One of our “greats” has taken his final bow. The legendary actor on stage and screen, James Earl Jones, died on September 9, 2024, at his home in Dutchess County, New York. He was 93. Jones was an EGOT award-winning actor, having won Emmys for Outstanding Supporting Actor miniseries or special, for Heatwave and Outstanding Lead Actor in a drama series, for Gabriel’s Fire (1991), a Tony for Best Actor (play) for The Great White Hope (1969), a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording for Great American Documents (1977), and an Honorary Oscar in 2012.
Jones was a talent who could meet us at every level. He got his start doing Shakespeare and loved doing everything from “King Lear” to “Othello.” According to the New York Times, Jones was among the first Black actors to appear in Guiding Light and As the World Turns in the 1960s. We loved seeing him in revivals like “Cat on a Hot Roof,” “On Golden Pond,” and “The Gin Game.” Action-adventure and animated features.
But before his voice became known as that of Darth Vadar and for his turn in “Field of Dreams,” he was Roop in “Claudine,” who romanced Diahann Carroll. Cut up with Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby in “A Piece of the Action.” He gave Eddie Murphy a hard time as King Jaffe Joffer in “Coming to America” and offered wise counsel as the voice of Mufasa in “The Lion King.”
Jones especially enjoyed working with playwright August Wilson. He won his second Tony award for Lead Actor (play) for Wilson’s “Fences” in 1987. When PBS American Masters asked him about his experience working with Wilson, Jones said,” Most of August’s plays are about migration from greater pain to lesser pain—from the greater pain of the rural South to the lesser pain of urban Pittsburgh.”
Jones was born in Arkabula, Mississippi, on January 17, 1931. The Vicksburg Post reports that he was sent to live with his grandparents at five. It was after moving to Michigan that Jones developed a severe stutter.
In an interview with achievement.org. Jones said, “I was an adopted child of my grandparents, and I don’t know how I can ever express my gratitude for that because my parents would have been a mess. And there were considerations about that, “where should I go,” and that began to bother me when I’d hear those discussions at night.
“Where should James Earl go?” But it was the journey itself that I really felt. The being ripped from the soil is what set me into a state of trauma. So, by the time I got to Michigan, I was a stutterer. I couldn’t talk. So my first year of school was my first mute year, and then those mute years continued until I got to high school.”
It was a teacher in high school who helped him find ways to manage his stuttering.
While the cause of James Earl Jones’ death has not been disclosed, the actor did have type II diabetes. He was first diagnosed in the 1990s when he was in his 60s. However, he did not publicly discuss his diagnosis until 2018, when he talked with Good Housekeeping about it.
The actor told Good Housekeeping.
“I didn’t notice any symptoms,” Jones says. “I had gone to a diet and exercise program hoping to lose some weight and ended up falling asleep sitting on a bench in the gymnasium. My doctor, who happened to be there, said that’s not normal. He encouraged me to go get a test, and I did — and there it was: type 2 diabetes. It hit me like a thunderbolt.”
Jones continued to work on Broadway and in movies for more than thirty years with type II diabetes, which is a testament to his diligence in following the critical things he cited: a support group, a balanced diet, exercise, and attention to mental health.
In a 1998 interview, Denzel Washington said, “There weren’t a lot of serious Black actors for us to emulate, to follow, to admire. There was Sidney [Poitier]; it was James Earl Jones on stage. That’s what I remember.”
With Jones’ death, two of the performers who inspired the most decorated Black actor in Oscars history are gone. But what a legacy they have left behind.
Our condolences to the family.
