The adored stage and movie actor James Earl Jones, who provided his trademark deep voice to Darth Vader in Star Wars and Mufasa in The Lion King, passed away at the age of 93.
Jones, who is regarded as one of the greatest actors of his period, performed in everything from Hollywood successes to Shakespeare. Among the few actors to have won an Oscar, Tony, Grammy, or Emmy is him.
Deadline learned of the actor’s passing from his managers at Independent Artist Group.
Born in Arkabutla, Mississippi on January 17, 1931, James Earl Jones grew up in Dublin, Michigan, under the care of his grandparents. He claims that as a young person, he stutters, even though he would go on to become one of the most well-known voices in the world.
“I had a stammer. In a 1996 interview, Jones recalled that she was unable to speak. “Therefore, I was silent during my first year of school and remained so until I entered high school.” Reading poetry aloud helped him get over his stutter, according to his teacher.
After serving in the US Army during the Korean War, Jones made the decision to get into acting. He supported himself as a janitor while attending classes at the American Theatre Wing. Playing parts like Othello and King Lear, Jones was being known as one of the greatest Shakespearean performers of his period by the 1960s. In addition, he starred as bombadier Lt. Lothar Zogg in Stanley Kubrick’s iconic comedy Dr. Strangelove, which debuted in 1964.
In 1967, he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance as a boxer in The Great White Hope. In the 1970 film adaptation, he played the same part again and was nominated for his first Academy Award.
In the midst of all of his highly regarded acting work, Jones quickly secured his most famous and iconic role—voicing the evil Darth Vader in Star Wars—where he didn’t even need to physically present on site. Jones contributed to the creation of one of the most well-known characters in movie history by dubbing over the lines with his own rich bass voice as David Prowse played Vader in costume.
Although Jones chose not to receive credit for the role at first, it has now grown to be arguably his most well-known performance. For many years, he voiced Vader in the prequel Revenge of the Sith, the spin-off Rogue One, and the two sequels The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Jones left the position in 2022, but he did sign a contract allowing his voice to be used in artificial intelligence and archive recordings in the future.
In the 1994 Disney picture The Lion King, Jones also voiced Mufasa, another well-liked character. Later, in the 2019 remake, Jones took on the same role.
Jones starred in numerous Hollywood productions in the 1980s and 1990s, such as Conan the Barbarian, Coming to America, Field of Dreams, The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, and The Sandlot. While appearing in August Wilson’s original production of Fences, he also took home his second Tony Award.
For his work in television, he was nominated for eight Emmy Awards, and in 1991, he took home two of them: Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for Gabriel’s Fire and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for Heat Wave.
In addition, Jones kept up his Broadway career, appearing in revivals of On Golden Pond, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Driving Miss Daisy, The Best Man, and You Can’t Take it With You throughout the previous 20 years.
Over the course of his highly regarded career, Jones received numerous accolades and achievements. In 2011, he was bestowed with an Honorary Academy Award, which made him one of the few individuals to have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award—a designation known as “EGOT.” In 2022, the James Earl Jones Theatre replaced the Cort Theatre on Broadway in his honor.
Please share this story in remembrance of the legendary James Earl Jones, one of the finest performers of all time 💔.
