James Earl Jones
Each year, it is typical for a prominent celebrity to fall into the pit of death. The celebrity’s death creates a shocking atmosphere among people as they couldn’t believe what they had heard in the first place. Some examples are in 2022 when Kevin Conroy (The man who immortalized Batman by his voice acting) and Jason David Frank (Known for his iconic role of Tommy Oliver in the American superhero franchise known as Power Rangers) or in 2020 when three prominent actors of Bollywood Sushant Singh Rajput, Irfan Khan and Rishi Kapoor with the Basketball legend Koby Bryant passed away unexpectedly.
2024 is also a case that is no exception as this year, various celebrities like Shelley Duvall ( Who is known for her role in The Shining, which was directed by the iconic director Stanley Kubrick ), Sika Anoa’I ( Considered one of the legends of WWE and also the father of Roman Reigns the star wrestler of this organization), Chance Perdomo (Known for this work on Gen V and Sabrina ), Akira Toriyama (The creator of Dragon Ball Z the anime which is one of the most popular among the kids, adults and teenagers on worldwide ) etc. James Earl Jones is the latest addition to this list of unfortunate people like this.
This name might be uncommon for some people, but the people who are passionate fans of Star Wars and Disney animation series (Especially Lion King) will quickly recognize these particular name as their fav characters in this series got immortalized by his iconic acting. The 93-year-old Mississippi-born actor breathed his last breath on 9 September 2024, which brought a massive shock for the people who are ardent fans of entertainment content especially the people who are fan of Darth Vader.
Also, not only his role as a voice actor is limited to the role of Darth Vader and the Lion King franchise, but he also through by voicing various characters on Simpsons (A famous American animated sitcom which satirizes the day-to-day life of Americans ) and provides his voice as a narrator of New Testament ( The second portion of Holy Bible that depicts the life of Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God the King of Heaven his death his resurrection and the journey of Paul The Apostle) that also made him to establish himself as an iconic voice actor for people.
The early life
James Earl Jones was born on January 17, 1931, to an African American family in Mississippi, Arkabutla. Even though he came from an African American family, he, in his later interviews, stated that not only did he carry the bloodline of African ancestry, but through his folks, he carries the ancestry of Native Americans and Irish also.
However, his childhood was a little difficult due to his father, Robert Earl Jones, shortly after his birth, leaving their family to become an established film actor in New York (Ultimately, he succeeded and was one of the top actors of African American origin at that time on Hollywood when the racial discrimination against them was on a high level ).
Due to his father’s absence, James Earl Jones was raised by his maternal grandparents, John Henry and Maggie Connolly, in Michigan.
James Earl Jones is a man who has reached a hugely significant milestone in his career due to his voice, but a most interesting piece of trivia is that when he was a child, he had a problem regarding speaking as he described that due to living with his grandparents on Michigan was horrific for him he developed a stutter that made him act like a mute boy near his classmates in his entire primary and middle school time up until he enrolled in high school whereby the guidance of his English teacher Donald Crouch he helped to get rid of this problem of stutter this also effectively helped him in future on the role of Darth Vader.
Career as a military man
Even though the first love of James Earl Jones was acting for a brief amount of time, he also served in the United States military. It all occurred during his time as a student at the University of Michigan; as he stated in his autobiography (Voices and Silences ), he always found the atmosphere of the military environment quite fascinating, and before he focused on his ambition of being an actor, he wanted to do something that he always has loved. In preparation for drafting into the military, he first joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps of the University of Michigan, and he was so efficient in his training that the university decided to fund his training expenses.
His successful training in the corps finally got noticed by the US Army administrations, and in mid-1953, he was drafted into the army with the possibility of getting deployed to Korea (As during that time, the United States of America and the Soviet Union, both were engaged, onto a fight of taking the administrative control of Korea, a former colony of Japan). After joining the army, he participated in various training in cold weather at Camp Hale in Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. He was soon promoted to first lieutenant but never deployed to Korea.
James Earl Jones was honorably discharged in 1954, maintaining the rank of first lieutenant. After his discharge from the army, he finally pursued becoming a full-time actor. Hollywood still didn’t had an idea that a remarkable character like Darth Vader will be immortalized by an ex military.
The star of Broadway in a tough time
Broadway, put in simple words, is a theater or stage play. Initially, James Earl Jones primary started as a Broadway actor, not in some supporting or character roles but initially as a lead in the 1950s when racism against black people was at its highest point in America, and it was also seen in the entertainment industry (Like for example if there was any black character white actors essayed it with using dark spots and patches by makeup which also use to be dubbed as blackface ) with a limited amount of black artists getting the chance even when they were getting the opportunity they had to have to do such roles which are like blink and miss appearance.
