Bob Anderson, who fenced for Britain in the Olympics and went on to help create some of Hollywood's greatest sword fights, choreographing blade work and coaching actors from Errol Flynn to Antonio Banderas, died Sunday in West Sussex, England. He was 89.
Anderson also appeared on-screen himself as Darth Vader, crossing lightsabers with Mark Hamill (as Luke Skywalker) in the second and third parts of the original "Star Wars" trilogy.
Anderson represented Britain at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics and twice in the world championships in the saber competition. Just before the Olympics, Anderson was asked to be a fight choreographer and stunt double for the film "Master of Ballantrae," an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's swashbuckling tale of an 18th-century Scottish lord who takes up piracy. Anderson and the film's star, Flynn, became great pals even though Flynn was wounded in the thigh during one of the sword fights. Anderson was thereafter known as the man who stabbed Errol Flynn.
Over the next several decades, Anderson became well-known in Hollywood as a sword master -- part instructor, part stuntman, part fight choreographer.
Among many other projects, he worked with James Bond (aka Sean Connery) on "From Russia With Love" (1963); with Aramis, Athos, Porthos and D'Artagnan (Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Oliver Platt and Chris O'Donnell) in "The Three Musketeers" (1993); with Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones in "The Mask of Zorro" (1998) and "The Legend of Zorro" (2005); and with director Peter Jackson on the epic medieval fantasy "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001).
Most famously, Anderson worked on George Lucas' original "Star Wars" trilogy. He played a behind-the-scenes role in the first film, "Star Wars" (1977), but in the next two, "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) and "The Return of the Jedi" (1983), he appeared on-screen as Darth Vader in the scenes in which he battles the young hero, Luke, who is secretly his son, with lightsabers. He was uncredited in the part. The role was voiced by James Earl Jones and played by David Prowse, a hulking 6-foot-7 actor who was simply not good with a saber.
