Despite his imposing stature it was his voice that James Earl Jones that really distinguished him in so many roles none more so than that of Darth Vader in Star Wars
Born on 17th January 1931 in Mississippi to a mother who was a teacher and a father who had been a butler, chauffeur and part time actor and but his father soon left home after Jones was born leaving him to be raised on a farm with his maternal grandparents.
As a child he suffered from stuttering speech. So bad was it that aged 8 he stopped talking embarrassed by the affliction. It was an English teacher who helped him overcome the impediment by encouraging Jones to begin reading poetry aloud to help him control it. His confidence grew and he even joined the school debating society.
After leaving from University in 1953 he resumed there later graduating in 1955 after which he joined the army and served in the Korean war. After this began working as a stage manager and then an actor in Michigan. In 1955 aged only 24 he played Othello and soon after Jones moved to New York with his family where he joined his father who was also working there. Having studied at Lee Stasburg’s workshop Jones made his Broadway debut in 1958 in a play about President Roosevelt. But it was Shakespearean plays where he began to excel in the early 1960’s although he also landed a small role in Kubrick’s ‘Dr Strangelove’.
Around the same time boxer Muhammad Ali had been suspended from boxing having refused military service and Jones appeared in the hit play The Great White Hope where his notices were superb. He stayed on Broadway appearing work that took in adaptations of Chekhov plays and Steinbeck novels. But he began taking more roles , albeit minor, in films throughout the 1970’s and the early part of the decade had seen a short lived marriage to Julienne Marie end after just four years in 1972
But 1977 saw fledgling director George Lucas cast him as the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars. His voice was far more ominous and threatening than the Bristol burr of Dave Prowse who was in the suit and was saying the words on set. James earl Jones declined a screen credit until the third film ‘Return of the Jedi’ and the re-releases of the trilogy in 1997. His other famous film that took advantage of his rich vocals was the blockbuster, The Lion King.
He became much in demand for the rest of the following decades both on stage in film and on TV. His film output was diverse taking in films as varied as Conan the Barbarian, Coming to America, Field of Dreams, and even The Naked Gun 3. His delivery of lines was always deliberate and often with pauses and was a technique he had learned to overcome his childhood stammer in adult life.
He never won an Oscar and was nominated only once for The Great White Hope (1971) but he received the National Medal of the Arts from President George Bush at the White House in 1992, Kennedy Centre Honours in 2002, an honorary Oscar in 2011 for lifetime achievement, and in 2017 a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement, as well as an honorary doctor of arts degree from Harvard University. He arguably had a greater career on stage despite numerous high profile films and the Cort theatre was renamed the James Earl Jones theatre in 2022. His last on screen role was the underwhelming Coming 2 America which he followed in his last role returning to voice Darth Vader in the 2022 TV series, ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’.
He second wife was Cecelia Hart who he married in 1982 and they were together for 34 years and had one son. She died in 2016.
James Earl Jones died on 9th September 2024 aged 93.
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