LAST UPDATE | 9 Sep
ACTOR JAMES EARL Jones has died at the age of 93, his agent has said.
As well as starring in Field of Dreams, Jones was also a distinguished voice actor and was the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars and Mufasa in The Lion King.
He was also one a select few entertainers to be an EGOT winner, a designation given to people who hold all four major American performing art awards – the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards.
Jones was born in Mississippi on 17 January, 1931 and in interviews, he said his parents had Irish ancestry.
He had a stammer in his childhood and rarely spoke as a result of it.
Jones later credited his English teacher for helping him to find his voice by challenging him to read poetry aloud.
The acting great said he developed his famous voice whilst working on how to deal with the stammer.
In the video below, Jones talks about his sometimes difficult childhood and how he his teacher helped him to deal with his stammer.
Today, his long time agent Barry McPherson confirmed the veteran actor had died.
Jones was already an award-winning star of stage and screen when the original Star Wars movie was being developed by George Lucas in the 1970s.
He had wowed critics with his Tony Award-winning performance as a boxer in 1968 play The Great White Hope, later taking on the lead in the 1970 movie adaptation, for which he picked up a Golden Globe.
The actor demonstrated his versatility in everything from Shakespearean epics to television dramas and comedies.
He played memorable film roles including reclusive writer Terence Mann in 1989’s Field Of Dreams and a South African minister in Cry, The Beloved Country.
In 2005, the veteran star reprised Vader for Revenge Of The Sith and he returned to the role nine years later in the first episode of Star Wars Rebels, and in 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, posted “#RIP Dad” with a broken heart emoji as he shared a news report of James Earl Jones’ death.
#RIP dad 💔 https://t.co/YXpFoBb2Ua
— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) September 9, 2024
-With additional reporting from Press Association
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