James Earl Jones

19/03/2010

Thespian and voice of Darth Vader, on his coming of age..

At 16, I’d had a quiet but rich life on a farm, in Michigan, where I was raised by my grandparents. My grandmother taught me a great deal about hate, and my grandfather a great deal about justice.

I was encouraged to write to President Roosevelt regarding those issues, and I’d let young James Earl know that the FBI would find that letter pretty inflammatory when they go to check him out before joining the Army. I’d also tell him he’ll be very impressed by President Obama, and impressed that America had it in it to elect that man.

I read a lot of Jules Verne, and a pal and I drew plans for our own earth burrowing machine to go to the centre of the earth. My grandfather took this quite seriously and admonished us to stop this nonsense.

I was forbidden to speak of my father, who was estranged from my mother before I was born. When I was at high school, I went up to a magazine rack and discovered him in a photograph, in a production of Lillian Smith’s Strange Fruit on Broadway, starring Mel Ferrer.

My father offered me a trip to New York to meet him, and when my mother heard this she countered with a train ticket to St Louis, where she lived, and a ticket for my Uncle Randy. So I chose that, because I had his companionship. My father never quite forgave me for choosing to go to St Louis instead of New York.

I’d advise my 16-year-old self that one day he will meet his father and he’ll take him on a grand tour, to see Dame Margot Fonteyn in Swan Lake, and the great African American opera singer Leontyne Price perform in Tosca. He took me to see Pal Joey, and later Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, as cold and depressing as that tale was. It was Pal Joey that lit the flame, and I got a job that summer at our little opera house back home in Michigan, a real job as a stage carpenter.

I don’t think 16-year-old James Earl would be impressed with what he’ll achieve as an actor later in life. What would knock his socks off would be a good crop, a good year of squirrel hunting, or a good bag of deer.

Besides my grandfather, my hero was Professor Donald Crouch in High School. There was enough drama in my life that by the time I got to Grade School I was stuttering to the point that I couldn’t really talk, by the time I got to High School I was pretty much a mute. He discovered I wrote poetry and challenged me to read out my work. Because it was my own words, I could say it by heart.

The role that put me on the cover of magazines was The Great White Hope. [Jones won a Tony for his Broadway role as boxer Jack Jefferson and was nominated for an Oscar for the 1970 movie]. The one my teenage self will be most proud of though will be Cry The Beloved Country.

Star Wars was an easy buck out of the blue. And it wasn’t much more than a dollar either. If I’d made a bid to be in the [Darth Vader] costume I would have been a millionaire, but I chose work as a special effects person and just recorded the voice. I’m very happy to have been part of the whole thing, I love George [Lucas].