TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. James Earl Jones gave voice to one of the most iconic and recognizable characters in film history, giving a deep, resonant quality and menacing tone as Darth Vader in "Star Wars"...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STAR WARS: EPISODE V - THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK")
JAMES EARL JONES: (As Darth Vader) If you only knew the power of the Dark Side.
MOSLEY: ...The demanding and sinister Mufasa in "The Lion King"...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE LION KING")
JONES: (As Mufasa) Look inside yourself, Simba. You are more than what you have become.
MOSLEY: ...And, for a time, he read the promos for a new cable news network.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JONES: This is CNN.
MOSLEY: James Earl Jones died Monday at the age of 93. He got his start in the 1950s in theater, which remained his first love. He returned to the stage throughout his career, playing Othello, Macbeth and King Lear. He earned a Tony Award for his performance in August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Fences," playing an embittered father talking to his son.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JONES: (As Troy Maxson) Let's get this straight right now before we go along any further. I ain't got to like you. Mr. Rand don't give me my money come payday because he like me. He give me because he owe me. Now, I done give you everything I had to give you. I gave you your life. Your mama and me worked it out between us, and liking your Black ass was not a part of the bargain. And don't you try and go through life worried if somebody like you or not. You best make sure that they are doing right by you.
MOSLEY: Jones won his first Tony for his performance in "The Great White Hope" as the first Black boxing champ. His performance in the film version earned him an Oscar nomination and helped make him a star. Here he is as the boxer, talking with reporters.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE GREAT WHITE HOPE")
PITT HERBERT: (As reporter) One more question.
JONES: (As Jack Jefferson) Yeah, go ahead.
HERBERT: (As reporter) Now, you're the first Black man in the history of the ring who's ever had a crack at the heavyweight title. Now, white folks, of course, are behind Brady. I mean, he's the redeemer of the race and so on. But you, Jack Jefferson - are you the Black hope?
JONES: (As Jack Jefferson) Well, I'm Black, and I'm hoping.
LOU GILBERT: (As Goldie) Answer him straight, Jack.
JONES: (As Jack Jefferson) Hey, look, man, I ain't fighting for no race. I ain't redeeming nobody. My mama told me Mr. Lincoln done that. Ain't that why you shot him?
MOSLEY: James Earl Jones was prolific in television and film. He made over 70 TV appearances, and was one of the first Black actors to have a reoccurring role on the daytime soaps. His over 100 film credits included John Sayles' "Matewan," both "Coming To America" comedies, the South African drama "Cry, The Beloved Country" and "Field Of Dreams," in which he played a writer summoned to an Iowa baseball field.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FIELD OF DREAMS")
JONES: (As Terence Mann) The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game - it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray.
MOSLEY: Jones received an honorary Oscar in 2011, and in 2022, the Cort Theatre on Broadway was renamed the James Earl Jones Theater. Terry Gross spoke with Jones in 1993, when he had published his memoir "Voices And Silences." He was born in rural Mississippi, and was raised by his grandparents. But when he was a child, they moved to rural Michigan, and he says that uprooting caused his debilitating stutter. Between the ages of 6 and 14, he barely spoke at all.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
JONES: I did the basics. I was able to function as a farm kid, doing all those chores where you call animals. And I think I had my best conversations with the dog, who was a good friend of mine and didn't challenge me in any way.
TERRY GROSS: (Laughter).
JONES: And I certainly let the family know what I - what my needs were, but when strangers came to the house, the mute happened. I didn't want to confront them, and I wasn't ready. I hid in the state of muteness.
GROSS: Why - I mean, did you not want to speak, or did you feel physically unable to speak?
JONES: It was just too embarrassing...
GROSS: 'Cause of the stutter?
JONES: ...And too difficult. Yeah. Yeah.
GROSS: Can you tell us the story of how you started speaking again?
JONES: Donald Crouch was an associate of...
GROSS: Donald Crouch was your teacher.
JONES: Yeah - Robert Frost. He was a college professor, but he ended up in this high school because he retired. He was a Mennonite farmer, and he retired to his farm in Brethren, Mich. And the idea that there were kids down the road at this high school who were studying Chaucer and Shakespeare and stuff - he couldn't stand it, so he came back and taught high school, you know? And he was the first English teacher I had not - see, I'm stuttering again. He was the first English teacher I had. And he accepted that I didn't - I wasn't verbal, that I wasn't oral, that I - but he didn't like the idea that I could privately, subjectively enjoy poetry and not sound it out loud.