James Earl Jones broke the barrier of racism by not only avoiding to play blink and miss appearance roles but also, in this process, starring in a lead role. He made his debut on Broadway in 1957 in the play titled “The Egghead “, which was written by Molly Kazan. However, by the 1960s, he had started to work primarily on various plays written by William Shakespeare (One of the greatest playwrights of all time in history).
He was referred to the groups of Shakespearean actors (It is mainly those actors that have made their name in theater by playing mostly as a lead in the plays written by Shakespeare, the most famous role James Earl Jones has played based on Shakespeare’s work is playing the lead role in Othello and King Lear.
James Earl Jones was the first actor of African American ancestry to become a star on the Broadway theater of the United States of America another feat of him before essaying the role of Darth Vader.
The transitions from Broadway to films as an actor
The success on Broadway made James Earl Jones get noticed by Stanley Kubrick (A renowned filmmaker of that time ), who cast him in a small but impactful role as Lieutenant Lothar Zogg in his film Doctor Strangelove in 1964, thus making his film debut this particular cinema mainly satirizes that ongoing geopolitical tension which was going that time the Cold War (Mainly the tussle between United States of America and Soviet Union to stop each other ideology on global aspect which is Capitalism and Communism respectively ).
However, the breakthrough that James Earl Jones received in his acting career was not by providing the voice of Darth Vader playing the lead role in the 1970 film The Great White Hope as Jack Jefferson (Which was based on a Broadway play where he was also the lead actor was loosely based on the controversial boxing figure of 1910s America Jack Johnson ) it was critically acclaimed, and he won major awards for it.
And this directly established him as one of the mainstream actors of Hollywood with getting prominent roles on the big budget A list Hollywood films like Claudine (1974), Conan the Barbarian (1982), Field of Dreams (1989) where the role of James Earl Jones and also his acting as of today also is critically acclaimed by peoples and fans alike beside him providing the voice of Darth Vader.
The role of Darth Vader which changed his career
However, for James Earl Jones, a significant change in his career was yet to come, even after he had played such a solid and impactful role as Jack Jefferson. A role was about to come to him for which he would be forever attached. However, a significant fun fact in this process is that James Earl Jones was not even attached to the role in the first place nor even to the whole project.
Star Wars, the space opera fantasy saga that was George Lucas’s brainchild, was in production during the mid-1970s. During production, Lucas wanted the voice of Vader to be performed by David Prowse (The man who was the suit actor in this particular role).
However, during the production time, Lucas realized that if they kept the voice of David Prowse, it would be an ultimate disaster since his voice did not sound anything like which led the audience to be convinced that Darth Vader was a menacing galactic dictator on the likes of Hitler or Mussolini (The both real-life dictator figures whom Lucas was inspired to create this character), but he sounded more like an angry British boss of a company (Fun fact Prowse was British) who is mad at their employees due to them not completing the work in a proper time. The voice of Darth Vader was simply not matching and Lucas knew that he had to fix this particular aspect.
(The video is still available on YouTube when David Prowse performed Darth Vader’s’ voice) which fans described as the proto Rick Moranis version of Spaceballs (The film which was made to parody various space-related franchise like Star wars and also Star Trexx where Rick Moranis played a character parodying Darth Vader ).
This made George Lucas perceive that maybe David Prowse is fine on the level of doing stunts of Darth Vader, but his voice can’t match the vision which he had stored for the character in his vision; the voice was not only filled with deep characteristics but also stood true to his intimidating personality.
Everyone was suggesting him to pick up Orson Welles (The man who changed the film genre by introducing the film Citizen Kane in 1941, which he not only wrote but also produced, directed and starred as a lead), but he feared that his voice as Darth Vader would be too recognizable for a mainstream audience (As they are familiar with his voice for an extended amount of time especially since Mr. Welles was also involved on providing narration for several recognizable films).
Also, he wanted a voice that mainstream audiences couldn’t recognize; in this process, he got in contact with Barry McPherson (Agent of James Earl Jones).. The rest of the part is history. Another fun fact is that James Earl Jones recorded the entire lines of Darth Vader on Star Wars Episode IV in a span of 7 hours, for which he got paid 7,000 Dollars.
After the release of Star Wars Episode IV, people, besides talking about how brilliantly the story is crafted or the direction or even performance of Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher or Alec Guinness, also talking about how brilliant antagonists the character Darth Vader produced for Hollywood since Norman Bates ( The antagonist that appeared on the 1960 film Psycho the evergreen classic film of the renowned English director Alfred Hitchcock ) everyone is also stating that the voice has made Darth Vader climb up on the rank of greatest villains in the cinema industry.
However, James Earl Jones, due to his belief the role was just another work of special effects, didn’t want to take credit. Also, another reason is that out of respect for David Prowse, he felt that since the voice everyone was talking about him taking credit would overshadow the effort Mr. Prowse has made as a suit actor. He is also (For this same reason) uncredited for his voice acting as Darth Vader on Episode V.
