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James Earl Jones, the American actor known as Darth Vader in the Star Wars series and Mufasa in The Lion Kinghas died at the age of 93, it was announced on Monday.
The cause of death was not immediately disclosed.
Jones was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in the mid-1990s, a fact he made public in 2016.
His death sparked a wave of condolences from personalities such as Mark Hamill, LeVar Burton, Octavia Spencer and Wendell Pierce.
During his successful career on stage and screen, Jones has received three Tony Awards, two Emmys and a Grammy.
He was born on January 17, 1931, in the village of Arkabutla, Mississippi, to mixed African-American, Irish and Native American parents. His mother was a teacher and maid, while his father was a boxer and actor, appearing in films such as The highlight (1973) and Trading venues (1983).
From the age of five, Jones was raised by his maternal grandparents on their farm in Dublin, Michigan. The move was so traumatic that he developed a severe stutter and was almost mute for eight years. “In Sunday school, I would try to read my lessons and the kids behind me would fall to the floor laughing… By the time I started school, my stutter was so bad that I gave up trying to speak properly,” Jones recalled in an interview with the Daily Mail.
He thanked his high school English teacher for breaking his silence after encouraging him to read poetry in front of the class. “I’m not saying I’m ‘cured,'” he told NPR in 2014. “I’m just working with it.”
He attended the University of Michigan but dropped out of medical school to become an actor and encountered racism in college. “There weren’t many black people at the University of Michigan,” Jones said during a 2005 lecture at the Oxonian Society. “In response to a paper I had written, a professor called me in. I had written ‘Simplisity.’ ‘Why are you trying to be someone you’re not?’ he said. ‘You’re a stupid son of a bitch who doesn’t belong in a university!’ I had no idea how to respond to such deeply rooted racism.”
He then joined the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and, upon graduation, was assigned to the 38th Regimental Combat Team, where he led the establishment of a cold-weather training command in snowy Colorado. “I loved the harsh beauty of the mountains and the excitement of the weather and the altitude. I didn’t mind the rigors of the work or the pioneer life. I thought it was a good life,” he later said.
After his discharge, Jones moved to New York City, where he used his veterans’ pay to study acting at the American Theatre Wing and earned a living working as a janitor.
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His big breakthrough came in 1967 with The great white hopea play that premiered in Washington, DC, and was performed on Broadway a year later. Jones played the lead character, Jack Jefferson (modeled on Jack Johnson), a boxing champion who battles racism in and out of the ring. He won a Tony Award for Best Actor for the role, and the story was later made into a film, in which he also played the lead role.The great white hope bring me on the cover of Newsweek magazine,” he said. “One day this week, someone noticed you.”
In 1977, Jones made his debut as the fearsome Sith Lord Darth Vader in George Lucas’ space opera blockbuster Star Wars: A New Hopea role for which he received only $7,000. He would repeat the role for the sequels, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). Vader was portrayed in costume by David Prowse (who died in 2020), with Jones dubbing the dialogue afterward because Lucas deemed Prowse’s strong British accent inappropriate for the character.
From arch-villain, Jones transformed into an archetypal father figure in 1994 when he took on the role of Mufasa in Disney’s The Lion King. He returned to the role in 2019 for Jon Favreau’s live-action remake – the only original cast member to do so. Chiwetel Ejiofor, who voiced Mufasa’s evil brother Scar in the remake, said that “the comfort that Jones has in his role will be very rewarding as he takes (audiences) on that journey again. It’s a once-in-a-generation vocal quality.”
Jones’ other notable film roles include Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America (1988), Field of Dreams (1989), Dr. Strangelove (1964), Conan the Barbarian (1982) and Hunt for Red October (1990). On television he voiced various characters in The Simpsons in three different seasons and appeared in episodes of law and order (1993), Frasier (1997), Two and a half men (2008), House (2009) and The Big Bang Theory (2014).
In 2016, Jones spoke publicly about his diagnosis of type 2 diabetes for the first time in nearly 20 years. “I didn’t notice any symptoms,” Jones said. “I had been on a diet and exercise program to lose some weight and ended up falling asleep on a bench in the gym. My doctor, who happened to be there, said that wasn’t normal. He advised me to get tested, and I did – and there it was: type 2 diabetes. It hit me like a bolt of lightning.”
He continued, “I’m able to live to the point where I can do all the work I did 10 years ago. I love working, and at my age I still love doing eight shows a week in a play or managing a long schedule when I’m working in film or television. I didn’t want that to stop, so I had to take responsibility for my condition.”
Even after his death, Jones’ distinctive baritone will live on. In 2022, he released archived voice recordings that will be manipulated using artificial intelligence for future versions of Darth Vader. “David Prowse worked very hard to create the character of Darth Vader. He is Vader. I just think of myself as a special effect,” Jones said self-deprecatingly in his 1993 memoir. “That’s how I approached it. I just sat there and had all the fun of playing my voice like an instrument.” And what an instrument it was.
Among those paying tribute to Jones was Luke Skywalker actor Mark Hamill, who tweeted: “#RIP Dad,” and TheWire Actor Wendell Pierce described Jones in his emotional message as “the only reason I became an actor.”
Jones leaves behind his son Flynn Earl Jones. His second wife, actress Cecilia Hart, with whom he was married for 36 years, died of ovarian cancer in 2016.
