[This is the second
installment in my short series in tribute to James Earl Jones, the renowned
actor who died at 93 on Monday, 9 September.
As I explained in my introduction to the first part, posted on Sunday,
22 September, I saw Jones on stage twice, first in 1967 at the Arena Stage in Washington,
D.C., in the world première of The Great
White Hope, and then in 1987 in Fences on Broadway.
[By the time I saw him in Fences, I was already prepared for what I saw, but
in 1967, when I was 21, I was stunned. I
couldn’t quite believe an actor could embody the kind of work I was
seeing. It was an other-worldly
experience, and I never forgot the feeling I had watching Jones on that stage. I saw quite a few magnificent performances
both before and after GWH—and I was an amateur actor, at that time doing
college shows—but Jones’s Jack Jefferson always eclipsed them all for me.
[It’s for that reason that
I decided to run this two-part memorial post to Jones. He was one of a kind in a profession I love.]
“FOR JAMES EARL
JONES, THE STAGE WAS HOME”
by Elisabeth
Vincentelli
[Elisabeth Vincentelli’s
review of some of James Earl Jones’s stage roles ran in the print edition of
the New York Times on 12 September
2024 (section C, page 3), the day after his obituary was published (see Part 1
of this post, 22 September 2024). (With
the actor’s memorial in the first part of this post is also an article
examining some of Jones’s film work.)
[As I explained in my foreword to Part 1, my introduction to the acting of James Earl Jones was
from the stage—in the role that started him on his road to recognition and
stardom, Jack Jefferson in The Great
White Hope in 1967/68. In that
foreword, I wrote about some of my theater experiences in my early years as a
theatergoer, both in Washington, D.C., my hometown, and New York City.
[(Much of this is laid out
in more detail in “A Broadway Baby,” published on Rick On Theater on 22 September 2010. I also put up on the blog a survey of theater
offerings from the time when the Nation’s Capital was just emerging as a
theater town in its own right, “‘Stages in DC’ (Summer 1985),” 25 December 2011.)
[Of the five plays that
Vincentelli revisits below, I’ve only seen two, GWH and August Wilson’s Fences. As I stated in the earlier post, both
performances were electrifying. In Jones’s
Jack Jefferson, I saw an astonishing actor, only 36 or 37 when I first saw him,
emerging into the limelight that would envelop him ever after. His Troy Maxson was the work of an actor of established
strength and truthfulness showing us how it’s done. In the decades since then, I’ve never
forgotten those experiences. They’re why
people like me go to the theater!]
With roles in classics,
major new works and the experimental.
The world will remember James Earl Jones, who died Monday [9 September] at
the age of 93, for his contributions to film, some of which are secure in the
pop-culture canon.
New York, however, will remember Jones for his contributions
to theater, for which he received three Tony Awards (including one for lifetime
achievement in 2017) and, in 2022, a rare distinction: the renaming of a
Broadway theater in his honor.
Jones once recalled that when he moved to New York to study
acting, in 1957, his father, Robert Earl Jones (himself an actor), took him to
live performances. In rapid succession, the young man saw the opera “Tosca,”
the ballet “Swan Lake,” the musical “Pal Joey” and the drama “The Crucible.”
This wide range may help explain Jones’s own rich, startlingly diverse stage
career.
For years, the actor deftly navigated oft-produced classics,
head-scratching experimental theater, searching new works by major contemporary
playwrights and, later in his career, popular dramas and comedies. Jones made
his Broadway debut in the late 1950s but throughout the 1960s and ’70s, he also
appeared in smaller venues. In 1961, for example, he was in the Living
Theater’s avant-garde, resolutely countercultural production of “The Apple.” In
1965 he won an Obie Award for his performance in Bertolt Brecht’s “Baal” and
also appeared in Georg Büchner’s “Danton’s Death” at the Vivian Beaumont
Theater. In the 1970s, he was Hickman in “The Iceman Cometh” [1973-74], and in the 1980s
he starred in two dramas by the South African playwright Athol Fugard [A Lesson From Aloes, 1980-81; “MASTER HAROLD” . . . and the boys, 1982-83] — all
three on Broadway.
Here are five productions that reflect Jones’s astonishing
range and his commitment to the theater.
