James Earl Jones was a Black American actor, born January 17, 1931, in Arkabutla, Mississippi, whose career joined theatre, film, television and voice performance. When he was five, he moved to his maternal grandparents’ farm in Dublin, Michigan, where he attended a one-room schoolhouse and grew up on the family land. He voiced Darth Vader in Star Wars and Mufasa in The Lion King. His on-screen film credits included Coming to America, Field of Dreams and The Hunt for Red October.
His path to the stage ran through silence. Jones stuttered so severely that he was nearly mute for almost eight years of his childhood, communicating with family and teachers through writing rather than speech. In his 1993 Fresh Air interview, he credited teacher Donald Crouch with encouraging him to recite poetry, an experience he found helpful in speaking, and he emphasized that the stutter remained part of his life. Participation in productions at the Manistee Summer Theatre in 1953 helped carry him toward professional acting.
His stage career produced two Tony Awards for Best Actor in a Play: the first in 1969 for The Great White Hope, a role he repeated on film to earn an Oscar nomination, and the second in 1987 for August Wilson’s Fences. The Great White Hope itself won the 1969 Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He also received an honorary Oscar in 2011. The Television Academy records two Emmy wins in 1991, for Heat Wave and Gabriel’s Fire.
Jones died on September 9, 2024, at 93. Afterward, Kevin Costner paid tribute to their work together on Field of Dreams.
