By Summary
- Initially did not want to be credited for voicing Darth Vader.
- Appeared in films such as The Lion King and Field of Dreams.
- Also played a wide range of leading roles in Shakespearean plays.
LOS ANGELES, California – James Earl Jones, the iconic American actor known for his commanding presence on stage and screen, as well as for overcoming a childhood stutter to develop one of the most recognized voices in the world, passed away on Monday at the age of 93.
Jones, who had long battled diabetes, died at home surrounded by family, according to his agent, Barry McPherson. No cause of death was provided.
Jones had a great physical presence on stage and television, as well as in movies, but he would have been a star even if his face was never seen because his voice had a career of its own. The resonating bass could instantly command respect – as with the sage father Mufasa in “The Lion King,” and many Shakespeare roles – or instill fear as the rasping Vader in the “Star Wars” films. Jones laughed when a BBC interviewer asked if he resented being so closely tied to Darth Vader, a role that required only his voice for a few lines while another actor did the on-screen work in costume.
“I love being part of that whole myth, of that whole cult,” he said, adding that he also enjoyed obliging fans who requested him to recite the famous “I am your father” line to Luke Skywalker, played by Mark Hamill. “#RIP dad,” Hamill wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, with a broken heart emoji above a story about the death of Jones.
James Earl Jones, the legendary actor whose deep, resonant voice became one of the most recognizable in the world, has passed away at the age of 93.
Jones once said he earned only $9,000 for his role in the first “Star Wars” film and considered it just a special effects job. He didn’t even request to be credited in the first two movies.
Throughout his illustrious career, Jones garnered numerous accolades, including Tony Awards for The Great White Hope (1969) and Fences (1987) on Broadway. He also won two Emmy Awards in 1991 for his work in Gabriel’s Fire and Heat Wave on television, as well as a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Great American Documents in 1977. Although James Earl Jones never won a competitive Academy Award, he was nominated for Best Actor for the film adaptation of The Great White Hope and was given an honorary Oscar in 2011.
Jones began his movie career with the role of Lieutenant Luther Zogg in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classic Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. His career later featured acclaimed roles such as novelist Terence Mann in Field of Dreams (1989) and South African Reverend Stephen Kumalo in Cry, the Beloved Country (1995). He also starred in numerous films including Conan the Barbarian, Coming to America, The Sandlot, Matewan, The Hunt for Red October, and Field of Dreams.
Actor James Earl Jones, who famously voiced “Star Wars” villain Darth Vader and Mufasa in “The Lion King,” has passed away. His agent confirmed Jones died Monday morning at home. The cause was not immediately clear.
ESTRANGED FROM FATHER
James Earl Jones was born on January 17, 1931, in the small community of Arkabutla, Mississippi, into a family with a mixed ethnic background of Irish, African, and Cherokee. His father, Robert Earl Jones, a prizefighter-turned-actor, left the family shortly after James’s birth. Raised by his maternal grandparents, Jones was forbidden from seeing his father, and they only reconnected when Jones moved to New York in the 1950s. Eventually, the two appeared together in several plays.
Around the age of five, Jones’ grandparents moved the family from Mississippi to a farm in Michigan. It was during this time that he developed a stutter and stopped speaking. He was mostly silent for a decade until a ploy by his high school English teacher got him to speak up. The teacher made Jones recite to the class a poem that he said he had written to prove he was familiar enough with it to be the author. This moment sparked Jones’ journey toward overcoming his speech impediment.
Although after that, he said he still had to choose his words carefully, Jones eventually gained control over his stutter and developed a passion for acting. After studying drama at the University of Michigan, he moved to New York, where his theater performances increasingly attracted critical attention and acclaim.
Jones’ breakthrough role on Broadway was “The Great White Hope,” where he played a character based on Black heavyweight champion Jack Johnson. The play examined racism through the lens of the boxing world, and critics raved about Jones’ performance.
Throughout his long career in theater, Jones became a popular draw for his leading roles in Shakespearean classics such as Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, and Othello. He also gave notable performances as singer-actor-activist Paul Robeson in a 1977 Broadway production and as author Alex Haley in the television mini-series Roots: The Next Generation.
In a 1987 review of Fences, The Washington Post wrote that Jones was “capable of moving in seconds from boyish ingenuousness to near-biblical rage, while somehow suggesting all the gradations in between.”
Jones’ first wife was Julienne Marie Hendricks, one of his co-stars in Othello. He later married actress Cecilia Hart, who passed away in 2016. Together, they had one child, Flynn Earl Jones.
James Earl Jones with his honoroary Oscar at the 84th Annual Academy Awards show at the Hollywood and Highland Center in Los Angeles, CA on February 26, 2012.
