James Earl Jones, whose career on stage, film and television spanned over six decades, died on Monday, September 9, at the age of 93.
Known the world over as the voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise and as Musafa, King of the Pride Lands in the animated film The Lion King, Jones was one of the rare actors to have garnered EGOT status, winning Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards in his lifetime.
With nearly 200 screen credits to his name, Jones was instantly recognizable by his distinctive, mellifluous voice. Beyond Star Wars and The Lion King, he lent his dulcet tones to numerous commercials for many of America’s blue chip companies. He was especially known for: “Thank you for using a Verizon payphone.”
A great deal of his life was spent onstage. Lucky audiences would have seen him on Broadway as Howard Sackler’s The Great White Hope, in which he played Jack Jefferson, a character based on the Black boxing legend Jack Johnson; South African playwright Athol Fugard’s A Lesson from Aloes and MASTER HAROLD…and the Boys; August Wilson’s Fences; and D. L. Coburn’s The Gin Game. Off-Broadway work included many appearances in plays by Shakespeare, Chekov, and Brecht.
His work in the theatre garnered Tonys, Obies, Drama Desk and Outer Circle Critics’ Awards. His shelf of prizes also includes Emmys, a Grammy, a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award and, in 2011, an Honorary Oscar.
His film appearances run the gamut from the sublime (he made his cinematic debut in Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove) to the ridiculous (wild-eyed British comedian Marty Feldman’s The Last Remake of Beau Geste). That miraculous bass voice still appears in dozens of commercials and video games and cartoons.
Over the course of his life, James Earl Jones was devoted to civil rights. Growing up in a segregated America, he experienced firsthand the injustices of racial discrimination. He spoke out against racism and inequality and worked to promote diversity and inclusion in American theater.
(CNN) — You can’t think of James Earl Jones without hearing his voice.
That booming basso profundo, conveying instant dignity or menace, was Jones’ signature instrument. It brought power to all his stage and movie roles, most indelibly as Darth Vader in “Star Wars,” Mufasa in “The Lion King and as the voice of CNN.
That remarkable voice is just one of many things the world will miss about the beloved actor, who died Monday, according to his agent. He was 93.
Jones was with family when he died, according to his representative. No cause of death was shared.
Jones had a distinguished career that spanned some 60 years and took him from a small-town theater in northern Michigan to the highest reaches of Hollywood, where he appeared in dozens of movies and TV series.
Voicing Darth Vader
In the mid-1970s “Star Wars” creator George Lucas cast towering British actor David Prowse as the guy inside Darth Vader’s black suit, but decided he wanted someone else to voice the character.
Back then nobody imagined “Star Wars” would become a blockbuster, let alone an enduring franchise and cultural phenomenon. Jones recorded all his lines in a few hours and was not listed in the film’s credits. He said he was paid just $7,000 for the movie, “and I thought that was good money.”
The actor and Lucas had disagreements about how he should voice the villainous Vader.
“I wanted to make Darth Vader more interesting, more subtle, more psychologically oriented,” Jones said. “He (Lucas) said, ‘No, no … you’ve got to keep his voice on a very narrow band of inflection, ‘cause he ain’t human.”
Darth Vader’s climactic duel with Luke Skywalker in 1980’s “The Empire Strikes Back” became a dramatic high point in the “Star Wars” series – punctuated by Jones’ delivery of one of the most famous lines in movie history: “No, I am your father!”
Jones said that almost two decades later, when he was voicing the dignified Mufasa for Disney’s animated “The Lion King,” it took him a while to strike the right tone.
“My first mistake was to try and make him regal,” Jones said of the 1994 film. “And what they really needed was something more like me. “They said, ‘What are you like as a father?’ and I said, ‘Well, I’m really a dopey dad.’
“And so they began to impose my facial expressions onto Mufasa, and a different tone of voice. Yeah, he was authoritative, but he was just a gentle dad.”
A prolific career
Jones was born in 1931 in Mississippi. His father, Robert Earl Jones, left the family before James was born to become an actor in New York and Hollywood, working with playwright Langston Hughes and eventually earning supporting roles in hit movies including “The Sting.”
