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James Earl Jones,<\/a>\u00a0who overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen \u2014 eventually lending his deep, commanding voice to CNN, \u201cThe Lion King\u201d and Darth Vader \u2014 has died. He was 93.<\/p>\n His agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed Jones died Monday morning at home in New York\u2019s Hudson Valley region. The cause was not immediately clear.<\/p>\n The pioneering Jones, who in 1965 became one of the first African American actors in a continuing role on a daytime drama (\u201cAs the World Turns\u201d) and worked deep into his 80s, won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honors. He was also given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement. In 2022, a\u00a0Broadway theater was renamed<\/a>\u00a0in his honor.<\/p>\n He cut an elegant figure late in life, with a wry sense of humor and a ferocious work habit. In 2015, he arrived at rehearsals for\u00a0a Broadway run of \u201cThe Gin Game\u201d<\/a>\u00a0having already memorized the play and with notebooks filled with comments from the creative team. He said he was always in service of the work.<\/p>\n \u201cThe need to storytell has always been with us,\u201d he told The Associated Press then. \u201cI think it first happened around campfires when the man came home and told his family he got the bear, the bear didn\u2019t get him.\u201d<\/p>\n Jones created such memorable film roles as the reclusive writer coaxed back into the spotlight in \u201cField of Dreams,\u201d the boxer Jack Johnson in the stage and screen hit \u201cThe Great White Hope,\u201d the\u00a0writer Alex Haley<\/a>\u00a0in \u201cRoots: The Next Generation\u201d and a South African minister in \u201cCry, the Beloved Country.\u201d<\/p>\n He was also a\u00a0sought-after voice actor,<\/a>\u00a0expressing the villainy of Darth Vader (\u201cNo, I am your father,\u201d commonly misremembered as \u201cLuke, I am your father\u201d), as well as the benign dignity of King Mufasa in both the 1994 and 2019 versions of\u00a0Disney\u2019s \u201cThe Lion King\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and announcing \u201cThis is CNN\u201d during station breaks. He won a 1977 Grammy for his performance on the \u201cGreat American Documents\u201d audiobook.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you were an actor or aspired to be an actor, if you pounded the payment in these streets looks for jobs, one of the standards we always had was to be a James Earl Jones,\u201d\u00a0Samuel L. Jackson<\/a>\u00a0once said.<\/p>\n Some of his other films include \u201cDr. Strangelove,\u201d \u201cThe Greatest\u201d (with\u00a0Muhammad Ali)<\/a>, \u201cConan the Barbarian,\u201d \u201cThree Fugitives\u201d and playing an admiral in three blockbuster\u00a0Tom Clancy<\/a>\u00a0adaptations \u2014 \u201cThe Hunt for Red October,\u201d \u201cPatriot Games\u201d and \u201cClear and Present Danger.\u201d In a rare romantic comedy, \u201cClaudine,\u201d Jones had an onscreen love affair with\u00a0Diahann Carroll.<\/a><\/p>\n Jones made his Broadway debut in 1958\u2019s \u201cSunrise At Campobello\u201d and would win his two Tony Awards for \u201cThe Great White Hope\u201d (1969) and \u201cFences\u201d (1987). He also was nominated for \u201cOn Golden Pond\u201d (2005) and \u201cGore Vidal\u2019s The Best Man\u201d (2012). He was celebrated for his command of Shakespeare and\u00a0Athol Fugard<\/a>\u00a0alike. More recent Broadway appearances include \u201cCat on a Hot Tin Roof,\u201d \u201cDriving Miss Daisy,\u201d \u201cThe Iceman Cometh,\u201d and \u201cYou Can\u2019t Take It With You.\u201d<\/p>\n As a rising stage and television actor, he performed with the New York Shakespeare Festival Theater in \u201cOthello,\u201d \u201cMacbeth\u201d and \u201cKing Lear\u201d and in off-Broadway plays.<\/p>\n Jones was born by the light of an oil lamp in a shack in Arkabutla, Mississippi, on Jan. 17, 1931. His father, Robert Earl Jones, had deserted his wife before the baby\u2019s arrival to pursue life as a boxer and, later, an actor.<\/p>\n When Jones was 6, his mother took him to her parents\u2019 farm near Manistee, Michigan. His grandparents adopted the boy and raised him.<\/p>\n \u201cA world ended for me, the safe world of childhood,\u201d Jones wrote in his autobiography, \u201cVoices and Silences.\u201d \u201cThe move from Mississippi to Michigan was supposed to be a glorious event. For me it was a heartbreak, and not long after, I began to stutter.\u201d<\/p>\n Too embarrassed to speak, he remained virtually mute for years, communicating with teachers and fellow students with handwritten notes. A sympathetic high school teacher, Donald Crouch, learned that the boy wrote poetry, and demanded that Jones read one of his poems aloud in class. He did so faultlessly.<\/p>\n Teacher and student worked together to restore the boy\u2019s normal speech. \u201cI could not get enough of speaking, debating, orating \u2014 acting,\u201d he recalled in his book.<\/p>\n At the University of Michigan, he failed a pre-med exam and switched to drama, also playing four seasons of basketball. He served in the Army from 1953 to 1955.<\/p>\n In New York, he moved in with his father and enrolled with the American Theater Wing program for young actors. Father and son waxed floors to support themselves while looking for acting jobs.<\/p>\n True stardom came suddenly in 1970 with \u201cThe Great White Hope.\u201d Howard Sackler\u2019s Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play depicted the struggles of Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight boxing champion, amid the racism of early 20th-century America. In 1972, Jones repeated his role in the movie version and was nominated for an Academy Award as best actor.<\/p>\n Jones\u2019 two wives were also actors. He married Julienne Marie Hendricks in 1967. After their divorce, he married Cecilia Hart, best known for her role as Stacey Erickson in the CBS police drama \u201cParis,\u201d in 1982. (She died in 2016.) They had a son, Flynn Earl, born in 1983.<\/p>\n In 2022, the Cort Theatre on Broadway\u00a0was renamed after Jones,<\/a>\u00a0with a ceremony that included\u00a0Norm Lewis<\/a>\u00a0singing \u201cGo the Distance,\u201d\u00a0Brian Stokes Mitchell<\/a>\u00a0singing \u201cMake Them Hear You\u201d and words from\u00a0Mayor Eric Adams,<\/a>\u00a0Samuel L. Jackson and\u00a0LaTanya Richardson Jackson.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t think of an artist that has served America more,\u201d\u00a0director Kenny Leon<\/a>\u00a0told the AP. \u201cIt\u2019s like it seems like a small act, but it\u2019s a huge action. It\u2019s something we can look up and see that\u2019s tangible.\u201d<\/p>\n Citing his stutter as one of the reasons he wasn\u2019t a political activist, Jones nonetheless hoped his art could change minds.<\/p>\n \u201cI realized early on, from people like Athol Fugard, that you cannot change anybody\u2019s mind, no matter what you do,\u201d he told the AP. \u201cAs a preacher, as a scholar, you cannot change their mind. But you can change the way they feel.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n