He was 6’7″ and 275 pounds of solid muscle, and pretty much had to be in order to wear Vader’s 40-pound costume through grueling filming, often in hot weather.
Something I learned from the article, but you megafans probably know already: given Prowse’s size and strength, George Lucas gave him two options – Vader or Chewbacca.
In the original trilogy, Vader was not a one-man effort. Five guys contributed. Prowse basically just did the bit of walking around and looking intimidating. James Earl Jones did the voice, another man did the heavy breathing, and two others did specialty scenes: a trained swordsman did the lightsaber duels; another actor provided the face for Vader’s unmasked death scene.
Vader dies??
Hellooo, spoiler alert anybody??