By Robert D. McFadden
James Earl Jones, a boy who once struggled with a stutter on a farm, evolved into a thunderous voice as one of America’s most multifaceted actors throughout a stage, film, and television career touching on race relations, Shakespeare’s emotional tragedies, and the intimidating presence of Darth Vader, died Monday at his home in Dutchess County, New York. He was 93.
The news was confirmed by his agent, Barry McPherson, who released a statement regarding his passing.
From humble beginnings working in a diner and residing in a $19-a-month cold-water flat, Jones ascended to the heights of Broadway and Hollywood stardom through talent, ambition, and extraordinary vocal abilities. Abandoned by his parents as a child, raised by a racist grandmother, and silenced for years by his stutter, he overcame these challenges with a remarkable determination. These experiences profoundly influenced his success.
Playwrights like Howard Sackler and August Wilson contributed significantly to his journey, allowing a young actor to examine racial hatred within the national narrative; television soap operas that boldly showcased a Black man in the role of a doctor during the 1960s; and George Lucas’ choice to assign an enigmatic, resonant African American voice to the sinister Darth Vader were also pivotal in shaping his career.
Much of his accomplishments stemmed from Jones’ efforts: a prolific array of works comprising numerous plays, nearly 90 television dramas and series, and around 120 films. Notable projects included his uncredited voice work in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, the recognized voice role of Mufasa in Disney’s 1994 animated classic “The Lion King,” and his return to the character in Jon Favreau’s 2019 computer-animated remake.
Jones was not a traditional matinee idol in the vein of Cary Grant or Denzel Washington. However, his robust Everyman physique suited a variety of roles, and his powerful range and nuance often drew comparisons to Morgan Freeman. While he wasn’t a singer, his voice, despite its lesser power, occasionally drew parallels to renowned Paul Robeson. Throughout his career, Jones amassed Tonys, Golden Globes, Emmys, Kennedy Center honors, and an honorary Academy Award.
Amidst the demanding artistic and competitive rigors of continual stage work and extensive commitments to television and film — pressures that can lead to burnout for many performers — Jones remained steadfast. He once appeared in 18 plays over the span of 30 months and regularly took part in multiple films each year, in addition to his television commitments. He maintained this pace for half a century, delivering countless performances that captivated audiences, moviegoers, and critics alike.
Audiences were enchanted by his commanding presence. Standing 6 feet, 2 inches and weighing 200 pounds, he commanded the stage with his broad chest and expressive performances, delivering lines with fervor to rows of spellbound viewers. His voice conveyed the intensity of Lear’s descent into madness, Othello’s soothing whisper to Desdemona, and Oberon’s final joy for Titania, the fairy queen on a midsummer night.
He enjoyed portraying roles ranging from kings and generals to garbage collectors and bricklayers; delivering Shakespeare in Central Park and the works of August Wilson and Athol Fugard on Broadway. He had the ability to embody lechery or unleash fury while also portraying tender vulnerability; playing the brazen Big Daddy in Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (2008) or an elderly Norman Thayer Jr. facing his mortality in “On Golden Pond” (2005).
Some theatergoers, aware of Jones’ childhood challenges, noticed subtle pauses in his line delivery. These pauses were intentional, he explained, a self-restraint technique developed by those who stutter to manage their involuntary repetitions. Far from diminishing his clarity, these moments often intensified the emotional depth of his scenes.
Another technique he employed involved standing alone in a darkened wing for several minutes before the curtain rose, centering himself while silently conjuring the emotion necessary for the opening scene. This routine became a nightly practice during his performances of Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Fences” (1987), in which Jones played a sanitation worker reflecting on lost dreams, his once-bright baseball prospects hindered by systemic racial barriers. This production lasted for 15 months on Broadway, earning Jones a Tony for best actor.
Voice of Vader
Jones’ approach in the original “Star Wars” trilogy — “A New Hope” (1977), “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980), and “Return of the Jedi” (1983) — showcased another signature style. To maintain Vader’s imposing presence — a voice that complemented his dark cloak and a helmet that distorted his hissing breath and ominous proclamations — Jones utilized a constrained inflection, nearly monotonal, that lent a menacing tone to every line. (He received credit for his voice in the third film, but at his request, it was not acknowledged in the first two until a special edition rerelease in 1997.)
Jones was among the pioneering Black actors to feature prominently in daytime soap operas, portraying a physician in “The Guiding Light” and “As the World Turns” during the 1960s. Television became an essential part of his career, with appearances in dramatic series like “The Defenders,” “Dr. Kildare,” “Touched by an Angel,” and “Homicide: Life on the Street,” as well as notable miniseries such as “Roots: The Next Generation” (1979), where he played author Alex Haley.
His initial Hollywood role, though small, was unforgettable, playing a B-52 bombardier in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 satirical film “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”
Though critics recognized Jones’ steady rise as an actor, he did not achieve film stardom until 1970, when he portrayed Jack Jefferson, a character inspired by Jack Johnson, the first Black boxing champion, in “The Great White Hope,” a role he had originally performed on Broadway in 1968. He received a Tony for his theatrical work and was nominated for an Oscar for the film adaptation.
While he was not actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement, Jones admitted early in his career that he respected Malcolm X and believed he could have followed a revolutionary path had he not pursued acting.
