James Earl Jones, one of the world’s greatest stage, screen and voice actors, died on Monday at his New York home at the age of 93.
Jones was among the most notable African-American actors and one of the very few performers to have won the ‘EGOT’ (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) quartet of awards for TV, music, film and stage work.
Although he had an imposing stage and screen presence, Jones’ trademark was his “booming basso profundo, conveying instant dignity or menace,” as CNN put it. The cable network hired Jones to record their famous “This is CNN” tagline, after hearing his voice work as Darth Vader in the ‘Star Wars’ trilogy.
Jones was also known for voicing Mufasa in Disney’s ‘Lion King’ franchise.
Born in Mississippi in 1931, Jones overcame a stutter and studied drama before getting a commission into the US military. He never deployed to Korea, however, and ended up working as a janitor in a Michigan theater after mustering out. His first stage role was Othello in the William Shakespeare play of the same name, in the mid-1950s.
His first film role was in Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Dr. Strangelove’ (1964), after which he got a starring role in the screen adaptation of ‘The Great White Hope’ (1970), having won a Tony for the stage production the year prior.
In the 1980s, Jones continued to act on stage, but had notable roles in Hollywood blockbusters ‘Conan the Barbarian’ (1982, as the villain Thulsa Doom), ‘Coming to America’ (1988 as King Jaffe Joffer), and Field of Dreams (1989, as Terence Mann).
During the 1990s, Jones played Admiral James Greer in three film adaptations of Tom Clancy’s thrillers, The Hunt for Red October (1990), Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), the latter two with his ‘Star Wars’ co-star Harrison Ford.
Jones had retired from stage and TV screen by 2017, and his last movie role was in 2021’s ‘Coming 2 America,’ a sequel to the 1988 Eddie Murphy comedy. He also signed a deal with Lucasfilm that will allow the company to use the archival recordings of his performance to AI-generate the voice of Darth Vader in the future.