James Earl Jones, the Hollywood actor and voice of Darth Vader, has died aged 93.
He was the voice of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, summoning by speech alone the full power of the mystical ‘Force’.
More recently, he could be heard growling “This is CNN”, conveying urgency and bestowing gravitas on the US news channel’s tagline.James Earl Jones was born on 17 January 1931 in Mississippi, of African-American, American Indian and Irish ancestry.
His first film role was as a young, trim member of Slim Pickens’ flight crew in Stanley Kubrick’s dark satire Dr Strangelove.
He later appeared in a wide variety of movies such as Conan the Barbarian, Coming to America, Field of Dreams, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. He would think of himself as a journeyman actor who took whatever came along and paid a cheque.
“Denzel Washington, Sidney Poitier, Robert Redford, Tom Cruise: those guys have well-planned careers,” he admitted to the Guardian. “I’m just on a journey. Wherever I run across a job, I say, ‘OK, I’ll do that.”
