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OAN Staff Abril Elfi
3:50 PM – Monday, September 9, 2024
James Earl Jones, the voice actor known for playing Darth Vader in “Star Wars” and Mufasa in “The Lion King” movie, has died at 93-years-old.
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Jones’s death was announced on Monday, but the cause of death has not been publicly revealed. Nevertheless, Jones had been diagnosed with type-2 diabetes in the mid-1990s.
Throughout his career, Jones had received a Grammy Award, two Emmy Awards, and three Tony Awards.
He previously attended the University of Michigan, studying pre-med before dropping out. He also had stated during a past interview that he dealt with a lot of racism in college.
“There weren’t many Black fellows at the University of Michigan,” Jones said during a 2005 talk at the Oxonian Society. “In response to a paper I wrote, a professor called me in. I had spelled simplicity ‘simplicity’. ‘Why are you trying to be someone you’re not?’ he said. ‘You’re a dumb son of a b**** who doesn’t belong at a university!’ I had no idea how to respond to such deep-seated racism.”
Jones then enlisted in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, and was sent to the 38th Regimental Combat Team, where he oversaw the establishment of a cold weather training command in the snowy state of Colorado after his graduation.
“I cherished the untamed splendor of the mountains, as well as the thrill of the high altitude and weather. The hardships of the job and living like a pioneer didn’t bother me. I felt that life was good,” he said.
Following his release, Jones relocated to New York City, where he utilized his veteran’s benefits to study acting at the American Theatre Wing, while also working as a janitor to make ends meet.
In 1967, he made his big theatrical break in the play The Great White Hope, where he played the main character, Jack Jefferson, a champion boxer fighting racism in and out of the ring. He won the Tony Award for Best Actor for the role, and the story was later adapted into a movie, which he also starred in.
“The Great White Hope put me on the cover of Newsweek magazine,” he said. “One day that week, somebody noticed you.”
Ten years later, in 1977, he made his debut as Sith Lord Darth Vader in George Lucas’s “Star Wars: A New Hope.” He went on to reprise the role for the sequels, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). Vader was played by David Prowse in costume, but Jones dubbed the dialogue in post production due to Prowse’s strong British accent being deemed unsuitable for the character.
Jones was also the voice of Mufasa in Disney’s “The Lion King” in 1994 and returned to the role in 2019 for the live action remake.
Jones’s other notable film roles include Eddie Murphy’s “Coming to America” (1988), “Field of Dreams” (1989), “Dr Strangelove” (1964), “Conan the Barbarian” (1982) and “The Hunt for Red October” (1990).
On television programs, he voiced various characters on The Simpsons in three separate seasons, and appeared in episodes of Law & Order (1993), Frasier (1997), Two and a Half Men (2008), House (2009), and The Big Bang Theory (2014).
Jones first publicly spoke about his diabetes diagnosis in 2016 for the first time in nearly 20 years since being diagnosed.
“I didn’t notice any symptoms,” Jones said. “I had gone to a diet and exercise program hoping to lose some weight and ended up falling asleep sitting on a bench in the gymnasium. My doctor, who happened to be there, said that’s not normal. He encouraged me to go get a test, and I did—and there it was: type 2 diabetes. It hit me like a thunderbolt.”
“I can live to the extent that I can do all the work I used to do 10 years ago. I love working, and at my age I still love being able to put in eight shows a week on a play or handle a long schedule if I’m doing film or television. I didn’t want that to stop, so I had to take responsibility for my condition,” he continued.
In 2022, Jones gave permission and signed off on archival voice recordings to be manipulated for future iterations of Darth Vader with the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
“David Prowse worked very hard to create the character Darth Vader. He is Vader. I just consider myself to be special effects,” Jones said in his 1993 memoir. “That’s how I approached it. I just sat there and had all the fun of playing my voice like an instrument.”
Jones is survived by his son, Flynn Earl Jones.
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