A Tribute to James Earl Jones

James Earl Jones just yesterday on September 9th 2024 James zuro Jones the iconic voice of Darth Vader sadly passed away at age 93 he was an amazing actor who had achieved many accolades and to give tribute to his life and career I'll be doing an overview of many of the highlights of his acting career including his role as Darth Vader in this video James Earl Jones was born on January 17th 1931 in Early Years arkabutla Mississippi before moving to be raised by his grandparents in Dublin Michigan aged five the move from Mississippi proved to be traumatic for him resulting in him not talking and veloping serious stuttering problems up into his high school years instead of talking he would write once in high school an English teacher of his named Donald Crouch helped him with his talking and stuttering problem James RL Jones in an interview said he tricked me into talking I credit him with being the father of my voice he graduated from high school in 1949 and then attended the University of Michigan where he then graduated in 1955 with the Bachelor of Arts majoring in drama his acting career began in 1953 as a stage Carpenter and Stage Plays & First Films then actor and Stage manager by around 1955 to 1957 in the early to mid 1960s he acted in many Shakespearean plays and roles such as oelo oiron and Claudius he then made his film debut in the Stanley kubri movie dror Strange Love as Lieutenant lther Z he would continue working in many plays throughout the 60s including playing boxer Jack Jefferson in 1967's a Great White Hope for which he won a Tony Award for the film of the same name in 1970 he also received an Academy Award nomination something else interesting in 1969 was he appeared in two Sesame Street shorts later in his career career he would also appear in two Sesame Street episodes getting back on track though around this time he also Documentaries, Plays, & "The Man" narrated documentaries on Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X and starred in the 1972 film the man is Douglas dilman a senator who became the first black president of the United States throughout the early 70s he continued acting in plays such as King Lear and also the Iceman Cometh 1976 saw him star in several movies before we then get to 1977 which contains some of his most well-known Works in 1977 he played 1977: Malcolm X & Alex Haley Malcolm X in the biographical Sports film The Greatest about the life of Muhammad Ali he also appeared in the television miniseries Roots as Alex Haley and Jesus of Nazareth as Bazar this leads us into the role he is likely most well known for as the iconic Darth Darth Vader: The Story Vader from Star Wars the story of how he got the role is that the physical actor for Darth Vader David prow did not have a voice fit for the role so James Earl Jones was given the voice while prow would do the physical portrayal he recorded his lines for a New Hope then just called Star Wars within a few hours and was paid just a few thousand which in retrospect seems extremely low for what is now one of the most iconic characters ever created in fiction he declined to receive a credit for this though saying that his contribution wasn't significant enough to amount to a credit which he continued to do until he was credited in Return of the Jedi in 1978 he appeared on Sesame Street he then starred as Alex Haley in the Alex Haley critically acclaimed 1979 series Roots the next Generations a sequel to roots from a few years ago he returned to voice Darth Vader in what is in my James Earl Jones: Darth Vader opinion the best Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back which is now considered one of the best if not the best sequel ever made the Darth Vader is a a great character but the Barone voice of James Earl Jones makes the character who he is and without him Darth Vader would have only had a thousandth or a percentile of the presence he ended up having his big roles didn't end there though as in 1982 he starred in the Conan The Barbarian flight of dragons cone in the Barbarian and blood tide as omadon Thula doom and Fry respectively before then returning as Darth Vader in 1983's Return of the Jedi he had many more great but lesser known roles in the mid 80s before we then get to the widely known movie Coming to America Coming to America where he starred as king jaff jofer alongside Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall the next few years saw him appear in movies such as the Three Fugitives the hunt for ran October scorches Patriot Games The Sandlot excess of forest and the meteor man before we then get to quite possibly his second most well-known role in 1994 as The Voice Behind Mufasa Mufasa and The Lion King this is one of Disney's most well-known and acclaimed movies which James RL Jones played a huge part of as the voice of Mufasa who played an integral role as Simba's wise father he would also appear in the director video sequel of 1998 and a TV series followup in 2015 he reprised his role as Darth Vader in 2005's Revenge of Revenge of the Sith the Sith around this time he also appeared in movies such as Sandlot 2 The Benchwarmers and Scary Movie 4 in 2007 he then again reprised his role as Darth Vader in Lego Star Wars the Complete Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga Saga which was amazing to see in an already amazing video game not many big movie actors will voice video game versions of their characters so this was awesome to see from 2014 until 2016 he Rogue One & Last Appearances as Darth Vader voiced Darth Vader and Star Wars Rebels for five episodes also in 2016 he made his last major appearance as Darth Vader in the movie movie Rogue one where he had some great lines in 2019 he had a couple lines as Vader in the rise of Skywalker and reprised his role as The Lion King: Live Action Mufasa in the live action remake of The Lion King although the movie may have had some polarizing reception James R Jones's voice here was just as hard-hitting and was one of the best parts of the movie he's also the only actor from the original version to reprise his role which is an interesting fact his final film role before retiring was in 2021 in the sequel to Coming to America coming to America this was a Final Film: Coming 2 America great way to cap off a historic career with a sequel to one of the most wellknown movies he was involved in the sources for this video came from several Sources interviews that James Earl Jones did which I'll link in the video description below I'm not particularly good at Final Thoughts saying anything profound but I hope you enjoyed this recap of some of the highlights of the career of James RL Jones and that this video did his life and Legacy End Credits Justice for