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And the first celebrity death of 2012 comes from really unexpected quarters indeed...

Bob Anderson, a former Olympic swordsman who staged fights for films including the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings series, has died, British fencing authorities said Monday.

He was 89.

The British Academy of Fencing said Monday that Anderson died early New Year’s Day at an English hospital.

Anderson donned Darth Vader’s black helmet and fought light saber battles in two of the three original Star Wars films, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

The villainous character was played by David Prowse and voiced by James Earl Jones, and Anderson’s role was not initially publicized.

But 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,” Hamill told Starlog magazine. “Bob worked so bloody hard that he deserves some recognition. It’s ridiculous to preserve the myth that it’s all done by one man.”

Robert James Gilbert Anderson was born in Hampshire, southern England, in 1922. He served in the Royal Marines during World War II and represented Britain in fencing at the 1952 Olympics and the 1950 and 1953 world championships.

His first film work was staging fights and coaching Errol Flynn on swashbuckler The Master of Ballantrae in 1952.

He went on to become one of the industry’s most sought after sword masters, working on movies including the James Bond adventures From Russia With Love and Die Another Day; The Princess Bride; Highlander; The Legend of Zorro; First Knight; the first Pirates Of The Caribbean outing; and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

But he’s probably best known for his work on two massive trilogies – Star Wars, for which he performed as Darth Vader during lightsaber fights and tutored cast members on their technique, and the Lord Of The Rings, where he was responsible for crafting fighting moves for a variety of races, including the Hobbits.

Fencing academy president Philip Bruce said Monday that Anderson was “truly one of our greatest fencing masters and a world-class film fight director and choreographer.”

Anderson is survived by his wife Pearl and three children. Funeral details were not immediately available.