James Earl Jones: Stage legend, voice of Darth Vader

WASHINGTON — James Earl Jones, a versatile and award-winning American stage and screen actor who used his booming deep voice to bring the iconic “Star Wars” villain Darth Vader to life, has died, his representatives said Monday. He was 93 years old. 

From the works of Shakespeare and August Wilson, to his indelible voiceovers in the blockbuster space saga and as Mufasa in the Disney classic “The Lion King”, Jones earned fans with his ability to play both the everyman and the otherworldly.

He won three Tony awards including a lifetime award, two Emmys and a Grammy, as well as an honorary Oscar, also for lifetime achievement.

In 1971, he became only the second Black man nominated for an Academy Award for best actor, after Sidney Poitier.

All of these accolades were hard-won, as Jones, who was born in segregated Mississippi on January 17, 1931, had to overcome a childhood stutter that often led him to barely speak at all.

“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 told the Daily Mail in 2010.

Reciting his own poetry, at the prodding of an English teacher, helped him to gain control of his voice, which would later be used to strike fear among millions in “Star Wars” as Darth Vader.

Jones did not physically portray the character — David Prowse wore Vader’s black cape and imposing face mask, while Jones offered the voice, oozing the evil power of the Dark Side.

“I am your father,” Vader tells Luke Skywalker, portrayed by Mark Hamill, in a pivotal fight scene in “The Empire Strikes Back” — a twist etched in cinema history.

“He created, with very little dialogue, one of the greatest villains that ever lived,” “Star Wars” creator George Lucas said in 2015 at a ceremony honoring Jones in New York.

From Mississippi, Jones moved to Michigan at age five, where he was raised by his maternal grandparents.

Initially, he studied to become a doctor, and though he shifted his major to drama, and graduated from the University of Michigan, he didn’t initially think about an acting career.

“Even when I began acting studies, I thought about being a soldier,” Jones told PBS public television in 1998.

“And the idea of being an actor didn’t occur to me until after my service was almost finished.”

After university, Jones served in the US Army and then moved to New York to try his luck in acting, working as a janitor at night to make ends meet.

He made his Broadway debut in 1958 in “Sunrise at Campobello” at the Cort Theatre — which in 2022 was renamed the James Earl Jones Theatre.

He tackled many iconic Shakespeare characters on the stage, including Othello and King Lear, but also performed in several Wilson plays, chronicling the Black experience in America.

“On stage, Jones was commanding, powerful. He embodied the elegance and dignity of African American men,” said director Kenny Leon.

But the silver screen eventually came calling.

Admirals and kings 

Jones’ film debut came in 1964 as Lieutenant Zogg in Stanley Kubrick’s Cold War satire “Dr Strangelove”.

Military roles would crop up throughout his career, notably Admiral Greer in three films about Tom Clancy’s beloved character Jack Ryan (“The Hunt for Red October”, “Patriot Games”, “Clear and Present Danger”).

As for kings, he has played a few — King Jaffe Joffer in the Eddie Murphy comedy “Coming to America” (1988) and Mufasa, Simba’s father, in “The Lion King” (1994).

His first major award came in 1969, a Tony for best actor in a play for “The Great White Hope”, in which he portrayed troubled but gifted boxer Jack Jefferson — based on the real-life Jack Johnson, the first Black world heavyweight champion.

Jones revived the role in a film adaptation of the play — earning his sole Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe award for the performance. In 2011, he won an honourary Academy Award.

Even into his 80s, Jones was a force on Broadway, starring opposite Angela Lansbury in “The Best Man” in a 2012 revival — earning another Tony nomination in the process — and with Cicely Tyson in “The Gin Game” in 2015.

And for years, he greeted viewers of the cable news network CNN with the simple phrase: “This is CNN”.

‘Darker voice’ 

But his most famous role was ultimately the one for which he never appeared on screen.

Lucas eventually chose between Jones and film legend Orson Welles for the role.

“George thought he wanted a — pardon the expression — darker voice. So he hires a guy born in Mississippi, raised in Michigan, who stutters and that’s the voice and that’s me,” Jones told the American Film Institute in 2009.

Jones initially did not want to be credited for the film, as he felt his voiceovers were simply part of the movie’s special effects, but eventually conceded, and went on to voice the character in multiple films, television series and video games.

In his 90s, he stepped back from the role. But he signed over the rights to his voice recordings to a start-up that is working with Lucasfilm to preserve and recreate it for future projects using artificial intelligence.

The technology was used in the Disney+ mini-series “Obi-Wan Kenobi” in 2022, according to Vanity Fair.

Jones’ second wife Cecilia died in 2016. They had one son.