James Earl Jones, voice of Darth Vader and ‘Field of Dreams’ star, dead at 93
nypost.comDeadline.Jones was the recipient of many awards throughout his lifetime, even scoring the rare EGOT honor with an asterisk — he won Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards (including the Tony for Lifetime Achievement in 2017) and earned an honorary Oscar in 2011.Born on Jan.
17, 1931, in Arkabutla, Mississippi, Jones’ deep and booming bass brought life to several animated film characters, such as Mufasa in 1994’s Disney-animated smash hit “The Lion King,” Voice Box at Hardware Store in 2005’s “Robots” and the Giant in the 2009 movie retelling of the “Jack and the Beanstalk” fairy tale.He also starred in 1993 film “The Sandlot” as Mr.
Mertle, a former baseball player who was the owner of the famed Hercules and Goliath, and as Pendleton in the 2018 drama “Warning Shot.” He played the role of King Jaffe Joffer in the 1998 hit “Coming to America.”In 2022, Manhattan’s Cort Theatre on West 48th Street was named the James Earl Jones Theatre to celebrate his contributions to the stage.
It was the same place where he performed “Sunrise at Campobello” in 1958, just a year into his Broadway career.Jones’ long Hollywood career defied expectations.Jones was mute for nearly eight years, until he was 14, as he suffered from a serious stutter that developed after he moved to Michigan at a young age, according to The Stuttering Foundation.His stutter was suspected to be caused by childhood trauma, according to TIME — and it was actually his high school English teacher, poet Donald Crouch, who helped him work to overcome it.
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