He one day discovered that I wrote poetry, and he said to me, this poem is so good, I don't think you really wrote it; I think you plagiarized it - which was a shock to me. And I could admit that it was Longfellow-esque, but it was not, certainly, stolen from Longfellow. And he said, the way you can prove to me that you wrote it is to get in front of the class and recite it by heart. And I accepted the challenge and did it, and we both realized then we had a means - we had a way of regaining the power of speech through reading poetry.
GROSS: What was it about having words written down for you that made it easier for you to speak?
JONES: Not that they're written down, but that they're rhythmic. I think you'll find many stutterers today. I'm trying to think of the country-western singer who is a stutterer, but does not stutter when he sings. But there are many, many cases like - Mel Tillis, thank you. Thank you. Mel Tillis. And there are many cases like that of actors, singers, who don't have that problem when they are performing. Walk off stage, and you can't understand a word they're saying. It is - had to do with the rhythm. Rhythm carries us through. It does not - it smooths out those areas that allow the logjamming and the stuttering to be triggered.
GROSS: So how - does the stutter come back very much for you?
JONES: You've heard it several times now. It's always with me, you know? And I have to be careful not to talk too fast. It certainly becomes a problem whenever I do something emotional, whether in real life or as an actor. I hit an emotional speech, whether it's positive emotion or negative...
GROSS: Yeah.
JONES: ...Joy or pain, and that often leads to overload, and I have to be very careful. There was a time when my acting was affected by it. I think Gladys Vaughan was the first to notice it. She says, when you get emotional - when your Othello, for instance, gets emotional - I sometimes believe you less. And it's because I'm being too careful. You can't measure out emotion. It has a flow.
GROSS: Has your Othello ever stuttered?
JONES: No, my - none of my characters have ever stuttered, except for the very first thing I did on Broadway. I played the role of Edward - FDR's house boy, valet - as a young man. And I had the line, Mrs. Roosevelt, supper is served. And I got hung on the mm (ph), the ma-ma word - mm, ma-ma-ma-ma-ma.
GROSS: (Laughter).
JONES: Ma.
GROSS: Yeah.
JONES: And it is funny; isn't it (laughter)? But, of course, it's so ridiculous. And Mary Fickett, who was playing Eleanor Roosevelt, was very patient. She just stood there and let me get through it. She knew the audience knew that something was wrong, but she didn't want to embarrass me any further by saying my line for me.
GROSS: Right.
JONES: So she let me have my moment. I got through it. And it's never happened since.
GROSS: Now, what was it like in your early days as an actor before you had the reputation, before you were James Earl Jones? And you'd go and talk to a casting director, and you'd be stuttering when talking to them. And then you'd have to somehow convince them that onstage, you were going to be fine. I mean, casting directors, I'm sure, are pretty insecure about that kind of thing.
JONES: (Laughter) No, that was never a problem. I don't know why, but it never was. And to the - besides, Marlon Brando and all the method actors had made stuttering a part of the way Americans talk.
GROSS: Oh, a part of, like, emotional truth, that you're grasping so hard for that truth that...
JONES: Yeah. Yeah.
GROSS: ...Yeah, could you give us a sense of the kinds of exercises or the type of training that you had that helped you find the power in your voice, because you have a very powerful voice.
JONES: Oh, the exercises were - I got to move back a bit.
GROSS: OK.
JONES: Sooie, pig, pig, pig - hog calling, cattle calling.
GROSS: That's something you did on the farm without having to go to a voice coach.
JONES: My dad always said that the reason he became an actor was because even in grade school, and he didn't have a whole lot of it - but even in grade school, he was the loudest kid in class.
GROSS: From calling the animals.
JONES: So he was destined to be an actor.
(LAUGHTER)
JONES: And that's kind of true, though. Farm kids are never told, hush, you'll wake the neighbors. Farm kids are told, use your voice to get those cows in here.
GROSS: So you think you developed that power on the farm long before acting classes?
JONES: Yeah. And also, it is also genetic. I inherited whatever resonating chambers my father possesses. They're not too dissimilar from Paul Robeson and another actor of my generation, Geoffrey Holder. So when the Darth Vader voice became a mystery, people thought - as many people thought it was Geoffrey Holder as who thought it was me. And that has to do with just how a voice is produced, you know, how it, you know...
GROSS: How it resonates in the head and everything.
