James Earl Jones is instantly recognizable by his voice.
His deep, resonant bass voice, which could either exude authority or threat, became his trademark. It lent strength to every role he played on stage and screen, particularly memorable as Darth Vader in “Star Wars,” Mufasa in “The Lion King,” and as the voice of CNN.
This unique voice is just one aspect of the many things people will miss about the cherished actor, who passed away on Monday, as reported by his agent. He was 93 years old.
According to his agent, Jones was surrounded by family at the time of his death. The exact cause of his passing was not yet disclosed.
Jones had an illustrious career that lasted over 60 years, starting in a small theater in northern Michigan and progressing to the pinnacle of Hollywood, where he appeared in numerous films and television shows.
Speaking for Darth Vader
During the mid-1970s, the creator of “Star Wars,” George Lucas, initially chose a tall British actor, David Prowse, to portray the character in Darth Vader’s black suit. However, he later felt the need for a different voice for the character.
“George was looking for a more sinister tone,” Jones once shared with the American Film Institute. “I was fortunate to be chosen.”
At the time, no one could have predicted that “Star Wars” would turn into a massive hit, let alone a lasting series and cultural icon. Jones recorded his dialogue in just a few hours and was not credited in the film. He mentioned receiving $7,000 for his work on the movie, which he considered a fair amount.
There were also creative differences between Jones and Lucas regarding the portrayal of Darth Vader.
“I wanted to make Darth Vader more interesting, more subtle, more psychologically oriented,” Jones said. “He (Lucas) said, ‘No, no … you’ve got to keep his voice on a very narrow band of inflection, ‘cause he ain’t human.”
The intense battle between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in the 1980s “The Empire Strikes Back” stands as a pivotal moment in the “Star Wars” saga – highlighted by Jones’ rendition of the iconic line: “No, I am your father!”
Jones mentioned that nearly twenty years after voicing the noble Mufasa for Disney’s animated “The Lion King,” it took him a while to strike the right tone.
“My first mistake was to try and make him regal,” Jones said of the 1994 film. “And what they really needed was something more like me. “They said, ‘What are you like as a father?’ and I said, ‘Well, I’m really a dopey dad.’
“And so they began to impose my facial expressions onto Mufasa, and a different tone of voice. Yeah, he was authoritative, but he was just a gentle dad.”
An accomplished journey
James Jones entered the world in 1931 in Mississippi. His father, Robert Earl Jones, departed from the family prior to James’s birth to pursue an acting career in New York and Hollywood, collaborating with playwright Langston Hughes and eventually landing supporting roles in popular films like “The Sting.”
At the age of five, Jones and his family relocated from Mississippi to Michigan, an unsettling change that led to the development of a stutter. This fear of communication left him nearly silent until high school, where a compassionate poetry teacher inspired him to read his poems aloud, helping him to conquer his speech challenges.
“He began to challenge me, to nudge me toward speaking again … toward acknowledging and appreciating the beauty of words,” Jones said.
Jones pursued his studies in drama at the University of Michigan before serving as an Army Ranger. He then relocated to New York, where he quickly secured leading roles in Shakespearean productions. His film career began in 1964 when he portrayed a bombardier in Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove.”
In 1967, Jones took on the role of troubled boxer Jack Johnson in the stage play “The Great White Hope,” a pivotal performance that earned him a Tony Award. He later reprised this role in the film version three years later, making him only the second African American man, following Sidney Poitier, to receive an Academy Award nomination.
By the mid-1970s, Jones was consistently active in both film and television, maintaining a prolific career that continued for decades. Throughout the next fifty years, he delivered numerous iconic performances, including Alex Haley in the television miniseries “Roots: The Next Generations,” the warlord Thulsa Doom in “Conan the Barbarian,” an African king in “Coming to America,” Kevin Costner’s hesitant recruit in “Field of Dreams,” Admiral Greer in “The Hunt for Red October” and “Patriot Games,” and a South African preacher in “Cry, the Beloved Country.”
The Influence of Voice
In 2019, he reprised his role as Mufasa in Disney’s remake of “The Lion King,” making him the sole cast member to return from the original film.
Throughout his career, he has made guest appearances in numerous television series, ranging from “L.A. Law” to “Sesame Street,” performed regularly on stage, and contributed his rich, resonant voice to various projects, including “The Simpsons” and a widely acclaimed audio rendition of the King James Bible.
Jones noted that many people in public often fail to recognize him until they hear his distinctive voice.
“When you don’t talk it’s like going ninja,” he told Rachael Ray in 2016. “You get in the taxi and say where you’re going and the guy turns around and says, ‘Hey, aren’t you that Darth Vader guy?’”
Throughout his extensive and successful career, Jones received three Tony Awards, two Emmy Awards, a Grammy, a Golden Globe, and many other accolades. Additionally, he provided his voice for CNN’s iconic tagline, “This is CNN,” featuring a notable dramatic pause after “This …”.
“It wasn’t acting. It was language. It was speech,” he said when asked what aroused his passion for acting. “It was the thing that I’d … denied myself all those years (as a boy). I now had a great — an abnormal — appreciation for it.
“And it was the idea that you can do a play — like a Shakespeare play, or any well-written play, Arthur Miller, whatever — and say things you could never imagine saying, never imagine thinking in your own life,” he told the Academy of Achievement in 1996.
“You could say these things! That’s what it’s still about, whether it’s the movies or TV or what. That what it’s still about.”