His contributions to civil rights were reflected in the significant roles he played addressing racial themes — of which there were many. A notable performance was in the 1961 play “The Blacks,” a violent portrayal of race relations penned by Jean Genet. The play featured a predominantly Black cast including Maya Angelou, Cicely Tyson, Louis Gossett Jr., and Billy Dee Williams, some of whom donned disturbing white masks while dramatizing the rape and murder of a white woman in a mock tribunal setting. Jones portrayed the captivating and brutal lead, a performance so emotionally exhausting that he left the production and rejoined the cast multiple times throughout its 3-1/2-year off-Broadway run.
However, this experience helped him clarify his views on race. “Through that role,” he remarked in a 1967 interview with The Washington Post, “I came to realize that the Black man in America is the tragic hero, the Oedipus, the Hamlet, the Macbeth, even the working-class Willy Loman, the Uncle Tom and Uncle Vanya of contemporary American life.”
James Earl Jones was born on January 17, 1931, in Arkabutla, Mississippi, to Robert Earl and Ruth (Connolly) Jones. Around the time of his birth, his father left to pursue aspirations in boxing and acting. His mother later divorced him. At around 5 or 6 years old, his often-absent mother remarried, relocating and leaving him in the care of his grandparents, John and Maggie Connolly, on a farm near Dublin, Michigan.
The abandonment by his parents inflicted emotional wounds and psychological scars. He referred to his mother as Ruth — associating her more as an aunt — and called his grandparents Papa and Mama, even though his upbringing there was fraught with difficulties.
“I was raised by a very racist grandmother, who was part Cherokee, part Choctaw, and Black,” Jones disclosed in a 2011 BBC interview. “She was the most bigoted person I have ever known.” She held all white people accountable for slavery, and blamed both Native American and Black people “for letting it happen,” adding to his emotional distress.
Years of Silence
The trauma led to Jones developing a stutter. By age 8, he was stammering so severely and was deeply ashamed of his condition that he ceased all verbal communication, fearing he would only express gibberish. In his rural one-room school in Manistee County, Mississippi, he communicated through written notes. In solitude and despair, he struggled with silence and feelings of isolation for years.
“No matter the age of the character I portray,” Jones stated in a 1968 Newsweek interview, “even while playing Lear, those deep-rooted childhood memories, those frustrations, emerge. I understand this.”
During high school at Brethren, an English teacher, Donald Crouch, began to assist him. He discovered Jones had a knack for poetry and encouraged him to begin writing, gradually getting him to stand and recite his work before the class. Gaining self-assurance, he recited a poem daily in class. His speech difficulties eased. He joined a debate team and participated in oratorical competitions. By his graduation in 1949, he had largely overcome his stutter, though some lingering effects remained.
Jones received a scholarship to the University of Michigan, initially intending to pursue premed studies before joining a drama group. As his passion for acting grew, he switched his focus to drama within the university’s School of Music, Theater, and Dance. He later noted in a memoir that he left college in 1953 before obtaining a degree but returned to complete his studies, earning a degree in drama in 1955.
During his college years, he also enlisted in the Army via an ROTC commitment, later dropping out of infantry Ranger School. His performance during cold-weather training in the Rockies prompted consideration of a military career. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the mid-1953s, following the Korean War, and was elevated to first lieutenant.
In 1955, however, he resigned from the military and relocated to New York, determined to pursue acting. He briefly stayed with his father, whom he had recently met. Robert Jones had a modest acting career and provided encouragement. James found inexpensive accommodations in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, took on menial jobs while studying at the American Theater Wing and Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio.
A Run of Shakespeare
After small roles in minor productions, including three plays alongside his father, he joined Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival in 1960; over several years, he participated in “Henry V,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Richard III,” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” During a long run as Othello in 1964, he fell for Julienne Marie, who played Desdemona.
They married in 1968 but divorced in 1972. In 1982, he wed actress Cecilia Hart, who also portrayed Desdemona opposite one of his Othellos. She passed away in 2016. They welcomed a son, Flynn Earl Jones, who survives him, along with a brother, Matthew.
From the 1970s through most of the ‘80s, Jones was in high demand for theater work in New York, movies in Hollywood, and roles in television across the nation. He occasionally unwound at a retreat near Los Angeles or at his home in Pawling, New York, in Dutchess County.
However, his extended run in “Fences” during 1987 and 1988, including a national tour, became overly demanding. He refrained from returning to Broadway for many years and focused predominantly on films. His remarkable film roles included portraying an oppressed coal miner in John Sayles’ “Matewan” (1987); the monarch of a fictional African nation in John Landis’ comedy “Coming to America” (1988), a role he reprised at the age of 90 in “Coming 2 America” (2021); a disillusioned but resilient writer in “Field of Dreams” (1989); and a South African clergyman in “Cry, the Beloved Country” (1995).
Jones was honored with the National Medal of the Arts by President George Bush at the White House in 1992, received Kennedy Center honors in 2002, was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2011 for lifetime achievement, and in 2017 was presented with a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement, along with an honorary doctor of arts degree from Harvard University.
In 2015, Jones and Cicely Tyson featured in a Broadway revival of D.L. Coburn’s 1976 play, “The Gin Game,” where they portrayed residents of a retirement facility engaging in cordial, and at times less cordial, interactions over a card game. For the 84-year-old Jones, this was his sixth Broadway performance in a decade, as noted by the Times.
In 2022, the century-old Cort Theater on Broadway was renamed the James Earl Jones Theater.
