barely making a ripple in the fandom (man oh man, things were different before the internet!). Nonetheless, George Lucas resented Prowse for spilling the beans, and he took drastic measures on the set of the next film, including giving some Empire actors fake scripts to prevent leaks and even giving Prowse fake dialogue for the movie’s biggest scene.
You see, David Prowse didn’t actually say “I am your father” when filming this famous scene with Mark Hamill; he’d later claim that the line he was given was a fairly generic “come and join me and the Dark Side.” Hamill was told what the real line would be only right before they shot the scene, allowing him to properly emote. Prowse, meanwhile, had to find out alongside everyone else when he saw The Empire Strikes Back in theaters!
The Man Behind The Mask
The Darth Vader actor accidentally spoiling this big reveal two years earlier might have made George Lucas paranoid, but they didn’t have a proper falling out until production of Return of the Jedi. This was the movie where Vader would finally be unmasked, and David Prowse assumed he would be the man beneath the mask. In a truly bizarre twist, he wouldn’t discover otherwise until a journalist came to the gym and bluntly asked if the actor knew that he was getting killed off and that Sebastian Shaw would be playing the unnamed Vader, which he proved by examining Prowse’s call sheet.
This news was very upsetting to Prowse, but things went from bad to worse the very next day when The Daily Mail ran a story with the headline “Darth Vader to be killed off in the next movie, in an interview with David Prowse.” This caused George Lucas to believe Prowse had leaked another major spoiler to the press, and the actor later claimed that he was immediately “ostracized” on the set of Return of the Jedi, with both the producer and director refusing to work with him. Lucas stopped talking to him altogether over this, though Prowse has always maintained his innocence.
Still, being ignored by Lucas didn’t make Prowse any less popular with the fans, and he continued to make appearances at official Star Wars conventions. But in 2010, he appeared in The People vs. George Lucas, a documentary that severely criticized the creator of everyone’s favorite galaxy far, far away. That same year, Lucas officially cut any remaining ties with Prowse, and the actor was banned from attending official conventions.
David Prowse Gets Completely Removed From Star Wars
Before his death, David Prowse claimed he was never paid the residuals he was owed for Return of the Jedi, something which could possibly be a result of his epic falling out with Lucas. Because of this and the fact that his career was so irrevocably tied to Star Wars, the actor relied on fan conventions for most of his income. Official conventions like Star Wars Celebration helped him earn much of the money he needed to support himself and his wife, so getting banned from them was a severe financial blow.
However, Prowse might not have gotten banned from these conventions if Lucas didn’t still blame him for the press leak about Vader dying, and Lucas might not have so readily blamed Prowse for that if the actor hadn’t told a bunch of fans that Vader was Luke’s father way back in 1978. Prowse had no way of actually knowing that, however, and made up a complete fabrication that just happened to come true. In this way, a bizarre lie ended up completely ruining the career of the man behind the most famous villain in Hollywood history.
Entertainment
Super Bowl LX performers: Who is singing the anthems
The Super Bowl LX halftime show featuring Bad Bunny and the Super Bowl pre-show featuring Green Day may be taking up all the attention when it comes to Super Bowl performances — and rightfully so! Everyone is looking forward to what the internationally known artists will do or say regarding President Trump and ICE.
However, other musical artists are performing at this year’s Super Bowl as well.
Charlie Puth to sing national anthem
Kicking the show off with the U.S. national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner” is the Grammy-nominated singer Charlie Puth. Puth’s debut single, “Marvin Gaye,” featuring Meghan Trainor, was a Billboard chart hit upon its 2015 release. Puth has since had other hits, including “We Don’t Talk Anymore (feat. Selena Gomez),” “Attention,” and “Nothing But Trouble.”
Mashable Top Stories
Brandi Carlile to perform patriotic song
Next up, singing “America the Beautiful” is singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile. Carlile has a whopping 11 Grammys and two Emmy awards. Her biggest hit was 2007’s “The Story,” but she is also known for songs like “Broken Horses” and “The Joke.”
