James Earl Jones, who overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen — eventually lending his deep, commanding voice to The Lion King and Darth Vader — has died. He was 93.
His agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed Jones died on Monday morning at home. The cause was not immediately clear.
The pioneering Jones, who worked deep into his 80s, won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards and a Grammy, and was given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement. In 2022, a Broadway theatre was renamed in his honour.
James Earl Jones uttered the iconic “I am your father” line as Darth Vader in the Star Wars series.
In 2015, he told The Associated Press: “The need to storytell has always been with us.”
“I think it first happened around campfires when the man came home and told his family he got the bear, the bear didn’t get him.”
Jones was born by the light of an oil lamp in a shack in Arkabutla, Mississippi, on 17 January 1931. His father, Robert Earl Jones, had deserted his wife before the baby’s arrival to pursue life as a boxer and, later, an actor.
When Jones was six, his mother took him to her parents’ farm near Manistee, Michigan. His grandparents adopted the boy and raised him.
“A world ended for me, the safe world of childhood,” Jones wrote in his autobiography, Voices and Silences.
“The move from Mississippi to Michigan was supposed to be a glorious event. For me, it was a heartbreak, and not long after, I began to stutter.”