Jones’ family moved from Mississippi to Michigan when he was 5, a traumatic upheaval that caused him to develop a stutter. His fear of speaking rendered him almost mute until he got to high school, where a poetry teacher helped him overcome his disability by encouraging him to read his poems aloud.
“He began to challenge me, to nudge me toward speaking again … toward acknowledging and appreciating the beauty of words,” Jones said.
Jones studied drama at the University of Michigan, served as an Army Ranger and then moved to New York, where he soon landed lead roles in Shakespearean stage productions. He made his film debut in 1964 as a bombardier in Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove.”
In 1967 Jones was cast as troubled boxer Jack Johnson in a theatrical production of “The Great White Hope,” a career-changing role that won him a Tony. He reprised the role three years later in the film adaptation, becoming only the second African American man, after Sidney Poitier, to be nominated for an Academy Award.
By the mid-1970s Jones was working steadily in movies and TV – a prolific run that never slowed. Over the next five decades he appeared in many memorable roles: As Alex Haley in TV’s “Roots:The Next Generations,” warlord Thulsa Doom in “Conan the Barbarian,” an African king in “Coming to America,” Kevin Costner’s reluctant recruit in “Field of Dreams,” Admiral Greer in “The Hunt for Red October” and “Patriot Games” and a South African preacher in “Cry, the Beloved Country.”
The power of speech
In 2019 he again voiced Mufasa in Disney’s remake of “The Lion King,” becoming the only cast member to reprise his role from the first film.
Over the years he also guest-starred in dozens of TV series, from “L.A. Law” to “Sesame Street,” appeared regularly on the stage and lent his deep, rumbling voice to everything from “The Simpsons” to a popular audio recording of the King James version of the Bible.
Jones said people in public sometimes didn’t recognize him until they heard his voice.
“When you don’t talk it’s like going ninja,” he told Rachael Ray in 2016. “You get in the taxi and say where you’re going and the guy turns around and says, ‘Hey, aren’t you that Darth Vader guy?’”
Over his long and prolific career Jones won three Tonys, two Emmys, a Grammy, a Golden Globe and numerous other awards. He also lent his voice to CNN’s tagline, “This is CNN,” complete with a dramatic pause after “This …”
“It wasn’t acting. It was language. It was speech,” he said when asked what aroused his passion for acting. “It was the thing that I’d … denied myself all those years (as a boy). I now had a great — an abnormal — appreciation for it.
“And it was the idea that you can do a play — like a Shakespeare play, or any well-written play, Arthur Miller, whatever — and say things you could never imagine saying, never imagine thinking in your own life,” he told the Academy of Achievement in 1996.
“You could say these things! That’s what it’s still about, whether it’s the movies or TV or what. That what it’s still about.”
James Earl Jones passed away on the morning of Monday, Sept. 9, according to multiple reports, including the Associated Press. His agent, Barry McPherson, reportedly confirmed that he died at his Dutchess County, New York, home. Jones was 93. At this time, his cause of death is not clear.
He was known for his prolific acting resume, including using his captivating voice for Darth Vader and The Lion King. Throughout his career, which continued until his late 80s, Jones became an EGOT winner. He had two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, and a Grammy.
But his accolades didn’t end there. In 1992, former President George Bush awarded James Earl Jones the National Medal of the Arts. A decade later, in 2002, the Kennedy Center honored him. In 2011, he received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement. A few years later, in 2017, he got a special Tony Award for the same reason. That same year, Harvard University awarded him an honorary degree. Most recently, in 2022, the Colt Theatre was renamed in his honor to the James Earl Jones Theatre.
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Stage and screen actor James Earl Jones, who won Tony Awards for “The Great White Hope” and “Fences,” and whose majestic basso profundo voice would become internationally recognized as the villainous Darth Vader in the “Star Wars” franchise, has died, his rep confirmed to CBS News. He was 93.
