Mr. James Earl Jones - A great author, a great voice! 1931-2024

Mr. James Earl Jones

It was an ordinary day.  Reading an article written about Mr. James Earl Jones...A great actor and a great voice,  Because everybody knows who Star Wars' Darth Vader is, nearly every mainstream news report of James Earl Jones' death must lead with that role.  But Jones, who was born in Mississippi in 1931 and died on September 9, did so much more - he WAS so much more.  He worked so frequently - in movies, theater, and TV - and that we can only believe he truly loved his craft.  Jones was nominated for an Oscar only once, for his starring role in Martin Roitt's 1970 boxing drama "The Great White Hope".  In 1969, for playing the same role on Broadway, he'd won his first Tony Award; another came in 1987, for his performance as Troy Maxson in August Wilson's Fences.  Jones also won three Emmys and a Grammy, and in 2011, he at last received an honorary Oscar, a way of recognizing his expansive film achievements.  Though Jones was a contemporary of actors like Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, his career didn't reach the same heights; for too long, America had room for only so many Black stars - a lack of imagination that is all of our loss.  But Jones brought the deepest kind of pleasure to audiences.  His sonorous baritone -- which he's cultivated as a young student seeking to control his stuttering -- gave life to the dramatic complexity of Darth Vader, as well as to the paternal nobility of Mufasa in both movie versions of The Lion King.  How to choose a favorite among Jones' movie performances?  Here are two possibilities:  his turn as the waggish sanitation worker Roop, who woos Diahann Carrol in the 1974 Claudine, and his dual role as a scientist and a fever version of an African shaman in John Boorman's 1977 Exorcist II: The Heretic.  Though people hooted at The Heretic upon its release, Jones is astonishing. Glowering from beneath a gonzo locust headdress, he not only holds your attention, he locks you in his dream.   That's what a great actor can do, and sometimes it's everything.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.