Georgie Hewson and wires
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| James Earl Jones was best known for his role voicing Darth Vader the Star Wars movie franchise. (AP: File) |
Acclaimed actor and voice of Darth Vader James Earl Jones has died aged 93.
His agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed Jones died Monday morning US time at home in New York's Hudson Valley region.
The cause of his death is not yet known.
Over his career Jones received three Tony Awards, two Emmy Awards and a Grammy.
Jones won an honorary Oscar in 2011.
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| James Earl Jones accepts the special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre at the 71st annual Tony Awards in 2017. (AP: File) |
He was one of the first African American actors in a continuing role on a daytime drama for his role in As the World Turns.
He was also a sought-after voice actor, expressing the villainy of Darth Vader ("No, I am your father," commonly misremembered as "Luke, I am your father"), as well as the benign dignity of King Mufasa in Disney's animated The Lion King.
He also lent his voice to CNN, voicing their iconic "this is CNN" introduction and he voiced a King James Version of the Bible.
Bodybuilder David Prowse, who played Darth Vader and wore the costume claimed he didn't know his voice would be dubbed over by James Earl Jones.
Jones was not actually credited for the voice until the third film.
Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader's son, tweeted "RIP Dad" in response to the news.
Some of his other films include Dr. Strangelove, Field of Dreams, The Greatest (with Muhammad Ali), Conan the Barbarian, Three Fugitives and playing an admiral in three Tom Clancy blockbuster adaptations — The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger.
In a rare romantic comedy, Claudine, Jones had an on-screen love affair with Diahann Carroll.
"If you were an actor or aspired to be an actor, if you pounded the payment in these streets looks for jobs, one of the standards we always had was to be a James Earl Jones," Samuel L. Jackson once said.
Jones worked well into his 80s, most recently reprising his role as King Jaffe Joffer in the Coming to America sequel released in 2021.
He appeared in sitcom the Big Bang Theory as himself in 2014.
By the light of an oil lamp
Jones was born by the "light of an oil lamp in a shack in Arkabutla, Mississippi", on January 17, 1931.
His father, Robert Earl Jones, had deserted his wife before the baby's arrival to pursue life as a boxer and, later, an actor.
When Jones was six, his mother took him to her parents' farm near Manistee, Michigan.
His grandparents adopted the boy and raised him.
"A world ended for me, the safe world of childhood," Jones wrote in his autobiography, Voices and Silences.
"The move from Mississippi to Michigan was supposed to be a glorious event. For me it was a heartbreak, and not long after, I began to stutter."
He became virtually mute for years and communicated with teachers and friends through handwritten notes.
After learning that he wrote poetry, his teacher Donald Crouch demanded that he read some aloud to the class.
He did so without stuttering and ended up working with Mr Crouch to restore his normal speech.
He overcame that stutter and racial prejudice to become a celebrated icon of the stage and screen.
Jones attended the University of Michigan where he failed a pre-med exam and then switched to drama.
He served in the US army from 1953 to 1955.
He then moved to New York and lived with his father while attending the American Theater Wing program for young actors.
He and his father waxed floors to support themselves while auditioning for acting jobs.
His breakout role came suddenly in 1970 with The Great White Hope.
Howard Sackler's Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play depicted the struggles of Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight boxing champion, amid the racism of early 20th-century America.
In 1972, Jones repeated his role in the movie version and was nominated for an Academy Award as best actor.
Jones married twice.
He married Julienne Marie Hendricks in 1967.
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| James Earl Jones and his wife Cecilia Hart. (File: AP ) |
After their divorce, he married Cecilia Hart, best known for her role as Stacey Erickson in the CBS police drama Paris, in 1982.
She died in 2016.
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(AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File) VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS |
They had a son, Flynn Earl, born in 1983.
In 2022, the Cort Theatre on Broadway was renamed after him and the New York Mayor Eric Adams along with Samuel L Jackson spoke.
"You can't think of an artist that has served America more," director Kenny Leon told AP.
"It's like it seems like a small act, but it's a huge action. It's something we can look up and see that's tangible.”
First published at ABC News, September 10, 2024
Addendum by site administrator Tony Magee: Every headline and the substance of most reports on the passing of James Earl Jones goes on and on with this obsession of “the voice of Darth Vader”. Let’s get some perspective here. The man appeared in 89 movies as an actor – not just a voice, starting in 1964 with Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove where he played Lt. Lothar Zogg, to Coming 2 America in 2021, as King Jaffe Joffer - his final screen role. He also appeared in 34 stage plays from 1958 to 2016, in lead roles including The Merchant of Venice (as Prince of Morocco), Othello (as Othello), Hamlet (as Claudius), King Lear (as Lear), Of Mice and Men (as Lennie), On Golden Pond (as Norman), Cat On a Hot Tin Roof (as Big Daddy), and Driving Miss Daisy (as driver, Hoke Colburn), the latter opposite Angela Lansbury. The two of them toured Australia with this production in 2013 to sold out houses and rave reviews in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.
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