James Earl Jones, voice of Darth Vader and Mufasa, dies at 93

LOS ANGELES - American actor James Earl Jones, an imposing stage and screen presence who overcame a childhood stutter to develop a stentorian voice recognised the world over as intergalactic villain Darth Vader, died on Sept 9 at the age of 93, his agent said.

Jones, a longtime sufferer of diabetes, died at his home surrounded by family members, agent Barry McPherson said. No cause of death was provided.

Jones had a great physical presence on stage and television, as well as in movies, but he would have been a star even if his face was never seen because his voice had a career of its own. The resonating bass could instantly command respect, as with the sage father Mufasa in The Lion King and many Shakespeare roles, or instill fear as the rasping Vader in the Star Wars films.

Jones laughed when a BBC interviewer asked if he resented being so closely tied to Darth Vader, a role that required only his voice for a few lines while another actor did the on-screen work in costume.

"I love being part of that whole myth, of that whole cult," he said, adding that he was glad to oblige fans who asked for a command recital of his "I am your father" line.

Jones said he never made much money off the Darth Vader part - only US$9,000 (S$11,754) for the first film - and that he considered it merely a special effects job. He did not even ask to be in the credits of the first two Star Wars movies.

His long list of awards included Tonys for The Great White Hope in 1969 and Fences in 1987 on Broadway and Emmys in 1991 for Gabriel's Fire and Heat Wave on television. He also won a Grammy for best spoken word album, Great American Documents in 1977.

Although he never won a competitive Academy award, he was nominated for best actor for the film version of The Great White Hope and was given an honorary Oscar in 2011.

He began his movie career playing Lieutenant Luther Zogg in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 classic Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in 1964.

Later acclaimed movie roles included novelist Terence Mann in 1989's Field of Dreams and South African Reverend Stephen Kumalo in 1995's Cry, the Beloved Country. He also starred in Conan the Barbarian, Coming to America, The Sandlot, Matewan, The Hunt for Red October and Field of Dreams, among others.

Jones also was heard in dozens of television commercials and for several years CNN used his authoritative This is CNN to introduce its newscasts.

Estranged from father

James Earl Jones was born on Jan 17, 1931, in the tiny community of Arkabutla, Mississippi, to a family with a mixed ethnic background of Irish, African and Cherokee.

His father, prizefighter-turned-actor Robert Earl Jones, left the family shortly afterward. James was raised by his maternal grandparents, who forbade him to see his father, and the two did not get together until James moved to New York in the 1950s. Eventually they appeared in several plays together.

Jones was about 5 years old when his grandparents moved the family from Mississippi to a farm in Michigan and it was around that time that he quit speaking because of his stutter.

He was mostly silent for a decade until a ploy by his high school English teacher got him to speak up. The teacher made Jones recite to the class a poem that he said he had written to prove he was familiar enough with it to be the author.

Although after that he said he still had to choose his words carefully, Jones learned to control his stutter and became interested in acting.

After studying drama at the University of Michigan, he moved to New York, where his theatre performances increasingly attracted critical attention and acclaim.

His breakthrough role on Broadway was The Great White Hope, playing a character based on Black heavyweight champion Jack Johnson. The play examined racism through the lens of the boxing world and critics raved about Jones' performance.

A popular theatre draw for decades, his Shakespeare leading roles included Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear and Othello. He also had a notable portrayal of singer-actor-activist Paul Robeson on Broadway in 1977 and of author Alex Haley in the television mini-series Roots: The Next Generation.

He was "capable of moving in seconds from boyish ingenuousness to near-biblical rage and somehow suggesting all the gradations in between," the Washington Post wrote in a 1987 review of "Fences."

Jones' first wife was Julienne Marie Hendricks, one of his Othello co-stars. Earl and his second wife, actress Cecilia Hart, who died in 2016, had one child, Flynn Earl Jones.

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