As children know the world over, he was asked to voice Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy. The man behind the mask, Dave Prowse, had a strong West Country accent. It was good enough for the Green Cross Code man, but lacked the menace of an evil Jedi bent on intergalactic power.
At his own insistence, Jones was not given a credit for his performance. He felt it was all merely another “special effect”. When the films broke all box office records, he was persuaded to rethink.
He was also well known as a television performer, playing the older Alex Hailey in Roots: The Next Generation and winning one of his two Emmys for the lead role in the US drama Gabriel’s Fire. His gravelly tones were used in The Simpsons and as the voice of Mufasa in The Lion King.
He also appeared in early episodes of Sesame Street. To see if the show worked, the producers showed clips to schoolchildren. The one that had the biggest impact, by far, was of James Earl Jones standing motionless, simply counting slowly from one to 10.
In 2011, he was awarded an honorary Oscar for his contribution to the film industry. He received it on the stage of a London theatre where he was appearing with Vanessa Redgrave in the play, Driving Miss Daisy.
Such was the authority in his voice, James Earl Jones became a stalwart of commercial voice-overs, documentaries and computer games. He was the voice of SeaWorld in Florida and NBC’s Olympic coverage. Someone even had the good sense to ask him to record all 27 books of the New Testament.
He was happy to hire out his voice for business, but was more reticent about politics. His father had been black-listed by Senator Joseph McCarthy and he steered clear of controversy.
