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Permalink Reply by Rich on February 9, 2013 at 8:47pm

I'll assume you're just pulling our leg here.

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Permalink Reply by Shamim on February 9, 2013 at 8:50pm

I'm just wondering

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Permalink Reply by Rick Meyer on February 9, 2013 at 8:50pm

LOL, is that really signed just Darth Vader?

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Permalink Reply by Shamim on February 9, 2013 at 8:50pm

Yes

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Permalink Reply by Rick Meyer on February 9, 2013 at 8:53pm

Pretty funny. Why would somebody ruin a good comic book like that?

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Permalink Reply by Shamim on February 9, 2013 at 8:55pm

I spoke to Eller Bryce The orginal Star Wars. Darth vader. Actor. He was. 20, when he did it. And. He. Did it from 1977-1983

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Permalink Reply by Rich on February 9, 2013 at 9:01pm

I thought Darth Vader was played by Dave Prowse.

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Permalink Reply by Shamim on February 9, 2013 at 9:04pm

Darth's Doppelganger

by Pete Vilmur

Though a privileged few can claim to have famously worn the iconic Darth Vader costume before the cameras in Episodes III-VI, none are more intimately familiar with the fit of the Dark Lord's original duds than Kermit Eller. That's because Eller, who nowadays goes by his middle name Bryce ("The whole Muppet thing just got old"), was the Vader fans saw, met, shook hands with, and asked for autographs at countless malls, charity events, and awards ceremonies throughout the late '70s and early '80s. For five years, Eller played the Vader among us.

[ A Vader Among Us ] Braving hot weather, a breakneck schedule of appearances, and pressing masses of awestruck fans both young and old, Eller's incognito career as the man in black wasn't strictly limited to street appearances. He was actually the Vader fans saw dancing with Donny & Marie, posing for a famous poster pin-up, presenting Oscars at the Academy Awards, and immortalizing the Dark Lord's footprints in front of the Chinese Theatre. More than a mere publicity gimmick, Eller's Vader had unwittingly become Star Wars' liaison on Earth.

Though Eller's Vader provided one of pop culture's most enduring figures to the masses, his five-year stint donning the black armor and helmet both in the street and on television went by-in-large unnoticed. Occasionally, a reporter was able to coax Eller's name into print, but for the most part, his career as Vader-on-Earth remained safely anonymous.

[ A Vader Among Us ] Eller's role as galactic go-between started casually enough, initiated by a friend who went asking for a t-shirt at the Star Wars Corporation offices on the Universal Studios lot in 1977.

"I was working in the lab at Don Post Studios where we were making movie props and over-the-head masks," remembers Eller, who had worked on the Mayor McCheese and Big Mac costumes used for McDonald's commercials before Don Post landed the license to do Star Wars masks. "One of the guys working in the lab, a guy by the name of Bob Short, came back from a trip over to Lucasfilm to get a sign-off on a [mask] sculpture. He came back wearing this really cool Star Wars t-shirt, and I said, 'Wow that's a great t-shirt! Can you get me one of those?' So a few days later he went over to the Universal lot, Building 426A, and talked to [Star Wars publicist] Charley Lippincott."

Eller understands their brief conversation went something like this:

[ A Vader Among Us ] Short: "Hey, do you have any more of those t-shirts?"

Lippincott: "Whatever we've got left is in a box in the corner. But sorry, all we've got left is extra large."

Short: "That's fine, it's not for me."

Lippincott: "You actually know someone who can wear one of those?"

Short: "Yeah."

Lippincott: "How big is he?"

Short: "He's about 6'5"."

Lippincott: "What kind of build is he?"

Short: "He's got kinda big shoulders and stuff like that."

Lippincott: "Well, how would he like to play Darth Vader?"

Vader Goes Public

The casual offer came as a surprise to Eller, although he came somewhat qualified to the position having had some prior costuming experience. "I had done a whole bunch of suit work," says Eller. "One friend of mine by the name of William Malone [who went on to direct FearDotCom, an episode of "Masters of Horror", and the remake of House on Haunted Hill] built me into a Day the Earth Stood Still Gort suit he ended up using in a TV pilot he'd shot, so it was no big deal to me. I'd done a lot of other suit work, too. It wasn't like I was off the farm."

[ A Vader Among Us ] Lippincott and producer Gary Kurtz hoped that bringing a flesh-and-blood Vader to 1977's American Booksellers Association Convention in San Francisco might garner some attention from the press at the Ballantine booth, where the second printing of the Star Wars novelization was being promoted.

"They just wanted me to be a living mannequin," recalls Eller. "But I kind of have a perfectionist tendency, and I really wanted to know how to do it right. So I said, 'can I see how this guy moves?'"

