For those who don’t recall, the Eyjafjallajökull ice cap in southern Iceland exploded in 2010, spreading ash over a large northern portion of the globe. The ash raised a lot of concerns about air travel, with many fearing that the volcanic particles would choke up plane engines. There was a mass grounding all throughout Europe, the largest since World War II. The shutdown lasted eight days, stranding millions of travelers … including James Earl Jones (who thought his work voicing Darth Vader was more like special effects than actual acting).
Prowse and Jones, both hardworking actors, would only occasionally drift into each other’s orbits. Sometimes Jones would be in England for a stage performance, while Prowse would sometimes go to New York for various awards, but the two never found themselves in the same room at the same time. Odd that they should never have attended a sci-fi convention together. Prowse recalled one of their more recent near-misses like this:
“It’s a well known fact I have never met the guy. I tried very hard to meet him when he was over in London last year doing a production [‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’] in the West End. We had arranged to meet, but it was during the ash cloud fiasco and I got a call from his son to say the ash cloud had lifted so he had to take the next available flight back to New York. So I didn’t get to see him.”
The “ash cloud fiasco” was simply poorly timed. One might think that if Jones had been delayed by the Eyjafjallajökull event then he would have a little extra time to have a dinner with his fellow Darth Vader actor, but evidently, Jones needed to get back to New York as soon as possible.