1961
‘The Blacks’
A cast of unknowns that included Jones, Cicely Tyson [1924-2021],
Maya Angelou [1928-2014], Roscoe Lee Browne [1922-2007] and Louis Gossett Jr. [1936-2024]
appeared in this explosive work by the French writer Jean Genet [(1910-86)]. An
experimental take on power and oppression in which some of the Black actors
wore white masks, “The Blacks” had its New York premiere in 1961 at St. Mark’s
Playhouse in Manhattan’s East Village. In just over a week, Howard Taubman of
The New York Times wrote not one but two raves about the production, praising
it as “one of the most stimulating evenings Broadway or Off Broadway has to
offer” and deeming it an event “on any level that matters.”
[The Blacks: A Clown Show (French: Les Nègres, clownerie; published in 1958, premièred in
Paris in 1959) by Jean Genet ran at the St. Mark's Playhouse in Manhattan’s
East Village from 4 May 1961 to 27 September 1964 (1408 performances). The New
York première was produced by Sidney Bernstein, George P. Edgar, and Andre
Gregory, and directed by Gene Frankel from Bernard Frechtman’s translation. The
set was designed by Kim E. Swados, the costumes and masks by Patricia Zipprodt,
and the lighting by Lee Watson. In addition to the actors named above, the cast
included Ethel Ayler, Cynthia Belgrave, Godfrey M. Cambridge, Charles Campbell,
Charles Gordone, Helen Martin, Jay J. Riley, and Raymond St. Jacques. The
production won three 1961 Obie Awards: a Special Citation for Frechtman for his
translation, the Best New Play, and a Distinguished Performance for Cambridge
as Diouf.]
1964
‘Othello’
A natural Shakespearean, Jones appeared in several
productions at Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival [now the Public
Theater] and its successor, Shakespeare in the Park. Toward the end of his run
there, he gave what The Times described as “one of his finest performances” in
“King Lear” in 1973 (which is on YouTube).
But the role that would prove to leave a lasting impression
was that of Othello, which he had taken on 10 years earlier. “Mr. Jones
commands a full, resonant voice and a supple body, and his jealous rages and
frothing frenzy have not only size but also emotional credibility,” The Times
wrote in a review in 1964.
When the actor returned to the role of the jealous Moor on
Broadway, in 1982, facing Christopher Plummer’s Iago, Frank Rich wrote in these
pages that “Mr. Jones’s ease and authority as a military commander seem his by
birthright, even as he maintains the uneasy aloofness of an outsider.”
[A correction: Shakespeare in
the Park is not the successor to either NYSF or the Public Theater. It’s a free
program of the company dating back to the days when it was named the
Shakespeare Workshop (1954-1967), presenting its outdoor productions first on a
mobile stage then, after its opening in 1962, at the Delacorte Theater in
Central Park.
[After the Shakespeare
Workshop was founded by Joseph Papp (1921-91), the impresario decided the
troupe needed a permanent home. He arranged to buy the nearly derelict Astor
Library building in what is now NoHo and, after extensive renovations, it
opened in 1967 (with Hair) and took the name the Public Theater. The
company was rechristened the New York Shakespeare Festival.
[Papp died of prostate cancer
in 1991 and the company was renamed the Joseph Papp New York Shakespeare
Festival/The Public Theater in his honor in 1993. (The building itself became
the Joseph Papp Public Theater in 1992.)
[The company was known by
either name, the New York Shakespeare Festival or the Public Theater,
interchangeably until sometime in the second decade of the 21st century when it
dropped the NYSF. Today, it’s called
either the Public Theater, or just the Public.
(The company’s home is still known as the Joseph Papp Public Theater.)
[The 1973 production of
William Shakespeare’s King Lear starring James Earl Jones in
the title role was presented at the Delacorte from 26 July to 26 August. Directed by Edwin Sherin (who had also
staged Arena Stage’s GWH, below), its cast, in addition to Jones, included
René Auberjonois, George Dzundza, Frankie R. Faison, Raul Julia, Gregory Mosher
(who would ultimately become artistic director of Chicago’s Goodman Theatre and
then New York City’s Lincoln Center Theater), and Paul Sorvino. Santo Loquasto designed
the set, Theoni V. Aldredge designed the costumes, and Martin Aronstein designed
the lighting.