JONES: Yeah, in the head and in the body. Yeah.
GROSS: I think some of the advice that your voice teacher gave you is to not use the full power of your voice, to save some of it in reserve.
JONES: Well, that's just good acting. Once you take your character to the limit, the audience can tell that he has no more. There's nothing in reserve. And they get less interested. There's less suspense about what you're going to do next, you know?
GROSS: You father was an actor. He was a boxer first, then he became an actor. But it sounds like your family wasn't really proud of that. I mean, you were raised by your grandparents. They didn't seem at all proud of it.
JONES: I think they would've been proud. They became later proud of Joe Louis. And I think my grandfather was secretly proud of Jack Johnson as he was of Satchel Paige, the baseball player.
GROSS: What about the acting part of his career? It sounds like your...
JONES: Well, what I'm getting at it is...
GROSS: Yeah.
JONES: They just didn't understand it.
GROSS: Right.
JONES: It was hard enough for them to understand a prizefighter...
GROSS: Right.
JONES: ...Making a real, honest living.
GROSS: Yeah.
JONES: Much less a troubadour, actor. I mean, that was just not within comprehension. These are people who - we got our life from the soil. And I'm very proud of that, that I had that, I shared that kind of life with them. But they had no way of understanding where I would go.
GROSS: Right.
JONES: And were very intolerant of him and very resistant to my ever meeting him. I didn't get to meet him till I was 21, till I was legal age. And my mother was a part of that, too. It was a very bad marriage, which I tried to explain in the book and tried to show both sides.
GROSS: I guess that's part of the reason why you ended up being brought up by your grandparents.
JONES: Oh, yeah, that was the reason. My mother wanted to be a single mother. But my grandmother knew better, that during the Depression, it was hard enough for her, 20-year-old girl, to, you know, manage your own life. And she insisted that - she found a way to adopt me.
MOSLEY: James Earl Jones talking with Terry Gross in 1993. We'll hear more after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF ART BLAKEY AND THE JAZZ MESSENGERS' "CLOSE YOUR EYES")
MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. We're listening to Terry's 1993 interview with James Earl Jones. He died Monday at the age of 93.
GROSS: In your memoir, "Voices And Silences," you devote a total of about a paragraph to "Star Wars"...
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: ...To your voice as Darth Vader. And I got the impression that it's not something you really want to call that much attention to.
JONES: Are you kidding? Not true. It's just that I have very little to talk about.
GROSS: OK.
JONES: Had I been one of the actors and given points, I would not only be wealthy, I'd be probably much better known.
GROSS: You got a flat fee.
JONES: Oh, yeah. I think George Lucas, first of all, realized that although David Prowse was the actor he wanted, it was not the sound he wanted. So he searched around for a technically and symbolically a darker voice. He eventually came to me and said to Lucy, would Jimmy like to earn a day's salary? The job took 2 1/2 hours. They paid me all of $9,000, which was not bad for 2 1/2 hours of work.
GROSS: Right.
JONES: None of us knew what we had, you know?
GROSS: Right.
JONES: And that was fine. Almost, not out of embarrassment, but out of his non-traditional traditional capitalism, or lack of capitalism, George gave me a Christmas bonus that amounted to the same amount of money. But I was just acting as special effects. That's all that was. And at the same time, having done "The Great White Hope" film, I had become a member of the board of directors of the Oscar board, you know, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, at a time when the controversy over whether Mercedes McCambridge deserved credit for her contributions to Linda Blair's voice as the devil, the devil coming out of her.
GROSS: In "The Exorcist."
JONES: Yeah, in "The Exorcist." And I thought that was a silly argument. I said to myself that all that Mercedes is, is special effects. And I wanted to keep that clear in my case, so I didn't even take credit for the voice of Darth Vader.
GROSS: Forgive me. I know this is a small part of your career, but I have to ask you about the CNN voice. The first time someone said to me, you know, I think that's James Earl Jones, I said no, you know? But no, they're right. And of course, everybody knows this now, that you do the voice of CNN. Why did you decide to take that on when you were offered it?
JONES: Oh, you asked me, what has the "Star Wars" involvement meant to me? What it did, it made my voice - what do you call it? - viable in the commercial world. But I don't know why. Really, I avoided it that - great way to make a living and a great craft unto itself. But "Star Wars" sort of put my name on the A list, as they say out there, for authoritative voices.
GROSS: So your attitude was why not take advantage of it?