Jones’ rep Barry McPherson told CBS News the actor died Monday morning surrounded by his family. He didn’t provide additional details.
Tributes poured in following news of Jones’ death. Actor Mark Hamill, who played Darth Vader’s son Luke Skywalker in the “Star Wars” movies, wrote, “#RIP dad,” with a broken heart emoji on social media.
“There will never be another of his particular combination of graces,” actor LeVar Burton wrote.
An actor renowned for his theatrical presence in works by Shakespeare, Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, Jean Genet, Anton Chekhov, August Wilson, Athol Fugard and Alfred Uhry, and in such acclaimed films as “Field of Dreams,” Jones would become even more famous for his voice, whether it was as a commercial pitchman, an announcer for CNN, the father of Disney’s animated “Lion King,” or a Dark Lord of the Sith — all the more remarkable given that as a child he suffered a stutter, which continued throughout his life.
“I stuttered so badly it was embarrassing and very painful,” Jones told CBS’ “Sunday Morning” in 2008.
Jones’ road to overcoming his stutter would lead to a monumental career on Broadway and in Hollywood, with nearly 200 film and TV credits. He broke ground on soap operas (appearing on CBS’ “As the World Turns” and “Guiding Light”); worked with such directors as Stanley Kubrick, Franco Zeffirelli, George Lucas, John Sayles and James Ivory; won a Grammy for a spoken word recording; and lent his voice to recordings of works as varied as Lewis Carroll, “Sesame Street,” the King James Bible and “The Simpsons.”
In 2008, when he returned to Broadway to play Big Daddy in a revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” Jones was asked if the stage was an oasis for him. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that; an oasis is a place for survival,” he remarked. “And this is about joy. … It’s a playpen.”
James Earl Jones pictured in New York City, April 7, 2005, after the opening of a revival of “On Golden Pond.”
Paul Hawthorne/Getty Images
Breakout roles
Jones was born on January 17, 1931, in Arkabutla, Mississippi. His parents separated before his birth, and he was left to be raised by his maternal grandparents, who moved the family from their Mississippi farm to the Midwest. Growing up in the backwoods of Michigan, Jones credited an English teacher who helped him overcome his stutter, which had caused him to speak hardly a word from the time he was 6 until he was 14.
“Professor Crouch was my English teacher. And when he discovered that I secretly wrote poetry he challenged me,” Jones told “Sunday Morning.” “He said, ‘Jim, if you like words that much, you know, you should be able to say them out loud. Why don’t you get up in front of the class and read that poem that you wrote? … The only way you can prove you wrote it is to say it out loud but from memory.’”
Regaining the power of speech through poetry inspired Jones to pursue a career in the arts. After starting out pre-med at the University of Michigan, he switched to drama in his junior year. An ROTC member, Jones served in the Army as a second lieutenant beginning in 1953, training at Fort Benning in Georgia, and was assigned to Camp Hale near Leadville, Colorado. He was discharged as a first lieutenant.
In New York, Jones studied at the American Theatre Wing, cleaning toilets while he auditioned for parts. He landed his first Broadway role in 1957, appeared in experimental plays off-Broadway, starred in numerous Shakespeare productions (including “Othello,” “Coriolanus,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “Troilus and Cressida,” “Hamlet” and “King Lear”), was featured in the films “Dr. Strangelove” and “The Comedians,” and on TV’s “Guiding Light” and “As the World Turns.”
In 1967 the Arena Stage, in Washington, D.C., reached out to Jones – then working in Europe – to star in Howard Sackler’s “The Great White Hope,” a drama inspired by the life of a Black boxer, Jack Johnson, who contended against the heavyweight champion, a White man. “Howard suggested that I start getting into shape, which was really important – theman was a boxer – butwhich I was not and am not and will never be!” Jones said to Smithsonian Magazine. “In fact, the young man who was my understudy onstage, Yaphet Kotto, resembled Jack much more than I did.”
James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander, in the film version of “The Great White Hope.”
Afro Newspaper/Gado/Getty Images
In 1969 Jones won a Tony Award for “The Great White Hope” after the show transferred to Broadway. He earned an Oscar nomination for the 1970 film version.
