Olympic fencer and movie sword master Bob Anderson, who fought Darth Vader’s light sabre battles and appeared in some of Hollywood’s most famous duelling scenes, has died at 89.
I never took up the sword... I think the sword took me up
Former Royal Marine Bob Anderson wielded the light sabre in two of the three original Star Wars films, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
Mr Anderson, who worked with actors from Errol Flynn to Antonio Banderas during five decades as a sword master, fight director and stunt performer, died early on New Year’s Day at a hospital in West Sussex, the British Academy of Fencing said.
Vader, Star Wars’ intergalactic arch-villain, was voiced by James Earl Jones and played by six-foot six-inch former weightlifter David Prowse, but Mr Anderson stepped in during the key fight scenes.
“David Prowse wasn’t very good with a sword and Bob couldn’t get him to do the moves,” said Mr Anderson’s former assistant, Leon Hill. “Fortunately Bob could just don the costume and do it himself.” The scenes worked beautifully, although Mr Anderson, then nearing 60, was several inches shorter than Mr Prowse.
Few knew of Mr Anderson’s role until Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker, said in a 1983 interview that “Bob Anderson was the man who actually did Vader’s fighting”.
“It was always supposed to be a secret, but I finally told (director) George (Lucas) I didn’t think it was fair any more,” Mr Hamill told Starlog magazine.
“Bob worked so hard that he deserves some recognition. It’s ridiculous to preserve the myth that it’s all done by one man.”
Born in Hampshire in 1922, Mr Anderson was drawn to fencing from an early age.
“I never took up the sword,” he said in an interview for the 2009 documentary Reclaiming The Blade. “I think the sword took me up.”
Mr Anderson joined the Royal Marines before World War II, teaching fencing aboard warships and winning several combined services titles in the sport.
He served in the Mediterranean during the war, later trained as a fencing coach and represented Britain at the 1952 Olympics and the 1950 and 1953 world championships.
In the 1950s, Mr Anderson became coach of Britain’s national fencing team, a post he held until the late 1970s. He later served as technical director of the Canadian Fencing Association.
His first film work was staging fights and coaching Flynn on swashbuckler The Master of Ballantrae in 1952.
He went on to become one of the industry’s most sought-after stunt performers, fight choreographers and sword masters, working on movies including the James Bond adventures From Russia With Love and Die Another Day; fantasy The Princess Bride; Antonio Banderas action romps The Mask Of Zorro and The Legend of Zorro; and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Fencing academy president Philip Bruce said Mr Anderson was “truly one of our greatest fencing masters and a world-class film fight director and choreographer”. Mr Hill remembered him as “a splendid man, a great man who gave so much to fencing that can never be repaid”.
Mr Anderson is survived by his wife Pearl and three children.