David Prowse is an English weightlifter, bodybuilder and occasional actor who played the physical role of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars films of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Prowse contacted Absolute Radio in March 2009 to raise money for the Royal Marsden Hospital in the United Kingdom where the actor had just finished two months of radiation therapy for prostate cancer. Prowse's agent Keith Bishop told Sky News that the disease had been caught in its early stages and that Prowse was "making good progress" toward a full recovery.Fox News: Darth Vader Actor David Prowse... (March 18, 2009)

The role of Darth Vader was played by three actors during the course of the original Star Wars series. Prowse played the physical role of Darth Vader in the films, James Earl Jones voiced the classic villain and Sebastian Shaw became the "face" of Darth Vader at the end of Return of the Jedi. Thus the original Star Wars series made movie history by being the first film series to employee three actors for a single role.