James Earl Jones, who provided the voice of “Star Wars” villain Darth Vader, died Monday, Sept. 9, at his home in Dutchess County, New York, at the age of 93.
His representatives at the Independent Artists Group confirmed his death deadline,
Jones received numerous awards throughout his lifetime, even receiving the rare EGOT honor — he won Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Awards (including a Tony for Lifetime Achievement in 2017) and earned an honorary Oscar in 2011.
Born on Jan. 17, 1931, in Arkabutla, Mississippi, Jones' deep, resonant voice brought many animated film characters to life, such as Mufasa in the 1994 Disney-animated hit “The Lion King,” the Voice Box at Hardware Store in 2005's “Robots” and the Giant in the 2009 film retelling of the fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk.”
He also played Mr. Mertle, a former baseball player and owner of the famous Hercules and Goliath, in the 1993 film “The Sandlot,” and played Pendleton in the 2018 drama, “Warning Shot.” He played King Jaffe Joffer in the 1998 hit film, “Coming to America.”
In 2022, Manhattan's Cort Theatre on West 48th Street will be renamed the James Earl Jones Theatre to celebrate his contributions to the stage. It was the same place where he performed “Sunrise at Campobello” in 1958, just a year after his Broadway career began.
Jones's long Hollywood career exceeded expectations.
Jones was mute for approximately eight years, until he was 14, because he suffered from a severe stutter that he developed after coming to Michigan as a young boy. Stuttering Foundation,
According to him, it is suspected that his stuttering was caused by a trauma he suffered during childhood. Time — and it was actually his high school English teacher, the poet Donald Crouch, who helped him overcome it.
When Crouch challenged him to memorize poems and recite them in front of his class, Jones was able to speak more clearly.
“He got me into debate class, dramatic reading class, etc.,” Jones said. the daily mail “He inspired me to talk and read poetry — Edgar Allan Poe was my favorite,” he said in a 2010 interview.
After high school Jones went to the University of Michigan, where he initially studied medicine but later fell in love with acting and switched to drama as his major.
He completed his service as an Army Ranger before moving to New York to study acting. He lived in an apartment for $19 a month and worked odd jobs like scrubbing floors to earn money. Achievement Academy.
In 1961, Jones starred in the U.S. premiere of the play “The Blacks” by Jean Genet, which discussed race, inspired by Ghana's 1957 independence.
The beloved performer won a Tony Award for best actor in a play in 1969 for playing Jack Jefferson in Howard Sackler's “The Great White Hope,” a devastating story about the first black heavyweight boxing champion. Jones was also nominated for an Academy Award for the 1970 film adaptation.
In 1987, he won another Tony Award for playing Troy Maxson in August Wilson's “Fences.” He played a former baseball star who works as a garbage collector in 1957 Pittsburgh.
He won two Primetime Emmy Awards in 1991: for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his role in “Gabriel's Fire”, and for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Special for his role in “Heat Wave”. He won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children. his work on “The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey” in 2001.
But perhaps his greatest notoriety comes from his role as Darth Vader. He has voiced the character for over 50 years, since the first film in the popular series in 1977. From the very beginning, he has been the voice behind the masked character.
However, he said that at first he didn't believe what the script said.
Jones said, “When I first saw the dialogue 'Luke, I'm your father', I said to myself, 'He's lying. I wonder how they're going to present this lie?'” during an appearance In a 2004 documentary about the original “Star Wars” films called “Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy.”
In 2022, at the age of 91, Jones has decided to retire from the role, according to the report. Vanity Fair,
His voice will continue, however, as Jones has signed a contract allowing an artificial intelligence program to recreate his voice for future use, the outlet reported. His voice was used in the 2022 “Obi-Wan Kenobi” miniseries.
Jones was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for the 1970 film “The Great White Hope.” He didn't win the award, but he did receive an Academy Honorary Award in 2011.
He Honors accepted Via a video feed from London, where he was performing in a play called “Driving Miss Daisy,” he said he did not want to disrupt his performance on the show.
He joked during his acceptance speech, “I just want to ask you one question — if an actor's worst nightmare was to be naked on stage and not know his lines, what would you say to that?”
He added: “I'm more than shocked, I've learnt a word here in the UK, they'll say 'I'm stunned'. “It's the only word I can think of that fits this impossible moment in my life.”
During the speech, Jones talked about his first experience seeing a movie while growing up in Mississippi. He recalled sitting on a bench in the dark at age 4 as two shopkeepers stretched a sheet between their shops to screen a film. He desperately wanted the film to end.
The actor recalled, “I jumped under the bench in fear, begged, screamed, 'Stop them, somebody stop them from doing this.' Well, I couldn't stop them, so eventually I joined them.”
He also voices CNN's distinctive promo, “This Is CNN”, which is played during ad breaks.
“I found my voice, I found my voice,” he said during an interview Schubert Organization In 2022, when he visits the theater named after him, he will recall the moment he said his first Broadway line on that very stage.
He revealed that the moment didn't go exactly as planned—he stuttered on his only line during the first performance, and he practiced the line every night for a year.
Jones was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in the 1990s, but did not speak publicly about the condition until 2016, when he appeared on an episode of Rachael Ray's Show.
Jones married actress Julianne Marie in 1968 before divorcing in 1972. He married his late wife Cecilia Hart 10 years later in 1982. Hart died in 2016 after a year-long battle with ovarian cancer.
They both have a son, Flynn, who is 42 years old.