His film work thinned in the ’70s, despite notable appearances in “Claudine,” “The Man” (as the first Black president), “The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings,” “A Piece of the Action,” “The Greatest” (playing Malcolm X), and the TV movies “The Cay,” “The UFO Incident” and “Jesus of Nazareth.” He appeared onstage as Paul Robeson, Lennie in “Of Mice and Men,” and Hickman in “The Iceman Cometh.”
But it was a voiceover job for a science-fiction film that would launch his career into the stratosphere. Providing the ominous voice of Darth Vader, Jones recorded his dialogue for George Lucas’ “Star Wars” in about two-and-a-half hours. Salary: Around $7,000. “I was broke and for me that was good money,” he said. “I got lucky.”
James Earl Jones provided the menacing voice of the masked Darth Vader in “Star Wars.”
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It was easier than other voiceover jobs because no lip-syncing was involved – Darth Vader had no lips! – so Jones simply responded to the body language of David Prowse, the British actor-bodybuilder who acted the role of Vader behind the devilish mask. A breathing effect created by sound effects artist Ben Burtt, who placed a microphone inside a scuba regulator, was added to Jones’ voice, making Vader sound less than human.
Jones requested his name not appear in the credits, out of deference to Prowse. [Jones would not be credited as the voice of Vader until the release of “Return of the Jedi.”] But when he came to record the role for “The Empire Strikes Back,” Jones asked Lucas about deepening the character: “Naturally, I wanted to make Darth Vader more interesting, more subtle, more psychologically oriented,” he told the American Film Institute. “And [Lucas] said, ‘No. no. What we’re finding out is you’ve got to keep his voice on a very narrow band of inflection because he ain’t human, really.’”
But Vader was a dad. And when Jones came to record the game-changing line about Luke Skywalker’s parentage (“I am your father”), Jones was sure he was lying, and that the real truth would come out in the subsequent film.
James Earl Jones’ filmography
Beyond the “Star Wars” universe, Jones’ film and TV credits included “Roots: The Next Generation,” “Conan the Barbarian,” “Gardens of Stone,” “Coming to America,” “Matewan,” “Field of Dreams,” “The Hunt for Red October,” “Gabriel’s Fire,” “Patriot Games,” “Sneakers,” “Sommersby,” “Clear and Present Danger,” and “Cry, the Beloved Country,” in addition to numerous narration credits. He also voiced Mufasa, the father of Simba, in Disney’s “The Lion King,” and, of course, the character of Vader in all its prequel, sequel, TV and video game iterations.
It was for Jones a happy accident that the stutterer should become best known for his voice. “That’s the best irony – I am an irony,” he told “The Early Show” in 2002. “Therefore, I can’t take any credit or any pride. Pats on the shoulder don’t count. I’m just happy to be able to talk, but the irony is just wonderful and I can smile and say, ‘Oh, the Voice. The Voice of the Century, the Voice of God, the Voice of blah-blah-blah.’ It’s just irony!”
His later Broadway roles included “Othello,” “Master Harold … and the Boys,” “Fences,” “On Golden Pond,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “You Can’t Take It With You,” and “The Gin Game.”
Jones won two Emmy Awards (for “Heat Wave” and “Gabriel’s Fire”), and a Daytime Emmy for the children’s special “Summer’s End.” He was a Kennedy Center honoree in 2002, received a lifetime achievement Screen Actors Guild Award in 2009, and was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2012 (which granted him EGOT status). In 2017 he received a special Tony for lifetime achievement.
In 2022 a Broadway theater, the Cort, was renamed the James Earl Jones Theatre in his honor. It was the same house where he performed in “Sunrise at Campobello” in 1958. On the occasion of the renaming, Jones told “CBS Mornings” that he took great pride in the longevity of his career: “By taking one step at a time, I’ve found great treasures,” he said. “Every step I take.”
