This is what happens with the death of an actor who figured in a massively popular franchise: because nearly everybody on the planet knows who Darth Vader is, nearly every mainstream news report of James Earl Jones’s death must associate him first and foremost with that role. But Jones, who was born in Mississippi in 1931 and died on September 9, at age 93, did so much more—as an actor, he was so much more. His career was so long and so varied that there’s no efficient way to hopscotch through it. And he worked so frequently—in movies, television, and theater—that we can only believe he truly loved his craft. The purity of that love shows through in every role, from big to small. He has left us with abundance.
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Jones was nominated for an Oscar only once, for his starring role as boxer Jack Jefferson in Martin Ritt’s 1971 drama The Great White Hope. In 1969, for playing the same role on Broadway, he’d won the first of his two Tony awards; the other came in 1987, for his performance as blue-collar worker and former Negro league baseball star Troy Maxson in August Wilson’s Fences. In 1991, Jones won two Emmys, one for his portrayal of private detective Gabriel Bird in Gabriel’s Fire, the other for his supporting role in the TV movie Heat Wave, a drama about the 1965 Watts race riots. In 1977 he won a Grammy for his spoken-word album The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey. And in 2012, he at last received an honorary Oscar, a way of recognizing his expansive film career.
But awards aren’t our only measure of greatness; actually, they’re a pretty meager one. Though Jones was a contemporary of actors like Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, his career didn’t reach the same heights; in America at that time, we had room for only so many Black stars—our lack of imagination, not to mention tolerance, is part of the history we have to reckon with. But Jones brought the deepest kind of pleasure to audiences, and that gift should never be underestimated. His sonorous, shiver-inducing baritone gave life to the dramatic complexity of Darth Vader, in the original Star Wars trilogy and several offshoots. And as the voice of the regal Mufasa in both versions of The Lion King, he commanded respect mingled with love—he was a cartoon lion you could look up to.
Jones’s voice was so resonant, with its rich, rolling vowels, that it seemed to be calling from the depths of the sea. He’d cultivated that voice as a young acting student, seeking to control his stuttering—an object lesson in turning straw into gold. Even if Jones didn’t get many major starring roles, the cumulative effect of his hundreds of performances and achievements is its own kind of star quality. We know him from his roles in three movies adapted from Tom Clancy novels (The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, and Clear and Present Danger), from Field of Dreams, from his appearances—as himself—on Sesame Street. It’s impossible to choose a favorite James Earl Jones performance, but here are two possibilities: His turn as Roop, the charming, waggish sanitation worker who woos Diahann Carroll in the marvelous 1974 romance Claudine, and his dual role as a scientist and a fever version of an African shaman in John Boorman’s wackadoodle Exorcist II: The Heretic, from 1977. Though people hooted at The Heretic upon its release, its cracked genius has since been reappraised. And Jones is astonishing. He appears in a dream sequence—or is it reality?—glowering from beneath an elaborate locust headdress, a golden-tinged helmet adorned with quivering antennae and huge, jewellike, all-seeing eyes. In this outlandish headgear, he not only holds your attention, he locks you in his dream. You want to laugh, but you can’t. That’s what a great character actor can do, and sometimes it’s everything.