(The film where he uttered that iconic dialogue, as Darth Vader the most remarkable twist in the history of the cinematic universe to date, “ No, I’m your father” in the reply of Luke Skywalker, who thought Darth Vader had killed his father but the ultimate twist was Darth Vader was actually his father aka Anakin Skywalker a fallen Jedi ) with finally in 1983 James Earl Jones (With insisting from George Lucas ) finally took the credit of the voice of Vader on Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.
However, the journey of James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader was not limited to 3 films; this was just the beginning of something that will forever make him iconic on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He went on to provide the voice of Darth Vader in several films, animation, theme parks and video games like Star Wars Rebel ( Animated TV show ), Obi-Wan Kenobi ( TV series), Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith ( Film ), Star Tours The Adventure Continues ( A theme park located on Disneyland), Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga ( Video game ).
Just like how Kevin Conroy will forever be the voice for Batman, Mark Hamill for Joker (Fun fact: he also played Luke Skywalker, the hero of the Star Wars franchise and the son of Darth Vader ), James Earl Jones will always be the voice of Darth Vader.
Even though in the future, since he gave up the rights to his voice as Darth Vader to Disney (Who owns Star Wars because they have purchased the company which is Lucasfilms in 2012 that have the license of this galactic space opera series ), the fans can still hear his voice on a future Star Wars installment ( Where the necessity of an appearance of Darth Vader is required ), but this will be entirely done by using AI technology so the natural voice of him as Darth Vader will undoubtedly be miss by the fans.
The legacy didn’t stop on Vader
However, James Earl Jones legacy as a voice actor didn’t stop playing an intergalactic dark lord name Darth Vader but also another character that is still widely recognized by the fans besides Darth Vader. Even though the character didn’t have an entire presence throughout the film, the impact and the presence (For a brief amount of time akin to a special appearance) have made the character on par on the list of memorable characters, and unlike Darth Vader, the personality of this character that, voiced by James Earl Jones is not a full-blown villain, but instead this character is a full-blown heroic nature.
The character in this context is Mufasa, a character who appeared in the 1994 blockbuster animated film of Disney named Lion King (Which is loosely based on the elements of Hamlet ); here, this character is the father of the hero Simba and whose demise set the stage for the entire film ( Later also he appeared as a ghost to adult Simba to guide him ). He was chosen for this particular role as director Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff (The duo which directed this epic blockbuster classic animated film ) felt that the deep booming voice of James Earl Jones suits the character Mufasa (A fearless ruler who rules Pride Rock kingdom that is located on the deep forest of Tanzania ).
By the mannerism of his voice, he gave a new height to the character, and till now, his lines from the original film are quotable and memorable. The popularity of him regarding this character is so high that the 2019 live-action remake of Lion King (It is basically the same story as 1994, but instead, it takes place in the real world with lions being all cultivated through the use of CGI) James Earl Jones was the only original cast member from 1994 to have an involvement on the film that too on the same role what he did on 1994 ( Mufasa the proud king of the Pride Rock Kingdom ).
James Earl Jones has provided the voice of Mufasa four times besides Lion King (1994) and the live-action remake of Lion King (2019). One of them was in The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar (2015), a TV series which aired on Disney Junior and acted as a prequel to The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride, and another is The Lion King: Simba’s Mighty Adventure a video game that was released on 2000.
Prominent awards which he holds off
James Earl Jones has been bestowed with various awards throughout his career. One of them is the Oscars or Academy Award, which he won in 2011 in the category of Lifetime Achievement. Besides that, James Earl Jones also won Emmy Awards two times for his supporting role in Heat Wave and Gabriel’s Fire film in 1990 and 1991, respectively. He also won the Golden Globe Award in 1970 for the category of Best Actor in a Drama Film for The Great White Hope.
In addition to that, he is one of the rare people who is not a professional musician but got a Grammy Award (This is basically an Oscar but for musicians on a large scale ) in 1977; he owns this particular award in the category of Best Spoken Word for Great American Documents.
James Earl Jones was also the first black actor to get the Tony Award (Like the Oscars but for theater actors ) when he won it in 1969 for his performance in the play The Great White Hope in the Best Actor category. He also won for the second and last time in 1987 for his role in Fences in this same category.
End of a legacy
On September 9 2024, when nobody expected that a piece of shocking news would arrive on the doorstep, it finally happened as the death of James Earl Jones surfaced. First, everyone tried to shrug it off as a rumor (As you know, the death hoax of celebrity is a common thing from Rowan Atkinson to the Late Stan Lee; all of them were a victim of it ), but the rumor is no longer a rumor when the shocking news was confirmed as authentic by Barry McPherson (His agent from a long amount of time ).
