I spent my first decade in New York working at Varietyformer offices on Park Ave. South, and more than once I found myself sharing an elevator with James Earl Jones on his way to and from Verizon to shoot commercials. The giant of an actor, who died today at age 93, never failed to offer a warm “Good morning” or “Good afternoon,” and even if you didn’t recognize his face or his imposing 6-foot-11 frame, there was no mistaking that sonorous voice.
His voice was the low, quaking rumble that came from behind Darth Vader's menacing mask in the Star Wars saga, starting from the original 1977 film, and the stentorian growl of Mufasa, king of the Pride Lands and father of Simba in The Lion King.
He was also the voice of a revered stage actor, who made his reputation in the 1960s and 1970s tackling major classical roles in Shakespeare in the Park productions. The Winter's Tale, Othello, Troilus and Cressida, Coriolanus, Fraction AND King LearHis versatility led him to Hickey in The Iceman ArrivesLennie inside Of mice and menLopakhin in The cherry orchard and Troy Maxson in Fences.
I caught that towering performance as the tragic hero in August Wilson’s 1985 masterpiece only on video at Lincoln Center’s priceless Library for the Performing Arts. Even without the electricity of live theater, the pathos and pride, the willpower masking a broken spirit in Jones’s portrayal of a Pittsburgh garbage man embittered by the Major League Baseball career he was denied, rang loud and clear. It won him his second of three Tony Awards.
Because Jones has remained so true to his theatrical roots, I have been fortunate to see him on stage several times. The first was his return to Broadway after a nearly two-decade absence, starring opposite Leslie Uggams in a 2005 revival of Ernest Thompson's On the golden pond. Even in that creaky vehicle, Jones was majestic, rising above the stock persona of the lovable grouch to imbue him with a fiery intelligence, a wicked sense of humor and a searing vulnerability when a life-threatening health scare exposed his fear of death.
In 2008, he enthusiastically played the domineering Southern patriarch Big Daddy in an all-black production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roofthen returned two years later, paired with Vanessa Redgrave, their combined stature elevating the tottering Out and about with Daisy.
Jones continued to work on stage into his mid-80s, demonstrating an eight-show-a-week discipline and stamina that many actors a fraction of his age struggle to maintain.
In Gore Vidal's election satire, The witnessJones was one of two octogenarians to steal the show (the other was Angela Lansbury), playing a former president staring into the abyss of mortality but invigorated by the fight of a contentious primary race and wary of which candidate will win his support.
It was a real pleasure playing the benevolent grandfather of an eccentric family in a lively 2014 revival of Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's screwball comedy You can't take it with youplaying the role with a twinkle in his eye but also with the seriousness and wisdom that make him an effective peacemaker in times of crisis. “Life is beautiful if you let it come to you,” he said in one of the most memorable lines of the 1936 comedy.
Jones's last Broadway role, in 2015, was another pairing of two stage titans, with Cicely Tyson as the bickering, prankster residents of a retirement home in The Gin Game. The rather slim work was given substance and vitality by the joy of watching two shrewd old pros light each other up. The following year, Jones received a Lifetime Achievement Tony.
While he made his film debut with a small role in Stanley Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove in 1964, my first encounter with Jones on screen was on late-night TV in Martin Ritt's 1970 film The Great White Hopeadapted from the play that had won Jones his first Tony the previous year.
He reprised the part of Jack Jefferson, a character based on real-life boxer Jack Johnson, whose streak of victories angered the sport’s racist fans, prompting them to seek out a white challenger to defeat the heavyweight champion. Jack’s ultimate defeat comes when authorities target him for his courtship of a white woman, played by fellow Tony winner Jane Alexander.
That film, which earned Jones his first and only Oscar nomination (the Academy gave him an honorary award in 2012), launched a film career that would span six decades, though he was rarely afforded the leading roles that a white actor of his caliber would have had.
His booming voice made him a natural for roles of authority, but he radiated strength even in silence. Jones could also modulate the powerful instrument that became his trademark to bring out warm, velvety textures in more avuncular parts, invariably displaying great depth of feeling, whether he was playing arrogance or humility.
Besides Darth Vader, movie audiences probably know Jones best for his role as Admiral James Greer in three Tom Clancy adaptations, The Hunt for Red October, Patriotic Games AND Clear and present danger; and as the king of an imaginary African nation in Arriving in America and its sequel, which was his last appearance in a feature film.
Other notable screen roles include the South African church minister whose son is arrested for murder in Mourn the beloved country; the representative of black coal miners in West Virginia in John Sayles's labor drama Mathematical; and the disillusioned author and activist who helps Kevin Costner's Iowa farmer pursue his vision of a baseball field in his cornfield, where the ghosts of legendary players are welcome, in the fantasy drama The Man of Dreams.
I prefer to remember Jones in one of his earliest and perhaps least distinctive screen roles, the 1974 romantic comedy-drama Claudinein which he plays a garbage man who falls in love with the main character played by Diahann Carroll, a single mother raising six children in Harlem.
It's a delicious, bittersweet, funny film, with two brilliant lead performances. Claudine It bucked the Blaxploitation trend of the time to consider the hopes and dreams of ordinary African Americans, grappling with poverty, the indignities of welfare, and systemic inequality. It also has a killer soundtrack by Curtis Mayfield with vocals by Gladys Knight & the Pips.
Or maybe I'll simply choose to remember Jones fondly as the elegant gentleman in the elevator.