With the film not yet in theaters, the only way Eller could study the character's movements was to visit the editing facilities where the finishing touches were being put on the international prints. "So I went over and brought along, without telling anyone, a mono-cassette recorder. I thought I'd record how this guy sounds so I don't sound stupid." Eller was shown a couple of scenes which featured Darth Vader entering the Blockade Runner and then throttling the Rebel officer. He delicately asked if he could record the dialog for reference. "Nowadays, I would have been taken out and shot [for asking that question], but at that time there was no internet, and the movie was coming out in less than a week anyway. So they said, sure, go ahead -- an executive decision made by some guy on a Moviola."

[ A Vader Among Us ] "I recorded a bunch of voice dialog, probably around a dozen lines," continues Eller. "I stayed up half the night in the St. Francis Hotel doing the voice over and over again." Eller can still mimic James Earl Jones' baritone timbre today with alarming accuracy -- for the book show, though, few could appreciate his vocal talents, as the film was still unreleased. His Vader vocalizations, paired with the imposing 6'9" costume, proved extremely effective -- so effective, in fact, that it attracted the attention of some executives visiting from the New York offices of 20th Century Fox.

"They came over and said to Charley, 'you really ought to use this guy again -- this would be really effective in promotion,'" remembers Eller. Lippincott agreed, and called on the Don Post employee a few days after the bookseller convention to do a photo shoot in front of a Hollywood movie theater. Lippincott could see that photo-ops with Vader would be effective in marketing the movie, but also thought he could do one better -- he wanted to take Vader to the people.

"He said, we need you to practice your 'Darth Vader' signature," recalls Eller. "And I said, what does it look like? He said, 'you tell me.'" Eller sat down to devise the signature that would eventually grace thousands of black and white photographs, album covers, posters, and whatever else fans might bring with them to meet the costumed character. "I came up with this big 'D', with 'arth' almost inserted into the 'D' with a big flair."

When fans met Darth Vader back in the late '70s and early '80s, they were actually making a direct connection to the Star Wars universe. That's because the costume Eller wore to his character appearances literally came from the film sets themselves -- yes, the Vader costume endlessly paraded around malls, toy stores, grand openings, and other public events was one of only a few screen-used prop costumes worn by the actors and stuntmen during the filming of A New Hope and Empire.

[ A Vader Among Us ] Given the elevated prestige these costumes now warrant, it seems unthinkable today to subject such iconic artifacts to the stresses of practical, everyday use. "Don't forget," reminds Eller, "at the time, it wasn't considered any big deal. This was just a science fiction movie that everybody hoped would break even."

Because the Vader costume was originally designed to look good on screen, comfort was not a top priority for the actor or stuntman who donned it on set -- this was especially true of the A New Hope version, which was essentially a "work in progress" that took on some added comfort features for its subsequent incarnations. Eller, of course, was stuck in the first unrefined version, which definitely came with some ergonomic issues.

"Uncomfortable doesn't begin to describe it!" says Eller, who could lose up to a couple pounds of water during a mid-summer appearance. The act of repeatedly putting on the costume and taking it off countless times over the course of five years has given Eller a unique expertise in the process of becoming Darth Vader:

[ A Vader Among Us ] "First, I came up with wearing a Danskin leotard underneath the costume to try and absorb some of the sweat, so at least I would have something dry before I got into the soaking wet costume [for a multi-appearance day]. Next, I had to put on the pants. They originally had elastic suspenders, but it just lost all of its strength after a short period of time. So I went out and bought clamping suspenders, and I wore that underneath the suit. Then I had to put on the boots, which are English riding boots. Around that goes the shin armor, which is very thin black plastic that would strap around the back with Velcro. The next thing to put on was a shirt, but the arms were leather. The leather vest was next, and I'd put my arms in through the front and it zipped up the back, so had to have somebody help me. Next was the codpiece, which would cover my lower midsection, and it Velcroed to the bottom of the vest. Once you've got the codpiece on, you can't really sit down again, because you can't bend.

"Now there's this chest box that I'd have to wear," continues Eller, "and that goes on with straps over the shoulders and around the midsection that tie through elastic loops. A battery pack attached to the strap behind me. The next thing is the shoulder pads, which are very heavy, and they force the shoulders forward so I couldn't stand naturally. They're hinged at the shouder and made of thick, half-inch thick fiberglass [these were lightened for the Empire costume, and also worn over the inner cape after A New Hope]. Once that was on, then comes the inner cape, which is the Samurai cape that's made of wool. It's got big arm-holes that you put your arms through. Then I'd put the belt on, and that has to sit in between the chestbox and the codpiece, holding the wool cape in place. That gets plugged into the battery pack, which goes through D-cells like you wouldn't believe. It would last two appearances, that's it.

[ A Vader Among Us ] "The next thing is the outer cape. The outer cape is a full semi-circle -- wool on the outside lined with satin. It's enormous and very heavy. Next is putting the mask on. The whole inside of the mask is fiberglass, and is lined with gray pieces of polyurethane foam so your face gets pressed into it very tightly. [It's fastened] so it's all rigidly held to the head. Then comes the real trick -- getting the helmet to go on and stay on. They had three points on the head and three spots in the helmet that had to all get lined up and pressed down so it would snap into place.

