James Earl Jones, a talented and award-winning American theater and screen actor who utilized his booming deep voice to bring the renowned “Star Wars” villain Darth Vader to life, died on Monday, his reps announced. He was 93 years old.
From Shakespeare and August Wilson’s works to his unforgettable voiceovers in the blockbuster space saga and as Mufasa in the Disney classic “The Lion King,” Jones won fans for his ability to embody both the everyman and the otherworldly.
He received three Tony awards, including a lifetime award, two Emmys, a Grammy, and an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement.
In 1971, he became only the second Black man to be nominated for an Academy Award for best actor, following Sidney Poitier.
All of these honors were hard earned, since Jones, who was born on January 17, 1931, in segregated Mississippi, had to overcome a childhood impediment that often caused him to barely speak at all.
“Stuttering is painful. In Sunday school, I’d try to read my lessons and the children behind me were falling on the floor with laughter,” Jones told the Daily Mail in 2010.
Reciting his own poetry, encouraged by an English teacher, helped him regain control of his voice, which he would later use to terrorize millions in “Star Wars” as Darth Vader.
Jones did not physically represent the character; David Prowse wore Vader’s black cape and formidable face mask, while Jones provided the voice, oozing malevolent power from the Dark Side.
“I am your father,” Vader tells Luke Skywalker, portrayed by Mark Hamill, in a pivotal fight scene in “The Empire Strikes Back” — a twist etched in cinema history.
“He created, with very little dialogue, one of the greatest villains that ever lived,” “Star Wars” creator George Lucas said in 2015 at a ceremony honoring Jones in New York.
Broadway
From Mississippi, Jones moved to Michigan at age five, where he was raised by his maternal grandparents.
Initially, he studied to become a doctor, and though he shifted his major to drama, and graduated from the University of Michigan, he didn’t initially think about an acting career.
“Even when I began acting studies, I thought about being a soldier,” Jones told PBS public television in 1998.
“And the idea of being an actor didn’t occur to me until after my service was almost finished.”
After university, Jones served in the US Army and then moved to New York to try his luck in acting, working as a janitor at night to make ends meet.
He made his Broadway debut in 1958 in “Sunrise at Campobello” at the Cort Theatre — which in 2022 was renamed the James Earl Jones Theatre.
He tackled many iconic Shakespeare characters on the stage, including Othello and King Lear, but also performed in several Wilson plays, chronicling the Black experience in America.
“On stage, Jones was commanding, powerful. He embodied the elegance and dignity of African American men,” said director Kenny Leon.
But the silver screen eventually came calling.
Admirals and kings
Jones made his film début in 1964 as Lieutenant Zogg in Stanley Kubrick’s Cold War parody “Dr Strangelove.”
Military roles would appear throughout his career, most notably Admiral Greer in three films about Tom Clancy’s popular character Jack Ryan (“The Hunt for Red October,” “Patriot Games,” and “Clear and Present Danger”).
He has played several monarchs, including King Jaffe Joffer in Eddie Murphy’s comedy “Coming to America” (1988) and Mufasa, Simba’s father, in “The Lion King” (1994).
His first major award came in 1969: a Tony for best actor in a play for “The Great White Hope,” in which he played troubled but skilled boxer Jack Jefferson, who was modeled on the real-life Jack Johnson, the first Black world heavyweight champion.
Jones reprised the part in a cinematic adaptation of the play, winning his only Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe Award for his performance. In 2011, he received an honorary Academy Award.
Even in his 80s, Jones was a Broadway presence, appearing alongside Angela Lansbury in a 2012 revival of “The Best Man” (which earned him another Tony nomination) and with Cicely Tyson in “The Gin Game” (2015).
For years, he would greet viewers of the cable news network CNN with the simple phrase “This is CNN.”
‘Darker voice’
However, his most renowned part was one in which he never appeared on screen.
Lucas ultimately decided between Jones and cinema veteran Orson Welles for the part.
“George thought he wanted a — excuse me, darker voice. So he gets a man from Mississippi, raised in Michigan, who stutters, and that’s my voice,” Jones told the American Film Institute in 2009.
Jones first refused to be recognized for the film, believing his voiceovers were simply part of the visual effects, but later agreed and went on to voice the character in several films, television programs, and video games.
In his 90s, he stepped down from the position. However, he gave up the rights to his voice recordings to a start-up that is collaborating with Lucasfilm to preserve and replicate them for future projects involving artificial intelligence.
Vanity Fair reports that the technology was employed in the Disney+ miniseries “Obi-Wan Kenobi” in 2022.
Jones’ second wife, Cecilia, died in 2016. They had one son.