When you heard his voice you immediately knew it was him. The voice of critically acclaimed actor James Earl Jones who’s best known for his signature deep voice in some of the best blockbuster movies, including the original Darth Vader in the Star Wars series, or as the voice of Mufasa in The Lion King, has passed away. He was 93.
The man who also played the King of Zamunda in Eddie Murphy’s Coming To America, and in Field of Dreams with Kevin Costner first burst into national prominence in 1970 with his powerful Oscar-nominated performance as America’s first Black heavyweight champion in The Great White Hope, died at his home in Dutchess County, New York, Independent Artist Group announced.
The celebrated actor was also the recipient of an honorary Oscar at the 2011 Governors Awards and a special Tony for lifetime achievement in 2017. He was one of the handful of people to earn an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony and the first actor to win two Emmys in one year.
“You cannot be an actor like I am and not have been in some of the worst movies like I have,” the self-deprecating star said when he was given his Academy Award. “But I stand before you deeply honored, mighty grateful and just plain gobsmacked.”
Growing Up, James Earl Jones Had Major Problems Talking!
But many don’t know that the man with the golden voice was almost mute as a child for many years because he suffered from a severe stuttering problem.
“As a small child, I would communicate to my family, or at least those who didn’t mind being embarrassed by my stutter or my being embarrassed. I did communicate with the animals quite freely, but then that’s calling the hogs, the cows, the chickens. They don’t care how you sound, they just want to hear your voice.”
More than 70 million people worldwide stutter, which is about 1% of the population. In the United States, that’s over 3 million Americans who stutter.
James Earl explains that although he was born in Mississippi, his family moved when he was five years old to a Michigan farm, which played havoc with his sinuses – and his speech development.
The move that uprooted his family, including his maternal grandparents and his mother (his father was out of the picture before he was born), and 13 cousins, was understandably traumatizing.
“I had an Uncle Randy – who passed away last year – who was my brother really. I was the youngest grandchild and he was the youngest child and only four years older than me. Randy stuttered while we lived in Mississippi and I feel that I mocked him,’ he says. ‘I used to imitate him. I don’t know whether I was imitating him to keep him company or to embarrass him. And then I ended up stuttering myself. I feel I was cursed.”
“Stuttering is painful. In Sunday school, I’d try to read my lessons and the children behind me were falling on the floor with laughter.”
“Well, I knew I was funny. I still know why it is funny. I think stutterers are funny. And I know it’s rude and politically incorrect to laugh at stutterers. But I think it is OK because I know why they’re funny. They make people nervous. People think, when on earth are they going to get the word out, so they start laughing out of their own nervousness.”
“But by the time I got to school, my stuttering was so bad that I gave up trying to speak properly.”
“There was another pupil who sat behind me who was also a stutterer and the teacher, who was young, would shake him, and I’d say, ‘L-l-lll-l-let me teach him’ and I took over his studies, or when he had to talk. I understood him. I understood that shaking him was not going to help. She was relieved.”
Jones was lucky enough to be taught by English teacher and poet, Donald Crouch, whom he calls “the father of my voice”. He was a contemporary of Robert Frost, and memorized a poem every day in case he ever went blind so he might have poems he could read in his head.
“I had started writing poetry in high school and he said of one of them, ‘Jim, this is a good poem. In fact, it is so good I don’t think you wrote it. I think you plagiarized it. If you want to prove you wrote it, you must stand in front of the class and recite it by memory.’ Which I did. As they were my own words, I got through it.”
His teacher argued that if James Earl wanted to be ‘involved with words’ he would have to be able to say them and read to the class and work on the stuttering problem.
“And he got me engaged in the debating class, the dramatic reading class, and so on. He got me talking, and reading poetry – Edgar Allan Poe was my favorite.”
He said, “You have gone from having the voice of a child when you last spoke, to a voice of an adult when you resumed speaking. Don’t be impressed. It’s easy for you to start listening to yourself. If you do, nobody else will.”
“And what he meant was that if you become so conscious about it you become too busy making all those deep S-O-U-N-D-S,” and he lets the word echo in his booming voice.
Jones went on to study drama at Michigan University, by which time, he says, he had got a grip on his stutter. He says that although some people grow out of their speech impediment, he will always be a stutterer.
“I’ve learned that sometimes the synapses in your brain trip up, like stumbling on a sidewalk.”
Certain consonants, he says, set off a stutter (such as M) so he avoids them. But there is a great advantage for stutterers, he says, as they develop a greater vocabulary because they ‘ have to have more choices of words at their disposal.
Hollywood Legends React to His Passing
Jones was “surrounded by his loved ones” when he passed and is being remembered by friends and admirers including “Star Wars” co-star Mark Hamill and actress Octavia Spencer.
Hamill, known for playing Luke Skywalker, shared a simple message shortly after news of Jones’ death broke. “#RIP dad 💔,” he shared on X, formerly Twitter. One of Jones’ most iconic lines, delivered in his unmistakable baritone voice, was Darth Vader Star proclaiming he was Luke’s father in “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.”
Spencer shared on Instagram that she was “incredibly saddened to learn of #JamesEarlJones’ passing today.”
“Legendary doesn’t even begin to describe his iconic roles and impact on cinema forever,” she wrote in the caption. “His voice and talent will be remembered always. Sending love to his family, friends and countless fans in all the galaxies, far, far away.”
