James Earl Jones, ‘Star Wars’ icon, dead at 93

James Earl Jones, whose acting career was every bit as rich and resonant as the iconic bass voice that gave sinister malevolence to Darth Vader in the “Star Wars” films, died Monday. He was 93.
Jones’ representative Barry McPherson confirmed the actor’s death in a statement to USA TODAY. A cause of death was not disclosed.
“He passed this morning surrounded by his loved ones,” McPherson said. “He was a great man.”
Jones was an acclaimed star of stage and screen, winning Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards, though later his unmistakable voice became as famous as his usually smiling face. He invited generations of TV viewers with the signature “This is CNN” line for the cable news channel, had parental gravitas as the brave Mufasa in Disney’s classic 1994 animated “The Lion King” and its 2019 remake, but was most famous for his signature lines (“I am your father”) as Vader.
“I’ve done a King Lear, too! Do the kids know that? No, they have the Darth Vader poster to sign. But it’s OK,” Jones said in a 2010 Broadway.com interview. “When you appear before an audience, you learn to accept whatever they give you. Hopefully, they give you their ears, as Antony said.”
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A native of Arkabutla, Mississippi, Jones was raised by his grandparents in Michigan and overcame a stutter in early childhood. After studying drama at the University of Michigan, he moved to New York in 1957 to follow in the footsteps of his father, Robert Earl – who left before Jones was born – as an actor.
The next year, he made his Broadway debut in “Sunrise at Campobello,” beginning a storied theater career that included Tony-winning turns in “The Great White Hope” (1969) and “Fences” (1987) as well as high-profile roles in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Driving Miss Daisy” and “You Can’t Take It With You.”
On the big screen, Jones first appeared in 1964’s classic Cold War satire “Dr. Strangelove,” earned a best-actor Oscar nomination for the 1970 film adaptation of “Great White Hope,” and over the course of five decades also starred in “Conan the Barbarian” (1982), “Coming to America” (1988), “Field of Dreams” (1989) and “The Sandlot” (1993).
“Field of Dreams,” like the 1987 John Sayles coal-miner drama “Matewan,” was “one of the very few movies I’ve done that I really cherish,” Jones told USA TODAY in 2014 for the baseball-themed drama’s 25th anniversary.
“Movies that have very simple themes, simple stories to tell, but very powerful (and) compact,” he said. “Why they’re important to me is because in that simplicity, magic can happen if you just let it happen and don’t force it.”
But Jones, who received an honorary Oscar at the 2011 Governors Awards and a special Tony for lifetime achievement in 2017, wasn’t even seen onscreen for arguably his most trademark role.
Beginning in George Lucas’ original 1977 blockbuster “Star Wars,” Jones voiced the intergalactic villain Darth Vader, who almost instantly became one of Hollywood’s quintessential antagonists and still endures. (The fearsome menace was named the No. 3 film villain of all time by the American Film Institute, behind only Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates.)
“I’m simply special effects,” Jones said in a 2009 interview with the AFI about his role as Vader. He added that Lucas wanted a “darker voice” than that of David Prowse, the towering British actor under Vader’s mask and body armor. “So he hires a guy born in Mississippi and raised in Michigan who stutters, and that’s the voice and that’s me. I lucked out. From all these so-called handicaps, I lucked out to get a job that paid me $7,000. I thought that was good money and I got to be a voice on a movie. It was great fun to be part of that.”
Jones reprised his role as Mufasa in director Jon Favreau’s 2019 remake of “The Lion King,” which featured photorealistic animals. Favreau recalled that when working with Jones, “he asked me if I had any direction for him, and I didn’t know what to say. It was like, ‘Just do what you do. You are him.’ ”
“It would be like him asking me how to play Darth Vader. You’ve created this character and decades have gone and we’ve all grown with it.”
Jones also revisited his famed “Star Wars” character for a cameo in the 2019 film “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” The actor later authorized the use of archival recordings of his voice, supplemented by artificial intelligence, for future projects in the franchise, sound editor Matthew Wood told Vanity Fair in 2022.
Jones’ Vader voice was recreated for a four-episode stint on the Disney+ miniseries “Obi-Wan Kenobi” that same year.
In a 2016 interview with AOL, Jones revealed he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes while attending a diet and exercise program.
“I fell asleep on the bench in the middle of the gymnasium,” Jones told AOL. “The doctor who happened to be there told me, ‘That’s not normal.’ I took the test, and there it was. Type 2 diabetes. And it hit me like a thunderbolt.”
Despite the initial shock of his diagnosis, Jones remained optimistic about continuing his acting career. “I accepted I will always be a diabetic,” he said. “But I can live a full life.”
In a 2021 interview with USA TODAY ahead of his 90th birthday, Jones said he was “so proud of my work and accomplishments,” adding that he was looking forward to “growing older and wiser with time.”
“I feel young at heart,” Jones said. “And I love to work and will continue to act for as long as I can.”
Aside from his “Obi-Wan Kenobi” appearance, Jones’ final role was his reprisal of King Jaffe Joffer in 2021’s “Coming 2 America,” a sequel to the 1988 comedy “Coming to America.”
Contributing: Edward Segarra and Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY