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About James Earl Jones:
American actor James Earl Jones was born on January 17, 1931. James went on to become well-known for his role as Darth Vader’s voice in the Star Wars film series and starred in a number of other popular plays and movies. Jones received an honorary Academy Award in 2011 in addition to winning Tony Awards for his roles in Fences and The Great White Hope.
For his roles on theatre and television, he has been called “one of America’s most distinguished and versatile” performers and “one of the greatest actors in American history”. He has won two Grammy Awards, three Tony Awards, and two Emmy Awards in his career. In 1985, he received induction to the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
Quick Facts:
- Birth Name: James Earl Jones
- Birth Date: January 17, 1931
- Birth Place: Mississippi, United States
- Gender: Male
- Career: Actor
- Most Known For: The actor from America who played Darth Vader in the “Star Wars” film series is James Earl Jones. Along with a variety of TV series, he is also well-known for his roles in the motion pictures The Great White Hope, Coming to America, The Hunt for Red October, and Field of Dreams.
Early Life:
On January 17, 1931, James Earl Jones was born in Arkabutla, Mississippi. His parents, Robert Earl Jones, a boxer, butler, and driver, and Ruth, a teacher and maid, raised him. Shortly after James Earl’s birth, his father abandoned the family to pursue a career as a stage and movie actor in New York and Hollywood. It wasn’t until the 1950s that Jones and his father got back together after they became connected.
Jones was raised by his maternal grandparents starting at the age of five. The move to live with his grandparents in Michigan was difficult for Jones, who also developed a severe stammer that prevented him from speaking. He attributes his decision to come out of quiet to Donald Crouch, his English instructor, who found he had a talent for poetry.
Jones was vice president of his class at Dickson Rural Agricultural School in Brethren, Michigan, where he completed his education in 1949. He was a pre-med major at the University of Michigan when he first enrolled. He became a standout member of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. Jones found out throughout his studies that he was not suited to become a doctor.
Rather than fighting in the Korean War, he decided to concentrate on acting at the University of Michigan in order to accomplish something he liked before he was forced to leave. Jones completed his four years of education, earning a Bachelor of Arts with a theatre concentration from the institution in 1955.
Career:
Early Career on Stage and breakthrough into Television roles:
In the late 1950s, James Earl Jones made his Broadway debut in the production of Sunrise at Campobello. He played a range of parts for the stage, screen, and television over a number of years. Jones participated in the Shakespeare in the Park initiative, making his stage debut in one of the program’s inaugural performances in 1962. In 1964, he delivered an outstanding performance as Othello’s title character, a role he would go on to play several times.
As one of the most well-known Shakespearean performers of the early to mid-1960s, Jones performed in a number of Shakespeare plays. He took on parts in plays such King Lear and Othello, A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s Oberon, Measure for Measure’s Abhorson, and Hamlet’s Claudius.
Jones received his first Emmy Award nomination in 1963 for his work on the television series East Side/West Side. He portrayed Lieutenant Lothar Zogg in Stanley Kubrick’s military comedy Dr. Strangelove the same year, which starred George C. Scott and Peter Sellers. He also played physicians in two soap operas, Guiding Light and As the World Turns, in the middle of the 1960s.
In 1968, Jones made his theatrical debut in the Broadway drama The Great White Hope, playing boxer Jack Jefferson, a persona modelled on actual fighter Jack Johnson. His first Tony Award was won by him for the performance. In addition, he appeared in the play’s 1970 film adaptation, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award.
Jones kept on his theatrical career, participating in a number of Broadway shows in the 1970s and 1980s. He starred in several performances, including the 1978 two-man play Paul Robeson and the 1974 staging of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. With his performance in the August Wilson play Fences, Jones took home his second Tony Award in 1987.
Star Wars, Coming to America, The Hunt for Red October and The Lion King:
Jones kept up his career on television, costarring with Diahann Carroll in the drama/comedy Claudine in 1974. He also played author Alex Haley in the critically acclaimed Roots miniseries in 1977 and its follow-up The Next Generations in 1979.
