Earl Jones

James Earl Jones (January 17, 1931 – September 9, 2024) was an American actor born in Arkabutla, Mississippi, during the Jim Crow era. His parents were Ruth Jones, a teacher and maid, and Robert Earl Jones, a boxer, butler, and chauffeur who left the family shortly after James Earl's birth and later built his own acting career in New York and Hollywood. Father and son did not reconnect until the 1950s. Jones described his parents as being of mixed African-American, Irish, and Native American ancestry.

Beginning at age five, Jones was raised by his maternal grandparents, John Henry and Maggie Connolly, on their farm in Dublin, Michigan, after the family relocated from Mississippi during the Great Migration. The transition proved traumatic, and Jones developed a severe stutter that left him effectively mute through much of his early schooling. A high school English teacher named Donald Crouch, recognizing Jones's talent for writing poetry, encouraged him to read verse aloud in class as a way of confronting his reluctance to speak. Jones graduated from Dickson Rural Agricultural School in Brethren, Michigan, in 1949, having served as vice president of his class.

At the University of Michigan, Jones initially enrolled as a pre-med student before shifting his focus to drama after his junior year. He was active in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, participating in the Pershing Rifles Drill Team and the Scabbard and Blade Honor Society. He graduated in 1955 with a Bachelor of Arts in drama. Commissioned as a second lieutenant, Jones attended the Infantry Officers Basic Course at Fort Benning and completed Ranger School, earning his Ranger Tab. He was assigned to the 38th Regimental Combat Team and stationed at the former Camp Hale near Leadville, Colorado, where his unit conducted cold-weather training in the Rocky Mountains. He was promoted to first lieutenant before his discharge. After leaving the military, Jones moved to New York City, studied at the American Theatre Wing, and worked as a janitor to support himself.

Jones began his professional stage work at the Ramsdell Theatre in Manistee, Michigan, where he served as a stage carpenter in 1953 and later acted and worked as a stage manager between 1955 and 1957. His first acting season there included a portrayal of Othello. His Broadway credits include an appearance in Porgy and Bess in 1953. He made his Broadway debut proper in 1957 as understudy to Lloyd Richards in Molly Kazan's The Egghead, a production that ran only 21 performances. In January 1958, he created the featured role of Edward the butler in Dore Schary's Sunrise at Campobello at the Cort Theatre. In 1961, Jones appeared in an Off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's The Blacks alongside Roscoe Lee Browne, Cicely Tyson, and Lou Gossett, among others.

During the early to mid-1960s, Jones became one of the most prominent Shakespearean actors of his generation through his work with Shakespeare in the Park, taking on roles including Othello (1964), Coriolanus (1965), Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Abhorson in Measure for Measure, Claudius in Hamlet (1972), and King Lear (1973). It was during a Shakespeare in the Park production of The Merchant of Venice, in which Jones played the Prince of Morocco, that director Stanley Kubrick observed him and cast him in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Jones's feature film debut. He portrayed young Lieutenant Lothar Zogg, a B-52 bombardier.

In December 1967, Jones starred alongside Jane Alexander in Howard Sackler's The Great White Hope at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., playing boxer Jack Jefferson, a character based on real-life champion Jack Johnson. When the production moved to Broadway on October 3, 1968, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Jones received the 1969 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play and the Drama Desk Award for his performance. He reprised the role in the 1970 film adaptation, earning a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Jones won a second Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his portrayal of a working-class father in August Wilson's Fences in 1987. He received additional Tony nominations for On Golden Pond (2005) and The Best Man (2012), and appeared on Broadway in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (2008), Driving Miss Daisy (2010–2011), You Can't Take It with You (2014), and The Gin Game (2015). In 2017, he received a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Beyond the stage, Jones achieved wide international recognition for voicing Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise and Mufasa in The Lion King (1994). His film appearances span decades and include The Man (1972), Claudine (1974), Conan the Barbarian (1982), Matewan (1987), Coming to America (1988), Field of Dreams (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Sneakers (1992), The Sandlot (1993), and Cry, the Beloved Country (1995). His deep voice was described as a stirring basso profondo that lent gravel and gravitas to his work across mediums.

Jones achieved EGOT status, having won Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards over the course of his career. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1985 and received the National Medal of Arts in 1992, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2002, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2009, and the Academy Honorary Award in 2011. He died on September 9, 2024.