James Earl Jones Dies at 93
James Earl Jones, the iconic actor best known for voicing Darth Vader in the Star Wars saga and Mufasa in The Lion King, has died. He was 93.
Jones’s death was confirmed by his rep to Variety. He died in his home in Dutchess County, N.Y., and a cause of death was not disclosed.
Jones’s remarkable career on stage, screen and television spanned eight decades. He received numerous honors, including two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, a Grammy Award, the National Medal of the Arts in 1992, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2002 and various lifetime achievement awards.
Jones’s one-of-a-kind voice is instantly recognizable and is remarkable considering he dealt with a severe stutter for most of his childhood. The stutter was so bad that Jones spent eight years as a child refusing to speak. He told The Daily Mail in 2010, “Stuttering is painful. In Sunday school, I’d try to read my lessons and the children behind me were falling on the floor with laughter.”
Jones learned to work with the challenges of having a stutter thanks to an English teacher named Donald Crouch. Jones referred to Crouch as “the father of my voice” to The Daily Mail. Jones added, ” … He got me engaged in the debating class, the dramatic reading class and so on. He got me talking, and reading poetry – Edgar Allan Poe was my favorite.”
Jones graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in drama in 1955. Around that time, he began his career on the stage of the Ramsdell Theatre in Manistee, Mich. He made his Broadway debut in 1958 in Sunrise At Campobello at the Cort Theatre, which was renamed the James Earl Jones Theatre in 2022. His two Tony Award wins came in 1969 for Best Actor in a Play in The Great White Hope and in 1987 for Best Actor in a Play in Fences.
In the television world, Jones’s first two credits were on classic soap operas Guiding Light and As the World Turns. The majority of Jones’s television career consists of guest actor roles including appearances in The Big Bang Theory, Frasier, House, The Simpsons, Law & Order, L.A. Law and many more. His two Emmy Award wins came in 1991 for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries for Heat Wave and Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series for Gabriel’s Fire.
Of course, most know Jones for his film career, which began in the classic 1964 satire Dr. Strangelove. He reprised his stage performance of Jack Jefferson in the 1970 film adaptation of The Great White Hope, which gave Jones his lone Academy Award nomination. His film roles are as diverse as Jones is legendary, from 1982’s Conan the Barbarian to 1988’s Coming to America and its 2021 sequel, Coming 2 America. There’s also his performances in two classic baseball movies: 1989’s Field of Dreams and 1993’s The Sandlot.
While his turn as Mufasa in The Lion King remains one of his most memorable performances, it’s impossible to talk about Jones without mentioning his voice acting as Darth Vader in the Star Wars saga, the defining villain of the classic franchise. Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker, shared the poignant tribute of “#RIP dad” in reaction to Jones’s passing.
