It was an interesting challenge to find today’s image. My policy has long been to find an image that shows the first thing I think of them in, but I have tried to use the actual face of the performer every time. Besides, showing Darth Vader gets into a complicated Thing about David Prowse, and I just couldn’t have that conversation right now. I’m going to have to figure this out eventually, as I try to do more behind-the-scenes people and even a few people who have almost exclusively done voice work (did you know June Foray is still alive?), but honestly, let’s use this as a lament that Square One TV is not yet available for home viewing, either on disc or streaming.
It’s common knowledge, of course, that James Earl Jones was, in his first film role, part of the ethnically diverse crew of that lone bomber in Dr. Strangelove. From there, he has played a wide array of characters, from doctors to famous writers to evil sorcerers to African kings. And that’s before you even get into his voice work. For his Prolific Actor Turkey Quotient, he appeared in City Limits, easily my favourite episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
But, yes, it’s the voice work that I think most people know him for. He is in the elite group of “people who have been parodied on The Simpsons and then actually voiced a character.” (He’s Serak the Preparer!) He is Darth Vader and Mufasa, and he is the narrator of a whole mess of things. Whenever people wanted those round, melodic tones, they sought out James Earl Jones.
In The Angriest Man in Brooklyn, his character has a stammer. This is intended to be one more frustration driving Robin Williams as Henry Altmann to the brink. In fact, Jones himself has a stammer. The reason his voice is so deliberate is that he is trying to control it. And, no, he does not consider himself to have “overcome” his stammer; he still has difficulty with it. For that scene, I believe he just stopped working to not have the stammer and spoke the way he naturally does.
As always, though, I do feel the need to point out his contributions to public television in general and educational television in particular. As mentioned before, Sonia Manzano saw him reciting the alphabet on Sesame Street and decided to be part of the show, leading to forty years as Maria. But he was the first celebrity to appear on the show. He was the chief on the Mathnet segments of Square One TV. He read Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain on Reading Rainbow, to this day one of my favourite performances from that show. And, you know, if children’s television isn’t your speed, he was King Lear in a production that also featured Raul Julia. So there’s that.
