James L Jones The American actor known for being the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars has died at the age of 93 his agent Barry mcferson sent a message to journalists this morning he passed the message read James L Jones overcame racial Prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and Screen eventually lending his deep and commanding voice to The Lion King and of course to Darth Vader uh that performance of which he's best known um he worked uh deep into his 80s he won two emys a Golden Globe to Tony Awards a Grammy uh a national medal of arts and so it goes on and in 2022 a Broadway Theater was renamed in his honor he had a traumatic childhood he was part of the Great Migration living with his grandparents who moved him from Mississippi to Michigan where the trauma of his early life manifested into a stuttering problem he said I didn't want to talk bad enough that I just gave up I couldn't introduce myself to people who visited the house and it was too painful in high school though through the Arts and in his case writing and reciting poetry he reclaimed his voice that famous voice that we know so well um initially a Premed student in school he majored then in drama at the University of Michigan according that despite not being raised by his father was in his jeans at Robert L Jones or just LL Jones as he became known in emerged as a well-known actor after leaving his family first of all appearing uh on Broadway in the decades before uh heading off to a galaxy far far away he was a Tony winning Broadway Star first winning best actor in 1970 for his role of a Jack Johnson inspired boxer in the play The Great White Hope uh he was similarly nominated for the Academy Award for best actor for the same role in the play's big screen adaptation um spending the 60s establishing himself on stage becoming one of the era's preeminent Shakespeare actors would you believe and his film debut coming in 1964 a small role in Stanny Kubrick's Cold War black comedy Dr Strange Love playing a bombarder aboard the nuke dropping airplane uh big screen rolls Then followed the comedians the man Claudine and the greatest Muhammad Ali starring biopic where Jones played Malcolm X followed but Jones would soon make his biggest imp packed in cinemar from a recording booth and not in front of the camera for 1977 Star Wars uh providing Darth Vader's imposing onscreen presence under that sleek black suit and that scary mask um a verbal deliberately delivery uh making an intimidating character his Star Wars classmates calling him Darth farmer during shooting so director George Lucas searched elsewhere to give the villain the voice it deserved that was um the British bodybuilder David prow who who uh did not succeed at the role I knew the voice had to be very very special Lucas said uh in 2015 it was a tough choice but in the end it was a really easy Choice it was a really it was really a choice between Aon Wells and James L Jones James L Jones won hands down he created with very little dialogue Lucas said one of the greatest villains that ever lived