"At later appearances, I started to put on makeup so nobody could see my eyes or my chin out of the screen below. By the way, that screen is how you see where you're going and where your feet go, because otherwise you could only see straight ahead.

"It was a very long, involved process, and the whole suit must have weighed 75 pounds. Putting on the costume, with someone who knew how to help me, would take me maybe 15-20 minutes."

Eller's newfound career as the public's Darth Vader quickly took on some pop-culture cachet when he joined a costumed Anthony Daniels and a remote R2-D2 [controlled by Mick Garris] for a footprints ceremony in front of Mann's Chinese Theatre on August 3, 1977. The event was staged to herald the return of Star Wars to the Chinese, which had been temporarily sidelined to make way for William Friedkin's Sorcerer at the landmark venue.

[ A Vader Among Us ] The number of spectators arriving to witness the momentous event that day was staggering. "The place was a complete sea of people," says Eller. "We couldn't hear a thing, or each other, and trying to get through the crowd was just a nightmare. Tony and I both had wireless mics because we were going to be talking -- we tried to do our lines, but we couldn't hear squat."

[ A Vader Among Us ] Fortunately, when the characters finally reached the wet slabs of cement, accommodations were made for the restricted wearers within. "What they did, since we couldn't get down on our hands and knees, was they rigged up a stick with a ball point pen capped at the end to draw in the concrete and sign our names. Tony said he wanted to add his name [to C-3PO's], so he came out afterwards while the concrete was still wet and wrote 'Anthony Daniels'. Of course, I didn't sign my name because I wasn't in the movie. So I drew my 'Darth Vader' signature as best I could -- it doesn't look exactly perfect, but it's the best I could do."

[ A Vader Among Us ] Though Eller recalls the event being pre-empted from televised broadcasts that evening by other news, he was able to catch himself guest-starring on the Donny & Marie show a month later. Also that September, Eller was filmed for a short holographic sequence used in the Making of Star Wars documentary, in which his image appears in a scripted scene with C-3PO and R2-D2.

[ A Vader Among Us ] It was an event in April, 1978, however, that probably garnered Eller his most famous, albeit anonymous, moment. On April 3, 1978, Star Wars received seven Academy Awards, including Best Costume Design. The award was presented to John Mollo by Natalie Wood, accompanied on stage by Eller's Darth Vader.

[ A Vader Among Us ] "The real thrill with the Academy Awards," says Eller, "was knowing that something like 1.2 billion people were watching and that it was live. I also knew that I had to walk down fifty tiny stairs [it was the 50th Academy Awards] and didn't want to fall down to have the whole costume fly apart." According to Eller, a bit of fakery was in order to safely descend the stairs -- an actress wearing the Princess Leia costume would guide him down by the arm, maintaining the illusion that he was actually guiding her.

[ A Vader Among Us ] Though a rare appearance at the Academy Awards can pretty much secure one's status as a pop-culture icon, it was Eller's posing for a famous photograph that will probably be most remembered by Star Wars fans. Eller filled the Vader costume for the famous Factors Etc. Darth Vader poster that has been pinned up on millions of bedroom walls since 1977. "That was interesting," remembers Eller. "My hand was empty. I formed my hand as if I was holding a lightsaber, and Ralph McQuarrie painted the lightsaber handle, the blade, and the reflections coming off the costume."

Such modest memories for an image that has been used countless times throughout the years, replaced only recently by a new series of Vader images taken for Revenge of the Sith.

After nearly five years of anonymously donning the famous black helmet and cape, Eller made his final appearance in the cold early months of 1982. By this time, the costume had been updated to reflect some improvements made for The Empire Strikes Back, and others had begun donning a second and third Vader costume to keep up with demand for a nation clamoring for more Vader appearances. It was in Chicago, at a housewares exhibition, that Eller finally made good on a suggestion he'd made in the months prior -- to end public appearances before the character's cachet became commonplace.

[ A Vader Among Us ] "I just had this vision of Darth Vader being this really wonderful figure and having a kind of majesty to him," explains Eller. "To end up doing [an endless schedule of appearances] just wasn't in fitting with the character."

For a wintertime show, the interior of the exhibit hall was very warm -- so warm, in fact, that Eller temporarily passed out from the heat. It may have been heatstroke, but he can't be sure. "I didn't let them take me to the hospital," confesses Eller. "They wanted to cut the suit off -- I said, 'I don't think you understand -- I'll heal. The suit won't.'"

Ever loyal to the costume and the character, Eller braved a final day at the show before hanging up the props, and persona, for good.

[ A Vader Among Us ] Today, Eller remembers his days as the people's Vader fondly, trading in his virtual techno-man status for a career in computer systems engineering at company Trace|3. "I help companies manage where their data is stored and how the data is replicated over to other safe sites," explains Eller, who calls himself an "I.T. Architect/Engineer."

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