JONES: My attitude?
GROSS: Yeah.
JONES: Yeah, Oh, exactly. Yeah. I mean, why kick something that's going to sit on your lap...
GROSS: (Laughter).
JONES: ...Out of the house? I mean, I think the first commercials I did - I did one for Chrysler and one for Goodyear and one for Fisher products - audio products. And they asked me to just give us the sound of God.
GROSS: (Laughter).
JONES: Goodyear Vector tires, you know? Let God sell Goodyear Vector tires.
GROSS: No problem (laughter).
JONES: They had no - they were not embarrassed about saying that, you know?
GROSS: So do you have a voice of yours that you think of, the voice of God?
JONES: No, no. It - just to sound as - let it go as bass as it can go and still be clear.
GROSS: Yeah.
JONES: And to sound like I mean it. And there's not a product that I've ever promoted that I don't use, including Wells Lamont gloves - working man's gloves.
GROSS: Of course, the Yellow Pages.
JONES: And Reuben's dinners, out in Reuben's chain of restaurants.
GROSS: (Laughter).
JONES: Orson Welles and Vincent Price and I were once asked to simply, on a recording, read the menu with as much slobbering, lustful sounds as we can conjure. And we got paid for it.
GROSS: When you were getting started as an actor in - was it the '50s or the '60s that we're talking about here?
JONES: It was the '50s.
GROSS: The '50s, yeah - was it hard for you, as an African American actor, to find roles?
JONES: (Laughter) I laugh because I never wanted to contribute to the truth or the mythology about racism in this country in terms of the arts. There is some truth. My father warned me of that. I think each generation gets better, but I don't want to lay the fault at the door of race. I think anybody who's as talented as - I'll name you two or three. Courtney Vance, Forest Whitaker - these young actors - anybody that talented, no matter how Black they are, will never be denied long. The talent will break.
You know, Marlon Brando wasn't all that fancy a person, kid from the Midwest, right? But there's no way to keep that talent from - I mean, Hollywood is a money-making machine. And if you get enough, so-called Black movies going, and they make a lot of money, you better believe Hollywood is going to be right there to hire those actors, as they are doing with Denzel Washington.
GROSS: Well...
JONES: In - you know, nontraditional ways, because it's called box office.
GROSS: I think you're being very, very modest here, but...
JONES: No. I'm being...
GROSS: But really, I mean, when you started acting, you weren't...
JONES: I'm careful not to discourage young Black people...
GROSS: No. I understand.
JONES: ...From expressing themselves in artistic ways because it's hard. It is hard.
GROSS: But Hollywood did not have the faith in African Americans at the box office that they're starting to develop now.
JONES: Hollywood doesn't have - Hollywood didn't have faith in women, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans...
GROSS: Yeah.
JONES: ...Native Americans. It has no faith at all. It's not about faith. It's about habits, fads, spin-offs, sequels, you know? Hollywood had some very bad habits. And a lot of them are racist. But I don't want to discourage kids from going - bashing at the doors.
GROSS: One quick, very quick, last question. Have you ever been in a kind of difficult situation, either on the verge of being mugged or given a traffic ticket that you didn't want to pay or something, where you used your big, authoritative voice to intimidate the other person?
(LAUGHTER)
JONES: Last time I was mugged, it was multiple muggings 'cause my first visit at St. Louis, Mo., at the age of 14, I was mugged several times one afternoon before I figured it out, what was going on. And in those days, you didn't always get killed when you got mugged.
GROSS: Right.
JONES: You got surrounded by a bunch of kids that said, give me your money. I said, OK. Being a farm kid - what? - you fight over movie change? The idea of fighting didn't occur to me. So therefore, I was quite safe. The only time I've used the voice though, in my adult life, was when I got my first CB radio, and I used the Darth Vader as my handle.
GROSS: (Laughter).
JONES: Panicked a few street - a few people on a cross-country drive from New York to Los Angeles, and I have done - I've not done it since.
GROSS: That's very funny. James Earl Jones, I thank you so much for talking with us. It's really been a pleasure. Thank you immensely.
JONES: Thank you.
MOSLEY: James Earl Jones speaking with Terry Gross in 1993. He died Monday at the age of 93. Coming up, we also remember jazz guitarist Russell Malone and listen to his 2000 interview. And Justin Chang reviews the new film "His Three Daughters." I'm Tonya Mosley. And this is FRESH AIR.
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