David Morgan is senior producer for CBSNews.com and the Emmy Award-winning “CBS News Sunday Morning.” He writes about film, music and the arts. He is author of the books “Monty Python Speaks” and “Knowing the Score,” and editor of “Sundancing,” about the Sundance Film Festival.
US actor Bruce Willis poses on arrival for the European premiere of Glass in central London on … [+] January 9, 2019. (Photo by Tolga AKMEN / AFP) (Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)
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At the beginning of October there were numerous reports that veteran actor Bruce Willis had sold the rights to his face to deepfake company, Deepcake. Though these rumors were debunked by an official spokesperson for the actor the conversations around the technology have continued. How could it be used positively for the industry in the future and could it negatively impact actors?
Willis announced his retirement from acting in March after being diagnosed with a speech disorder known as aphasia. There was a report that he had sold the rights to his face, that major news outlets including the Daily Mail and The Telegraph ran with. Though untrue, it did get people’s imaginations running about the possibilities through using the technology.
Deepfakes use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology to render realistic videos. The tech has so far been used to mimic celebrities and other well-known individuals with surprising accuracy. Willis had worked with Deepcake before on a deepfake project, an advert for Russian telecoms company Megafon.
The advert was shot and aired in 2021 and a Russian actor had Willis’ face superimposed over his using deepfake technology.
The production, through Deepcake, had to collect numerous materials from Willis and his consent to use his likeness in the advert.
In a statement from Deepcake, they shed more light on the controversy surrounding the report.
“The wording about rights is wrong… Bruce couldn’t sell anyone any rights, they are his by default,”
The quote implies that Willis couldn’t sell his rights even if he wanted to, however, his participation in the Russian advert implies otherwise. Perhaps not long-term, but it could certainly be done on a project-by-project basis.
If just materials were needed for Willis to be replicated so accurately, anyone could be deepfaked with the requisite archives. For those in the public eye, most of those materials are in the public domain already.
Bruce Willis running with automatic weapon in a scene from the film ‘Die Hard’, 1988. (Photo by 20th … [+] Century-Fox/Getty Images)
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Some organizations have come out and said the technology would affect actors’ livelihoods and even that they could be contracted out of their voices and/or faces. Regardless the business is growing.
Deepfake technology has been used for recently retired Darth Vader actor James Earl Jones. His voice as Vader can continue and was recently used on Disney’s Obi-Wan Kenobi series through a company called Respeecher. The voice was even made to sound younger and more relevant to the timeline the show is set-in.
The growth of the tech does bring the points of rights into question. Could estates that represent deceased celebrities position themselves for their individual to carry on their legacy using deepfake technology? Is it ethical to do so? Music is still released from musicians that have passed away. Michael Jackson, Pop Smoke, and Tupac are notable examples. Though they may have recorded the vocals did that mean they wanted the tracks released? Starting a new project using their likeness is potentially even more controversial, as it’s something they can’t comment on in live terms.
Willis’ situation is much more unique as he can decide which projects to lend his name and likeness to, with this could we see another layer to performance with actors playing actors portraying characters in the future?
The continued development of the technology will certainly be something to look out for as another perspective is that characters could live on irrespective of what happens to an actor. Scheduling conflicts could become a thing of the past. The passing of Chadwick Boseman is a prime example. Clearly, no one wanted to replace Boseman but it was pivotal that the Black Panther character continued, with Disney deciding to continue a storyline post the death of T’Challa.
LONDON, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 08: (EDITORS NOTE: THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN CONVERTED TO BLACK AND WHITE) … [+] Chadwick Boseman attends the European Premiere of Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther” at the Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith on February 8, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for Disney)
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Speaking with Empire, Marvel head Kevin Feige said about the matter, “It just felt like it was much too soon to recast,”
“Stan Lee always said that Marvel represents the world outside your window. And we had talked about how, as extraordinary and fantastical as our characters and stories are, there’s a relatable and human element to everything we do. The world is still processing the loss of Chad. And Ryan poured that into the story.”
There’s a lot to unpack in regards to ethics and processes but there is certainly the potential for mass disruption using deepfake technology.