Jones, who gained notoriety for his unusually deep and rich voice, started one of his most famous movie roles in the late 1970s. He voiced Darth Vader in George Lucas’ Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Return of the Jedi (1983).
Jones frequently portrayed powerful, authoritative roles in films. In the 1982 Arnold Schwarzenegger film Conan the Barbarian, he played the villain Thulsa Doom. In the 1988 film Coming to America, he played the King opposite Eddie Murphy, a prince.
The Hunt for Red October (1990) saw him next assume the position of an admiral, which he later returned to in Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994). He provided the formidable voice of Mufasa for the popular animated picture The Lion King in the same year.
Gaining ranks in the movie Industry:
In 1991, Jones’s starring performance in the dramatic series Gabriel’s Fire and his supporting role in the miniseries Heat Wave earned him two Emmy Awards, demonstrating his success in television as well. As a result, he made history as the first actor to win two drama Emmys in the same year. In the 1990–1991 television series Gabriel’s Fire, he played a former police officer who was freed from jail following a murder conviction.
In 1995, Jones made another attempt at a television series, this time with the little drama Under One Roof. Along with other series, he has guest starred in Touched by an Angel, Frasier, Stargate SG-1, The Simpsons, Everwood, and The Big Bang Theory.
Jones has remained in high demand as an actor and manages to balance a number of stage and cinema jobs. For his performance in On Golden Pond, he was nominated again for a Tony Award in 2005 for Best Leading Actor in a Play. Leslie Uggams acted as a co-star in the show.
Three years later, alongside Terrence Howard, Anika Noni Rose, and Phylicia Rashad, he portrayed Big Daddy in the African American adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ beloved Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Afterwards, Jones performed with another icon, Vanessa Redgrave, in the Broadway version of Driving Miss Daisy in 2010. Subsequent productions included The Best Man (2012), You Can’t Take It With You (2014), and The Gin Game (2015), which costarred Cicely Tyson, another Tony winner.
2012 – Recent Times:
Jones received his fourth Tony nomination in 2012 for his role in Gore Vidal’s production of The Best Man. During this period, he made another appearance on the big screen in the 2013 drama Gimme Shelter alongside Vanessa Hudgens and Rosario Dawson. He also acted in the dramatic comedy The Angriest Man in Brooklyn alongside Peter Dinklage and Mila Kunis.
Alongside actress Sharon Stone, Jeff Hephner, Jamey Sheridan, and other cast members, Jones played as Chief Justice Caleb Thorne in the American drama series Agent X in 2015.
In Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), Jones made a three-word cameo as Darth Vader, and he formally returned to the role for the character’s appearances in both the live-action film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) and the animated TV series Star Wars Rebels.
He was the only member of the original cast to return to the role of Mufasa in the 2019 CGI version of The Lion King, directed by Jon Favreau.
In Coming 2 America (2021), the follow-up to Coming to America (1988), Jones played King Jaffe Joffer once more. His voice was utilized for Darth Vader in the Disney+ miniseries Obi-Wan Kenobi in 2022 using the Respeecher program.
Jones inked a contract with Lucasfilm during production, giving permission for his voice to be utilized in the future to create Darth Vader’s voice artificially. Jones declared in September 2022 that he will step down from Darth Vader’s voice, with artificial intelligence (AI) speech software utilizing Jones’s backlog of recordings to generate Vader’s voice in the future.
Personal Life:
Jones met Julienne Marie, an actress and singer, in 1964 while playing Othello. The two were married in 1968. They separated in 1972 and never had children. He wed the actress Cecilia Hart in 1982, and the two had a son named Flynn. Hart passed away on October 16, 2016, due to ovarian cancer.
For the first time in almost two decades, Jones discussed his type 2 diabetes as a long-term health issue in public in April 2016. His doctor discovered he had dozed off during a workout at a gym, leading to his diagnosis in the mid-1990s.
