James Earl Jones Biography

MARITAL STATUS
Profession Actor
Birth name Todd Jones
Nationality American
Birth January 17, 1931 (Arkabutla, Mississippi – United States)

BIOGRAPHY
As a child, James Earl Jones suffered from a particularly debilitating stutter. To resolve this speech problem, a practitioner advised him to take theater classes. What was supposed to be just therapy soon becomes a consuming passion. In the sixties and seventies, he became a fixture on Broadway and even won a Tony Award for his portrayal of boxer Jack Johnson in The Great White Hope . He made his first appearance in cinema, with a small role in Doctor Strangelove ( Stanley Kubrick , 1964). From then on he made a series of films, and joined the greatest, like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in The Comedians . He even played the first black American president in The Man (1972), and now participated in major productions, his stature and his voice becoming his trademarks. He became world famous by giving his very particular voice to Darth Vader, in George Lucas

‘ Star Wars trilogy . He opposite debutant Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian (1982), where he played the infamous sorcerer whom Conan attempts to defeat. James Earl Jones alternates roles in adventure films like Allan Quatermain and the City of Lost Gold (1987), and political dramas, he plays Malcolm X in The Greatest alongside Mohammed Ali , or a union worker in Matewan by John Sayles in 1987. That same year, Francis Ford Coppola hired him for Stone Gardens , where he played a sergeant major. Military roles will often be offered to him subsequently, as in In Pursuit of Red October (1990) by John Mc Tiernan . But he plays a king in A Prince in New York with Eddie Murphy . At the same time, he pursued a career in television, and appeared in numerous series and TV films, becoming a face immediately recognized by viewers. Besides Darth Vader, he is remembered for being the voice of Mufasa in both versions of The Lion King (1994 and 2019). After several roles in secondary films, almost twenty years after their first collaboration, he reunited with George Lucas and the legendary Darth Vader, (played on screen by Hayden Christensen ), to whom he gave this asthmatic voice in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith

(2005), the Star Wars Rebels series and Rogue One . In 2012, he received an honorary Oscar for his entire career.