One of the most monumental actors of the second half of the 20th Century, and one of the most memorable voices of all times, James Earl Jones died at age 93 yesterday.
A lot has been written about Jones over the past day, and so we won't go back into most of it. Born to actor Robert Earl Jones, whom he closely resembled in appearance and voice, and Ruth, he mostly grew up outside of the presence of his father who left the family shortly after he was born. He mostly grew up on the farm of his maternal grandparents in Michigan. After high school he started off towards a career in medicine but realized it wasn't for him and switched to drama, graduating from the University of Michigan in 1955. He participated in ROTC while a university student and had expected to deploy to the Korean War, but it ended shortly after he graduated. He attended Ranger school, something very difficult to graduate from and frankly making him an unusually large graduate of a program which tends to favor smaller men. While in the Army, he converted to Catholicism.
His first film appearance was in Dr. Strangelove in 1964. His last was in 2021 in Coming 2 America. He had various monumental roles in between, including famously being the voice of Darth Vader and Terrence Mann in Field of Dreams.
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