CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
What do CNN, an evil creature from a galaxy far, far away, and Malcolm X have in common? They have all shared the golden tones of James Earl Jones' voice as their own.
From the diabolical determination of Darth Vader's "I want that ship," in Star Wars, to the benevolent voice of Mufasa offering wisdom in The Lion King, to the distinguished presence of author Terence Mann in Field of Dreams, Jones' mark on the eyes, and particularly the ears, of the entertainment world is unmistakable.
Born in Arkabutla, Miss., Jones, 66, eventually attended the University of Michigan, where he devoted a lot of time to the theater and served as an ROTC cadet. He made his debut off- Broadway in 1957, and his first film followed in 1963.
Though his first film was the critically acclaimed Dr. Strangelove, Jones continued heavily in the theater throughout the 1960s, since he felt that he could do more quality work on stage. It was only in the 1970s that his film career developed extensively.
From Stage to Screen
As much as Jones has reached acclaim in the film world, his career began in the theater.
Jones came into his own as a classical actor in New York Shakespeare Festival shows, and has played Othello and King Lear - roles he would like to play again. He also has always wanted to play Antonio in Measure for Measure, which he feels would be challenging due to the dark comic nature of the play.
Jones has appeared in a wide variety of plays and received a Tony Award for his performance as heavyweight champ Jack Jefferson in The Great White Hope in 1969, and won another in 1987 as a baseball player in August Wilson's Fences.
Though he has already played a variety of roles, Jones has always wanted to perform in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, having seen Burl Ives perform in the Tennessee Williams drama on Broadway in New York.
Jones' film experience extends across a wide array of genres, from the serious biography of Malcolm X, called The Greatest, to the comedy Coming to America. Some of Jones' more recent projects upon which he looks back fondly are the 1989 film Field of Dreams and the 1994 film Clear and Present Danger.
"Clear and Present Danger came on, and I got stuck on it. I hadn't really watched the whole thing in a long time," Jones said.
With a voice like his, Jones' characters have uttered many great lines over the years. Does he have any particular favorites?
Jones considers Terence Mann's speech about baseball in Field of Dreams among his most beloved.
This speech, and the ideas of Ray Kinsella, the lead character in the film played by Kevin Costner, are special to Jones because they remind him of the poetry of the late baseball commissioner and Yale professor Bart Giamatti. Giamatti often wrote about the tradition of baseball.
"They (Mann's and Kinsella's words) achieve the same thing (as Giamatti's poetry), and they are some of my favorite lines," Jones said.
The Voice of Vader
Jones has been a constant presence in film since the 1970s, and his varied filmography includes Dr. Strangelove, King Lear, Soul Man, Field of Dreams, The Hunt for Red October, Sommersby, and The Lion King.
While each of these films is recognizable to many, Jones' most famous vocal performance is that in the Star Wars trilogy as the black-clad Darth Vader, one of the most ruthless villains ever to appear on screen.
Although Jones supplied Vader's bass, booming, forboding voice, he was not the one cast for the part at first. Originally, David Prowse, the actor who walks around in Vader's suit, was supposed to supply Vader's voice. However, "When (George) Lucas put it all together, he realized he wanted a darker, bass voice rather than a tenor, and I think that David had a slight Scottish burr," Jones said.
In an interview with the Old Gold and Black, Jones said that when talking recently to George Lucas, the producer of the Star Wars series, Lucas told him that he is planning three more episodes of the series. These episodes will occur chronologically prior to the first film and recount Anakin Skywalker's youth. Jones will return to production at the end of the third installment, when Anakin becomes bionic and joins "the dark side" as Darth Vader.
Personal Life
In his personal life, two foci have merged to form the man Jones is away from the stage and screen. The first is rooted in his sense of family, and the second is in his appreciation of the individual.
Growing up, Jones did not look to Hollywood for models to emulate.
"I look close to home for role models, and I don't believe in people presenting themselves as role models - I think there's something false about that," Jones said.
"If your parents are not role models, then you don't have any," he said.
Jones had several teachers whom he looked up to in his youth, though he found more in high school than in college. "My teachers in college - it was like force feeding a goose," Jones said.
Building off of his belief about the nature of role models, Jones does not believe in offering advice. So what does Jones have to say to students when he visits a college campus?
"My speech is a place for me to put in my two cents, but I don't give advice. Carl Sagan said it best by saying, `Take no advice, including this'."
"I think one can inspire people if you don't try to inspire them with something very simple," Jones said.
Within Jones' immediate family, the arts were all around. His father was a prize fighter turned actor, and Jones recalled both storytelling and song as institutions in his home.
"Most of the songs were hymns my grandmother used to sing. They used to depress the hell out of me with their plaintiveness," Jones said.
Though he did not play the piano, "it was always there, my grandmother made sure that there was always a piano in the house, no matter how poor we were," he recalled.
Jones now lives on a farm in upstate New York. His ideal vacation is one that is simple, and he prefers to be out in his own woods rather than visiting more exotic places like the French Riviera.
When he has the chance, Jones enjoys travelling with his wife, Cecilia Hart Jones, and his 14-year-old son, Flynn Earl Jones.
As he wrote in his autobiography, James Earl Jones: Voices and Silences, "I have always thought it quite wonderful and necessary to keep connected to nature, to a place in the country landscape where one can rest and muse and listen. Flynn and I share a love of the woods. We collect stamps and baseball cards. We travel together whenever we can as a family, but we try not to disrupt Flynn's school schedule. We have been to Italy recently, and to Alaska, where Flynn and I drank glacier water and then pissed off the edge of the glacier."
Battle of a stutterer
As a child, Jones' house was filled with song, and Jones found song to be a tool to help him in one of his continuing struggles as a stutterer.
"In high school, I had a teacher who got me to appreciate the beauty of language and the beauty of words," Jones said. "I found that if I read my own poetry, I didn't stutter. I frankly think that speech is a secondary acquirement.
"I think besides grunts and growls, I think we first had song, and maybe poetry," Jones said. While he has recorded a good deal of poetry, Jones said that his stuttering keeps him from recording longer works, even though he would enjoy such a project.
"I cannot spell orally. I have to write it down. There are synapses of the brain that have never connected, so when it comes to stringing words together and making lucid thought, like a book or a novel, I find that very difficult - so I tend to avoid it," Jones said.
The Arts
Jones' involvement in a convocation during the Year of the Arts is also quite appropriate. During his interview with the Old Gold and Black, he spoke at length about some of the problems facing the arts today, and some of the reasons why he feels the arts are threatened.
"I don't think the present Congress is very friendly to National Endowment, for instance," Jones said. A close friend of Jane Alexander, the chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts, Jones recently attended a meeting in Washington called "The American Canvas."
In an informal conversation there with a woman from the Sara Lee Corporation, Jones was struck by her description of "the arts as a right which we need to assume."
"One right we have is to appreciate art," Jones said.
"That doesn't rely on government, or even the artist. It relies on the citizen to simply take the time to walk into a museum.
"I think that the artist is everybody. In the old days, everybody in the family was an artist.
"You engraved your rifle and you carved your pocketknife; you carved your name and you carved the emblems that you appreciated; you painted your chair, and you sang the songs," Jones said.
"I think we've come to a place now where we have specialists, and I'm not against that.
"I think that we should not forget that art is a very individual and universal activity," Jones said.
In tune with his passion for the arts, the keynote address Jones will deliver at the Founder's Day Convocation at 11 a.m. Feb. 25 in Wait Chapel is titled: "The Necessary Arts: From Fishing Lures to the Fine Arts."