Orlando: James Earl Jones dies

NEW YORK — James Earl Jones, who overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen -- eventually lending his deep, commanding voice to CNN, “The Lion King” and Darth Vader -- has died. He was 93.

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His agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed Jones died Monday morning at home. The cause was not immediately clear.

The pioneering Jones, who worked deep into his 80s, won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors and was given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement. In 2022, a Broadway theater was renamed in his honor.

Photos: James Earl Jones through the years

He cut an elegant figure late in life, with a wry sense of humor and a ferocious work habit. In 2015, he arrived at rehearsals for a Broadway run of “The Gin Game” having already memorized the play and with notebooks filled with comments from the creative team. He said he was always in service of the work.

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Photos: James Earl Jones through the years Here are some memorable photos of actor James Earl Jones through the years. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images)

Photos: James Earl Jones through the years 1963: Director Tom Gries looks over the shoulders as actors James Earl Jones and Diana Sands, go over their lines. Jones and Sands, who play the roles of young lovers in "Who Do You Kill," an episode of the television series "East Side-West Side," Sept. 25, 1963. Here, Jones, as Joe, and Sands as Ruth, appear in a scene in a bar in which Ruth works. (AP Photo/Ruben Goldberg)

Photos: James Earl Jones through the years 1969: Broadway stars, from left, James Earl Jones, Julie Harris, Angela Lansbury and Jerry Orbach pose on stage after receiving Tony awards at the 23rd annual Tony Awards ceremony at New York's Mark Hellinger Theatre on April 20, 1969. Jones won best actor in a play for "The Great White Hope." Harris won best actress in a play for "Forty Carats." Lansbury won best actress in a musical for "Dear World." Orbach won best actor in a play for "Promises, Promises." (AP Photo)

Photos: James Earl Jones through the years 1970: Robert Nemiroff, left, and one of his stars, James Earl Jones, converse, Oct. 2, 1970, in a Manhattan rehearsal hall during work on "Les Blancs" due soon on Broadway. The play is the first of a number of works by Nemiroff's late wife, playwrite Lorraine Hansberry, to be presented since her death in 1964. Nemiroff has been at work sorting two file cabinets of material she left unpublished. (AP Photo)

Photos: James Earl Jones through the years 2002: Actress Elizabeth Taylor, actor James Earl Jones, first lady Laura Bush, U.S. President George W. Bush, actress Chita Rivera, conductor James Levine and singer Paul Simon pose for a picture after the Kennedy Center Honors of 2002 recipients were honored at the White House on December 8, 2002, in Washington, D.C. (Eric Draper/White House/Getty Images)

“The need to storytell has always been with us,” he told The Associated Press then. “I think it first happened around campfires when the man came home and told his family he got the bear, the bear didn’t get him.”

Jones created such memorable film roles as the reclusive writer coaxed back into the spotlight in “Field of Dreams,” the boxer Jack Johnson in the stage and screen hit “The Great White Hope,” the writer Alex Haley in “Roots: The Next Generation” and a South African minister in “Cry, the Beloved Country.”

He was also a sought-after voice actor, expressing the villainy of Darth Vader (“No, I am your father,” commonly misremembered as “Luke, I am your father”), as well as the benign dignity of King Mufasa in Disney’s animated “The Lion King” and announcing “This is CNN” during station breaks. He won a 1977 Grammy for his performance on the “Great American Documents” audiobook.

“If you were an actor or aspired to be an actor, if you pounded the payment in these streets looks for jobs, one of the standards we always had was to be a James Earl Jones,” Samuel L. Jackson once said.

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Some of his other films include “Dr. Strangelove,” “The Greatest” (with Muhammad Ali), “Conan the Barbarian,” “Three Fugitives” and playing an admiral in three Tom Clancy blockbuster adaptations - “The Hunt for Red October,” “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger.” In a rare romantic comedy, “Claudine,” Jones had an onscreen love affair with Diahann Carroll.

Jones made his Broadway debut in 1958′s “Sunrise At Campobello” and would win his two Tony Awards for “The Great White Hope” (1969) and “Fences” (1987). He also was nominated for “On Golden Pond” (2005) and “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man” (2012). He was celebrated for his command of Shakespeare and Athol Fugard alike. More recent Broadway appearances include “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “The Iceman Cometh,” and “You Can’t Take It With You.”

As a rising stage and television actor, he appeared in “As the World Turns” in 1965, becoming one of the first African American actors in a continuing role in a daytime drama. He performed with the New York Shakespeare Festival Theater in “Othello,” “Macbeth” and “King Lear” and in off-Broadway plays.

Jones was born by the light of an oil lamp in a shack in Arkabutla, Mississippi, on Jan. 17, 1931. His father, Robert Earl Jones, had deserted his wife before the baby’s arrival to pursue life as a boxer and, later, an actor.

When Jones was 6, his mother took him to her parents’ farm near Manistee, Michigan. His grandparents adopted the boy and raised him.

“A world ended for me, the safe world of childhood,” Jones wrote in his autobiography, “Voices and Silences.” “The move from Mississippi to Michigan was supposed to be a glorious event. For me it was a heartbreak, and not long after, I began to stutter.”

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