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.
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."
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."
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.
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.
"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.
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.
