James Earl Jones, the EGOT winner who lent his distinctive voice to such iconic film characters as Darth Vader and Mufasa of “The Lion King,” has died at 93.
He died Monday morning at his home in Dutchess County, New York, according to his representatives.
The actor, who made his film debut in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 black comedy, “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” went on to appear in such beloved films as “Field of Dreams,” “Coming to America” and “Conan the Barbarian.” He also authoritatively told viewers, “This is CNN.”
A powerful presence onscreen, Jones was also known to several generations as the voice of the terrifying “Star Wars” villain Darth Vader in George Lucas’ original “Star Wars” trilogy, as well as the regal Mufasa in both versions of Disney’s “The Lion King.”
Jon Favreau, who directed the 2019 remake of the animated classic, explained that although the voice roles for several other characters were recast, he insisted on bringing Jones back.
“If you think that you are moved and have deep feelings when you hear his voice in our trailer, you can imagine what that must have felt like actually hearing him do it live,” the director told EW. “I felt something very powerful happening.”
Jones was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his role in the 1970 boxing drama, “The Great White Hope,” the role which earned him his first Tony award. “[It] put me on the cover of Newsweek magazine,” and made him realize he could actually earn a living as an actor, he told NPR in 2014.
He was presented with an honorary Oscar the night of the 2011 Governor’s Awards. Though he was not present to accept the award in person, he accepted it from the stage in London where he was performing “Driving Miss Daisy” with Vanessa Redgrave.
“Even before I met James Earl Jones, I felt that I knew him,” presenter Ben Kingsley said at the time. “There’s a familiarity about his every aspect, his imposing physical presence, his 1,000-kilowatt smile and his basso profondo voice with which he’s graced some of the best-loved characters in cinema.”
Jones was nominated for eight Emmys and won two, both in 1991: Lead Actor in a Drama series for “Gabriel’s Fire,” in which he played a former Chicago police officer who had been wrongfully convicted of murder 20 years earlier; and Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Special for Kevin Hooks’ TV film about the 1965 Watts riots, “Heat Wave.”
He won his second Tony Award in 1987 for August Wilson’s “Fences” and received a Special Tony Award in 2017, the year he also starred on Broadway in “The Gin Game.” In 1977, Jones won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album for “Great American Documents” and, in 2008, was presented with the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.
Notably, the actor overcame a stuttering problem he had as a child that left him nearly mute. “In Sunday school, I’d try to read my lessons and the children behind me were falling on the floor with laughter … by the time I got to school, my stuttering was so bad that I gave up trying to speak properly,” he told The Daily Mail in 2010.
An interest in poetry and acting helped him learn to control his stutter, but he said it never fully went away. “I don’t say I was ‘cured.’ I just work with it,” he told NPR in 2014.
Despite the numerous accolades he won throughout his career, he added, “I’m still a journeyman actor. But you’re on a journey — and it’s one foot in front of the other. I think I’m very fortunate that I can earn a living doing something that I really find enjoyable. I’d like to keep doing it. And there’s some plays I’d like to do still, some characters I’d like to explore and there’s always good actors to work with.”
In 2022, he retired as the voice of Darth Vader, but gave permission to a Ukrainian company to create an AI version of his famous voice.
Deadline first reported the news.
