He gave Darth Vader his deep voice, making him world famous – and helping make the Star Wars villain a pop culture icon. The iconic sentence “I am your father” as well as the menacing gasp will be remembered forever by millions. Now Hollywood is saying goodbye to James Earl Jones. His management announced that the legendary actor died at his home in New York on Monday. He was 93.
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As a character actor, he appeared in films as diverse as “The Hunt for Red October”, “Field of Dreams”, “The Prince of Zamunda” and “The Cartel”. In the animated film “The Lion King” and its remake in 2019, he voiced the old Mufasa. James Earl Jones also became known worldwide on stage and TV. Nerds will also remember his appearance in “The Big Bang Theory”. Jones’ rendition of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” in one of The Simpsons’ first Treehouse of Horror Halloween episodes is also part of pop culture.
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His distinctive voice is also known from video games. In addition to “Lego Star Wars,” in which he once again stars as Darth Vader, Jones was involved in “Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun” and “The Lion King: Simba’s Mighty Adventure.”
Jones, who stuttered for years as a child, later said he overcame his speech impediment through reciting poetry and acting. He was in front of the camera since 1964. Jones made his film debut in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strange or: How I Learned to Love the Bomb. He was nominated for an Oscar for his role as black boxer Jack Jefferson in “The Great White Hope” (1970).
“I wanted to make Darth Vader more interesting”
Director George Lucas hired him to write dialogue for Darth Vader in “Star Wars,” played by actor David Prowse, who died in 2020. Lucas and Jones initially had different ideas.
“I wanted to make Darth Vader more interesting, subtle and psychologically oriented,” Jones recalled in an American Film Institute interview. “Lucas said, ‘No, no, you’ll have to put his voice on a very narrow tape because he’s not human.’
Jones said, within a few hours he had set Darth Vader to music. He got the equivalent of 7,000 euros for the first film and he thought it was a good salary. The world got to know his voice after the film was released in 1977.
In 2022, Jones handed over the rights to this voice to Lucasfilm. Thanks to artificial intelligence, the film studio can now continue to use the character of Darth Vader with Jones’ iconic voice.
An AI startup uses old and recent recordings of Jones to clone the voice. The same technology was used to rejuvenate Mark Hamill’s voice to make it better suited for his performance as young Luke Skywalker in “The Mandalorian.”
Hollywood is in mourning
Mark Hamill, who played Darth Vader’s son Luke Skywalker in the Star Warriors saga, said goodbye to his longtime co-star on the X platform: “#RIP Dad 💔,” Hamill wrote.
Other Hollywood colleagues also expressed their grief. Oscar winner Octavia Spencer wrote on Instagram that the word “legendary” doesn’t even begin to describe his iconic roles and his impact on cinema. Jones’ voice and talent will always be missed. “Rustin” star Colman Domingo thanked Jones “for everything” as a master of acting. “We stand on your shoulders,” Domingo wrote on X.
a star on the stage
As a stage actor, Jones won two Tony trophies. He appeared in several Shakespeare plays, but also in Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and with Vanessa Redgrave in “Driving Miss Daisy” on Broadway in New York.
He has also won two Emmys for television roles and a Grammy for voice acting. In 2011, the Oscar Academy awarded him an honorary Oscar for his contributions to film.
In 2021 he returned to the screen again in the sequel to the 1988 hit comedy “The Prince of Zamunda”. In “The Prince of Zamunda 2” he plays King Jaffe Joffer alongside Eddie Murphy.
(vbr)
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