Reaction to death
Many celebrities in Hollywood and politicians were also stunned by James Earl Jones death. The first one who made comments about this was Denzel Washington (Known for films such as Malcolm X, Inside Man, Philadelphia, etc. as a leading actor.), who paid homage to him and stated that if he became what he is today, it is because he used to idolize him as a kid.
Former President of the USA Bill Clinton took X to express his reaction to the death of James Earl Jones, stating that he would always be grateful for his kindness throughout the years.
Kamala Harris (The current Vice President of America and the presidential candidate for the 2024 election against Donald Trump) has also posted his reaction to the death of James Earl Jones on X . She stated that he is an inspiration because he taught her how to overcome every obstacle to dazzle the world on stage and screen.
Mark Hamill (Who played Luke Skywalker and the son of Darth Vader) expressed his reaction by reposting an article in Variety about his demise, writing #Rip dad with a heartbroken emoji.
Levar Burton (Who is the legend of Star Trexx, a franchise which often being described as the competitor of Star Wars due to the similarities in storyline and visualization ) has also expressed his gratitude for his death on X by stating that there will never be another of this particular combination just like what James Earl Jones had.
The University of Michigan (Where he was an alumni ) and the US Army also posted their reaction on X regarding this news with an emotional note as a video and article, respectively.
FAQ
When did James Earl Jones pass away?
The 93-year-old Mississippi-born actor breathed his last breath on nine September 2024, which brought a massive shock for the people who are ardent fans of entertainment content.
What is some memorable role of James Earl Jones as a voice actor beside Darth Vader and Mufasa?
Also, not only his role as a voice actor is limited to the role of Vader and the Lion King franchise, but he also through by voicing various characters on Simpsons (A famous American animated sitcom which satirizes the day-to-day life of Americans ) and provides his voice as a narrator of New Testament ( The second portion of Holy Bible that depicts the life of Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God the King of Heaven his death his resurrection and the journey of Paul The Apostle) that also made him to establish himself as an iconic voice actor for people.
Where James Earl Jones was raised?
Due to his father’s absence, he was raised by his maternal grandparents, John Henry and Maggie Connolly, in Michigan.
Why did James Earl Jones join the military?
He stated in his autobiography (Voices and Silences) that he always found the atmosphere of the military environment quite fascinating, and before he focused on his ambition of being an actor, he wanted to do something that he always loved.
What was the rank of James Earl Jones in the military?
He was honorably discharged in 1954, maintaining the rank of first lieutenant.
Who wrote the play The Egghead?
The Egghead which was written by Molly Kazan.
What was the subject of the film Doctor Strangelove?
This particular cinema mainly satirizes the ongoing geopolitical tension during the Cold War (Mainly the tussle between the United States of America and the Soviet Union to stop each other’s ideology on global aspects, which is Capitalism and Communism, respectively).
Why didn’t George Lucas use David Prowse’s voice for Darth Vader?
However, during the production time, Lucas realized that if they kept the voice of David Prowse, it would be an ultimate disaster since his voice did not sound anything like which led the audience to be convinced that Darth Vader was a menacing galactic dictator on the likes of Hitler or Mussolini (The both real-life dictator figures whom Lucas was inspired to create this character), but he sounded more like an angry British boss of a company (Fun fact Prowse was British).
How much James Earl Jones was paid for Darth Vader?
He recorded the entire lines of Darth Vader on Star Wars Episode IV in a span of 7 hours, for which he got paid 7,000 Dollars.
What was people’s first impression of Darth Vader after the release of Star Wars Episode IV?
After the release of Star Wars Episode IV, people, besides talking about how brilliantly the story is crafted or the direction or even performance of Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher or Alec Guinness, also talking about how brilliant antagonists the character Darth Vader produced for Hollywood since Norman Bates ( The antagonist that appeared on the 1960 film Psycho the evergreen classic film of the renowned English director Alfred Hitchcock ) everyone is also stating that the voice has made Darth Vader climb up on the rank of greatest villains in the cinema industry.
Why James Earl Jones didn’t take the credit for the voice of Darth Vader in the first two Star Wars films?
However, James Earl Jones, due to his belief the role was just another work of special effects, didn’t want to take credit. Also, another reason is that out of respect for David Prowse, he felt that since the voice everyone was talking about him taking credit would overshadow the effort Mr. Prowse has made as a suit actor. He is also (For this same reason) uncredited for his voice acting as Darth Vader on Episode V.
How many times has James Earl Jones voiced Mufasa?
James Earl Jones has provided the voice of Mufasa four times besides Lion King (1994) and the live-action remake of Lion King (2019). One of them was in The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar (2015), a TV series which aired on Disney Junior and acted as a prequel to The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride, and another is The Lion King: Simba’s Mighty Adventure a video game that was released on 2000.
