James Earl Jones, the revered actor who voiced Star Wars villain Darth Vader, starred in Field of Dreams and many other films and Broadway shows and is an EGOT winner, died this morning at his home in Dutchess County, NY. He was 93.
Widely regarded as among the world’s great stage and screen actors Jones is one of the few entertainers to have won the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony), though his Academy Award was Honorary. Jones has received two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Daytime Emmy, a spoken-word Grammy Award in 1977 and three Tony Awards.
The actor amassed nearly 200 screen credits during his brilliant 60-year career, starting some early-’60s TV guest roles and Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classic Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). He probably is best known for his voice role as the dastardly Darth Vader in George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy: Star Wars (1977) The Empire Strikes Back, 1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). He also reprised the villainous role in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (2019) and TV’s Obi-Wan Kenobi and Star Wars: Rebels.
Jones also voiced The Lion King‘s Mufasa in both the 1994 animated pic and 2019 hybrid remake. He also lent his sonorous voice to the famous “This is CNN” promo campaign for the cable news network and recurring as the narrator on Third Rock from the Sun.