Legendary star of stage and screen James Earl Jones has passed away at the age of 93, it has been confirmed. The EGOT winning actor, whose inimitable baritone brought life to the likes of The Lion King's Mufasa and Star Wars villain Darth Vader, died this morning at his home in Dutchess County, New York, Jones’ representatives shared with Deadline.
Born in Arkabutla, Mississippi on 17 January, 1931 to Ruth and Robert Earl Jones, it may surprise you to learn that James Earl Jones — one of the great masters of oration across film, TV, and theatre — overcame great struggles to gain control of his voice as a child. Having moved from Mississippi to Michigan to live with his maternal grandparents at just 5 years of age, Jones grew up with a profound stutter, and has in the past gone on record describing how he was all but mute throughout primary and early secondary school. Until, that was, an influential English teacher helped him take his proclivity for written poetry and use it to read his work aloud to his classmates, setting a young Jones on a life-changing path.
Having found his voice, James Earl Jones — after stints studying to become a physician and training with the Reserve Officers' Training Corps — graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Drama, in 1955. Within the decade that followed, Jones — a trailblazer for Black artists in post-war America — rose to prominence first as a formidable Shakespearean actor on stage, and then as one to watch on screen too thanks to an eye-catching turn as bombardier Lt. Lothar Zogg in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 satire Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb. Jones' growing stature treading the boards and appearing before the camera convalesced with his ferocious turns in both the play and subsequent movie adaptation of Howard Sackler's The Great White Hope, an incendiary, racially charged boxing drama. In both the stage and screen versions of the story, Jones made the role of Jack Jefferson — a troubled prizefighter whose story is based on Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion of the world — entirely his own. For the play, Jones won his first of Two Tony awards, and for the 1970 film — in which he stars opposite Jane Alexander — he followed in Sidney Poitier's footsteps to become only the second African-American to land a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
Throughout the 70s, Jones continued to add impressive new notches to his acting belt, making a transcendent turn as the first Black American president in 1972 political drama The Man and garnering a Golden Globe nomination for his work in John Berry's groundbreaking 1974 comedy-drama Claudine. But whilst James Earl Jones had become a widely recognised figure for his work in theatres and on film by 1977, it was the power of his imperious voice alone as cinema's ultimate villain Darth Vader in George Lucas' Star Wars that catapulted the actor into the stratosphere of Hollywood's all-time greats. Jones was paid just $7,000 for his voice work on that first Star Wars film, and relinquished his credit on the space opera out of respect for David Prowse, the man in the iconic black suit. Suffice it to say, that $7,000 may just have been the best deal Lucasfilm and Fox ever struck; it would be no exaggeration to say that it is Jones' voice, and could only ever have been Jones' voice, that granted the Sith Lord immortality.
In the intervening years between and following Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Return Of The Jedi, Jones continued to put his commanding presence to potent use in further blockbuster hits Conan The Barbarian and Eddie Murphy comedy Coming To America, bagging a second Tony Award in-between for his work originating the role of Troy Maxson in August Wilson's 1985 play Fences (itself later an Oscar winning Denzel Washington film). Further noteworthy roles for Jones — whose monumental body of work on-screen spans over 80 films and shows — in the late 80s heading into the early 90s came in the form of a twofer of terrific baseball movies, with the thespian appearing as writer Terrence Mann in 1989's Field Of Dreams and as blind ex-baseball player Mr. Mertle in 1993's The Sandlot. Jones also memorably played Deputy Director of the CIA Vice Admiral James Greer in a trio of Tom Clancy adaptations (The Hunt For Red October, Patriot Games, and Clear And Present Danger), and — in one of the all-time great The Simpsons guest appearances — he lent his rolling thunder of a lower register to the narrator of 'The Raven' segment in the inaugural Treehouse Of Horror.
For most actors, to have voiced one of the most universally recognisable characters in cinema history would be more than enough. But, in 1994, James Earl Jones lent his Shakespearean gravitas and magisterial tone to the role of Mufasa in Disney's beloved animated classic The Lion King, ensuring that we — and each subsequent generation who undertakes the rite of passage that is gawping in awe at the magnificence of Mufasa before mourning his shocking death — will forever remember who he is.
There are dozens more roles of James Earl Jones' — from across a career spanning several forms and over seven decades — that could and almost certainly will be discussed in the days, weeks, months, and years to come. (John Sayles' Matewan is a must-see, and don't sleep on Sneakers, either.) And already, within just hours of news of Jones' passing, tributes are flooding in for the genial acting giant. Barry Jenkins, director of Moonlight and the upcoming Mufasa: The Lion King took to X to share a photo of a young Jones alongside a caption simply reading "Forever and always." Jones' Guyana Tragedy: The Story Of Jim Jones co-star LeVar Burton paid tribute to a singular peer, writing "there will never be another of his particular combination of graces." And Mark Hamill, who of course played Jones' on-screen son Luke Skywalker in Star Wars and created one of cinema's greatest ever moments with the "I am your father" reveal in Empire Strikes Back, simply and poignantly wrote "RIP Dad."
Having earned a Kennedy Center honour in 2002, a Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009, an honorary Oscar in 2011, and a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award in 2017 — as well as a Grammy back in 1977 for a spoken word album — Jones is one of the rare few talents to have ever attained EGOT status. But beyond the awards that he won during his illustrious career, James Earl Jones' vast body of work — filled with performances that will undoubtedly continue to entertain, educate, inspire, and awe audiences for years to come — speaks to the incredible character and profound humanity of a man who had to fight to find his voice, and then spent his life giving it to the world, leaving us all changed in ways both great and small for having beheld it.
James Earl Jones is survived by his son Flynn Earl Jones, and our thoughts and deepest condolences are with his friends, family, and loved ones at this difficult time.