SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
By the time James Earl Jones died this week at the age of 93, critics and fans had been trying to describe his voice for more than 60 years - deep, rich, powerful, resonant - all accurate, yet somehow inadequate. In role after role on stage and screen, James Earl Jones had a voice that spoke with the force of a great river and the spark of bolts of lightning. But over the years, the public learned that this most powerful of performers had spent much of his life contending with a stutter.
It was a teacher in rural Michigan where he lived with his grandparents who was impressed by poems he wrote in class and encouraged young James Earl Jones to read them aloud to his classmates. I came at language standing on my head, he said in his 1993 memoir "Voices And Silences," written with Penelope Niven. Turning words inside out in search of meaning, he wrote, making a mess of it sometimes, but seeing truth from a very different viewpoint.
Perhaps his efforts to manage his stutter put a weight and intensity into each word, even in the short lines James Earl Jones uttered which have become most familiar. That's when Mufasa in "The Lion King," tells his son, Simba...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE LION KING")
JAMES EARL JONES: (As Mufasa) So we are all connected in the great circle of life.
SIMON: Or as Terence Mann, the writer in "Field Of Dreams," who makes the Iowa farmer who wants to build a ballpark in his cornfield believe in that dream.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "FIELD OF DREAMS")
JONES: (As Terence Mann) People will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.
SIMON: And no other voice could so authoritatively inform Luke Skywalker - spoiler alert here.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STAR WARS: EPISODE V - THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK")
JONES: (As Darth Vader) No. I am your father.
SIMON: James Earl Jones won Emmy Awards, Tonys, an honorary Oscar and the Kennedy Center Honors over his extraordinary career. He starred in many productions of Shakespeare, including playing King Lear at New York Shakespeare Festival in 1973 - Lear, the monarch who was going mad but is visited by insights and exclaims...
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GREAT PERFORMANCES")
JONES: (As King Lear) When we are born, we cry that we have come to this great stage of fools.
SIMON: As uttered with matchless resonance by James Earl Jones, that might be a kind of motto for actors - and perhaps for us all.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CIRCLE OF LIFE")
CARMEN TWILLIE: (Singing) It's the circle of life. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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