Coco Jones to sing Black national anthem
Grammy Award-winning R&B artist Coco Jones will sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also known as the Black national anthem. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” has become a Super Bowl staple since 2021, when Alicia Keys performed it at the event. Singer and actress Ledisi performed the song at last year’s game.
Entertainment
How A Star Wars Set Malfunction Caused A Cast Member To Meet Jesus
By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated
Would you believe that arguably the most recognizable figure in the entire Star Wars franchise once ran into Jesus? This was no Jedi, although it’s admittedly fun to imagine what the Son of God might have had to say to someone else who could come back from the dead as a powerful ghost. No, the Star Wars character in question was R2-D2, and he had an accidental meeting with the divine when a remote control malfunction sent him to the set of Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth tv movie!
A long time ago (1977, to be precise), in a desert far, far away (Tunisia), two very different filmmakers were working on two very different projects. Franco Zeffirelli (best known for his Oscar-nominated Romeo and Juliet) was working on Jesus of Nazareth, which blended the four Gospels of the biblical New Testament into a single TV movie. Meanwhile, fresh off the success of American Graffiti, rebel filmmaker George Lucas was working on Star Wars, a movie that would effectively define his life while reshaping pop culture history as we know it.
Meeting The Maker
Aside from the involvement of James Earl Jones, these projects didn’t have much in common, and Lucas and Zeffirelli generally stayed out of each other’s way despite their sets neighboring one another. That all changed thanks to a scene requiring R2-D2 to be piloted using a remote control. While actor Kenny Baker was often inside the droid for scenes where R2 had to stay relatively still, there were some scenes in which George Lucas simply needed to move the little astromech from Point A to Point B.
In this case, Lucas intended for R2-D2 to exit a scene by rolling out from behind a sand dune. To do this, they intended to use a remote control, but the unit malfunctioned. Therefore, instead of stopping where the filmmakers intended, R2 just kept going until (as if guided by a higher power) he ended up on the set of Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth.
Fortunately, the runaway astromech didn’t cause any damage to the set of the Jesus TV movie, something that we can only assume would be some kind of sin. These days, the whole incident has become a bit of amusing trivia for Star Wars fans to share among themselves. At the time, though, R2 encountering a savior from heaven was just one more reason that filming this sci-fi blockbuster had become a living hell.
When Droids Move In Mysterious Ways
Reportedly, this is one of many incidents in which the droids weren’t doing exactly what the filmmakers needed them to do. On top of that, the droids were powered by exotic batteries that were hard to replace, and those batteries were soon drained in the hot Tunisian sun. Making matters worse, the truck storing R2-D2 and other droids once caught fire, damaging valuable props and costing George Lucas money he couldn’t really afford to spend.
Fortunately, it all worked out: after all these onset issues, Star Wars became one of the most successful films ever made. There are many reasons for this, including its perfect cast, killer effects, and charming story. However, we can’t discount the possibility that the movie’s success is a product of divine intervention; after all, his excursion to meet Jesus proves R2-D2 is a droid with friends in very high places!
Entertainment
Who is the Super Bowls Black national anthem singer Coco Jones?
“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also known as the Black national anthem, has been sung at every Super Bowl since 2021, when Alicia Keys performed the song.
This year, at Super Bowl LX, Coco Jones will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
So, who is Coco Jones?
Mashable Top Stories
Coco Jones is a Grammy Award-winning R&B artist. In 2024, she was nominated for 5 Grammys and won one award for Best R&B Performance for her platinum-certified song “ICU.” She earned two more Grammy nominations in 2025 and was nominated for Best R&B Album at this year’s award show.
The artist’s father, Mike Jones, is a former pro football player. Jones was an NFL linebacker who played for the New England Patriots, St. Louis Rams, and Tennessee Titans.
If you’re not familiar with Coco Jones as an R&B artist, she might look familiar to you if you watched the Peacock series Bel-Air. Jones is the actor who played Hillary Banks on the drama that reimagined the Will Smith sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. As a child actor, she was also a well-known Disney Channel star, appearing in So Random!, Good Luck Charlie, and the Disney Channel Original Movie Let It Shine.
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