The one whose story Palpatine narrates to Anakin. Is the identity/name of this Sith lord ever revealed anywhere? (books, comics etc) Or was Palpatine lying to Anakin?
"I'm the dude, playing a dude that's disguised as another dude".
It was the Sith Lord he mentions, Darth Plagueis. Plagueis was the Emperors master and by cheat death he means immortal, not indestructible. The Emperor killed him while he was sleeping
Darth Bane could also pass his life to another body but that is no longer canon
Is there anything in the canon to confirm that?
Because I suspect that Palpatine made it up, knowing full well that Anakin wanted more than anything to cheat death, and that lying to a dim bulb about Sith being able to bring back the dead would be enough to get him to betray the Jedi.
“Seventy-seven courses and a regicide, never a wedding like it!
The Darth Plagueis novel by James Luceno was considered canon by George Lucas. So, as far as Lucas was concerned, Palapatine wasn't completely lying. Though I haven't read the novel, from what I know of it, Plagueis is not an old legend as Palpatine puts it, but actually died during the events of the Phantom Menace. Also his existence was only known of by Palpatine and Maul so Anakin could hardly have expected to have heard of him. His experiments in life were also not quite as successful as Palpatine makes out.
Disney declared the novel non-canon though so who knows now.
Plagueis was Palpatine's master and he killed him in his sleep, watched over him for a little while to make sure he was dead because of his abilities with manipulating the force
There are a lot of theories of Snoke, one is that he is Plagueis