James Earl Jones’s talents went far, far beyond his magnificent voice

The word epitomizes the gifts of a nonpareil American actor of stage and screen, a towering figure who shook solar systems as the voice of Darth Vader, who rattled Broadway’s rafters as Troy Maxson in “Fences,” who regularly delivered captivating turns, whether as the Moor of Venice, the prize fighter of “The Great White Hope,” the reclusive sage of “Field of Dreams.” Skip to end of carousel The Style section Style is where The Washington Post explains what’s happening on the front lines of culture — including the arts, media, social trends, politics and yes, fashion — with wit, personality and deep reporting. His elemental power found satisfying expression so often through the decades that Jones, who died Monday at age 93, became a go-to source for assignments that registered as consummately authoritative. Ted Turner required the voice of a basso deity to intone his network’s lead-in and sign-off, “This is CNN”? Jones’s range, of course, extended well beyond the doors his vocal gifts opened. His breakthrough came in 1967 at Washington’s Arena Stage, in the celebrated world premiere of “The Great White Hope,” Howard Sackler’s Broadway-bound, Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about the racism encountered by Jack Johnson (called Jack Jefferson in the play), the first Black prizefighter to become heavyweight champion. Advertisement Still, as he told me back in 2002, on the occasion of his being given Kennedy Center Honors, he never viewed himself as an avatar for identity politics, but rather as an actor who happened to be Black. (He was amused when other actors at the time began shaving their heads, modeled on his “Great White Hope” look.) “The word I don’t like is ‘race,’ ” he said, sitting in a Georgetown hotel room. But race is the division between us all.” Perhaps it was the adversity he faced as a child in Mississippi and Michigan, raised by his maternal grandparents, that instilled in him a self-belief that rejected reflexive definition. “It was through poetry I began to speak that other language, where the R’s were rounded: Longfellow, Shakespeare, Chaucer,” he recounted. “Fences” is Wilson’s most beloved play, and Troy — the embittered sanitation man tormented by guilt and awash in disappointments — is the playwright’s most fully realized tragic hero. Advertisement Jones played the hell out of the role, in the 1987 original Broadway production, directed by Lloyd Richards. Far more significantly, it affirmed the suppleness of Jones’s interpretive powers. I remember so vividly the climax, when, forced to confront the magnitude of his failures as a man and father, Troy raises a baseball bat to strike his son, Corey, played by Courtney B. Vance. He pleaded with Wilson, he said, to make it clear that Troy would never have actually swung the bat at Corey. “At least,” Jones told me, “I could leave the stage knowing that I couldn’t kill my son.” The admission was indicative of an artist who invested deeply in the personal stakes of a complex role. Jones recalled that for the first Star Wars movie — which ultimately took in something on the order of $775 million in worldwide box office — he was paid $7,000. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2024/09/09/james-earl-jones-appreciation-tribute/