Vintage 1978 Star Wars Spoiler from the Man Who Played Darth Vader, David Prowse

Hey Gang! Apparently there was a major Star Wars spoiler revealed back in 1978 before The Empire Strikes Back was released in theaters.

David Prowse, the man who played Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, told a cheering crowd at Berkeley, California that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father! This was two years before Empire Strikes Back was released in theaters! 

Here's a description of the newspaper clipping above that pretty much spoiled everything for anyone that read the paper. This is how spoilers and rumors spread back in the day before the internet, only it didn't get around as fast.

[M]y mother was good to keep an eye out for Star Wars news – and when this particular item showed up in our local paper, she cut it out for me. I still have it to this day. And, it was my first introduction to spoilers. In late 1978, David Prowse revealed that he was Luke's father – two years before Empire Strikes Back hit theaters. In retrospect, I wonder how George Lucas felt about this. Since there was no internet in 1978, he probably never knew that David was running around spilling the beans. 

Of course this could all just be a crazy coincidence, because as far as we know Prowse didn't know that Vader was Luke's father at this time. If you recall, the original script that the cast and crew got called for Vader to tell Luke, ''Obi-Wan killed your father.'' It was only before they shot the scene that Lucas told Mark Hamill what was really going down, and James Earl Jones dubbed in the real dialogue later on. So that leaves a strong possibility that Prowse was just making up spoilers for a blood thirsty crowd of Star Wars fans. Either way I think it's pretty funny.

What do you all think?