James Earl Jones, Icon of Stage and Screen and Star Wars, Dies at 93

Trailblazing stage and screen actor James Earl Jones has died at the age of 93.

One of the greatest actors in the world, with one of the greatest voices in the world, Jones was just one of now 21 artists to have earned EGOT status, receiving two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Grammy, three Tonys, and an honorary Oscar.

Jones’s Broadway career began in 1957 as an understudy in the play The Egghead. Over the course of his 64-year theater career, he earned Tony Awards for The Great White Hope and Fences, in addition to a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. His stage credits also include Sunrise at Campobello, Of Mice and Men, The Iceman Cometh, The Gin Game, Driving Miss Daisy, You Can’t Take It With You, The Best Man, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Even with his plethora of stage credits, Jones is perhaps best known for his voice work. He lent his pipes to the roles of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy and several other films throughout the Star Wars cinematic universe, and Mufasa in both the animated and CGI Lion King, as well as voiced the “This is CNN” intro. Also on screen, he’s appeared in Dr. Strangelove, Patriot Games, The Sandlot, Coming to America, Field of Dreams, The Great White Hope, for which he received an Oscar nomination, and several episodes of The Simpsons, including one where he read Poe’s “The Raven,” reenacted by Homer.

Born with a stutter in Arkabutla, Mississippi, in 1931, Jones often attributed poetry and acting to helping him overcome the challenges of his speech. He is predeceased by his second wife, Cecilia Hart, who died in 2016, and survived by their son, Flynn. Broadway’s Cort Theatre was renamed in his honor in 2022.