[The NYSF’s mounting of
Shakespeare’s Othello opened at the Delacorte on 8 July 1964 and closed
on 8 August. It was staged by Gladys Vaughan, with a set design by Ming Cho Lee,
costume designs by Theoni V. Aldredge, and lighting designs by Martin Aronstein. Alongside Jones as the Moor, the cast
included Julienne Marie (whom Jones would marry four years later) as Desdemona,
Mitchell Ryan as Iago, Sada Thompson as Emilia, Joan DeWeese as Bianca, Herbert
Nelson as Brabantio, John Rayner as Cassio, and James Antonio as Roderigo.
[Jones’s performance of the
Moor in 1955 was for the Ramsdell Theatre, a community theater in Manistee,
Michigan. He was a member of the Manistee Summer Theatre Company and this
was his initial appearance in the role.
[The 1982 Othello on
Broadway (see Part 1) had started in Stratford, Connecticut, at the American
Shakespeare Theatre in August-September 1981. The Broadway remount won the 1982
Tony for Best Revival and Plummer won the 1982 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding
Actor in a Play.]
1968
‘The Great White Hope’
In 1967, Jones portrayed a heavyweight boxing champion
inspired by the real-life Jack Johnson [1878-1946] in “The Great White Hope,” a
new play at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., by Howard Sackler [see Part 1 for
the record of GWH, both at Arena and on Broadway]. The role proved to be
a turning point in his career: The epic drama transferred to Broadway in 1968,
and Jones became the first African-American to win the Tony Award for best
actor in a play. He reprised the part in Martin Ritt’s film adaptation in 1970,
earning an Academy Award nomination. Tellingly, Jones followed that
breakthrough with a daring show on Broadway: Lorraine Hansberry’s [1930-65]
anti-colonialist play “Les Blancs” — ironically, an answer of sorts to Genet’s
“The Blacks,” in which Jones had so memorably appeared less than a decade
earlier.
[The film adaptation of GWH
was produced by Lawrence Turman for Twentieth Century Fox and Lawrence Turman
Films. After filming in October 1969-February 1970, the movie premièred in New
York City on 11 October 1970, it was released nationally in the U.S. on 19
October. Howard Sackler wrote the screen adaptation of his own play, and,
working with director Martin Ritt were John DeCuir for the production design
and Irene Sharaff for the costume design. Jones and Jane Alexander reprised
their roles; the production also starred Chester Morris (Pop Weaver), Hal
Holbrook (Al Cameron), Beah Richards (Mama Tiny), and Moses Gunn (Scipio),
among other A-list actors. Both Jones and Alexander were 1971 nominees for Oscars
for Best Actor and Actress in a Leading Role; Jones was a 1971 nominee for a
Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama and he won the award
for Most Promising Newcomer – Male, while Alexander was nominated as Most
Promising Newcomer – Female.
[Les Blancs (French for
‘The whites’) premièred at Broadway’s Longacre Theatre from 15 November-19 December
1970 (30 previews, 40 regular performances). Directed by John Berry, the scenic
design was by Peter Larkin, the costume design was by Jane Greenwood, the
lighting design was by Neil Peter Jampolis, and the sound design was by Jack Shearing.
In addition to Jones, who played Tshembe Matoseh, the cast included Cameron
Mitchell as Charlie Morris, Earle Hyman (later famous as Russell Huxtable on The
Cosby Show) as Abioseh Matoseh, and Harold Scott as Eric. (Scott, 1935-2006,
later became a director of note, staging Phillip Hayes Dean’s Paul Robeson
[see below] with Avery Brooks on Broadway in 1988 and again in 1995. He
directed Brooks again as Othello opposite Andre Braugher’s Iago in Washington,
D.C., in 1990; see “Some Out-Of-Town Plays from the Archive: Othello,”
22 December 2020.) Les Blancs garnered two
1971 Tony nominations: Best Featured Actress in a Play for Lili Darvas as Marie
Nielson and Best Costume Design for Jane Greenwood; it also won a 1971 Drama
Desk Award for Outstanding Performance for Jones. The play was Lorraine
Hansberry’s last, completed almost six years after her death by her ex-husband,
Robert Nemiroff, from notes and revisions
she made on her deathbed. Hansberry had seen The Blacks Off-Broadway and
reviewed it in the Village Voice (“Genet, Mailer, & the New
Paternalism,” 1 June 1961); she reportedly began writing Les Blancs
immediately.]
1987
‘Fences’
Jones’s first Broadway gig was as the understudy to Lloyd
Richards [1919-2006] in the short-lived play “The Egghead,” in 1957. Richards
then became a respected, successful director, and it’s in that capacity that he
worked with Jones again, directing him in such shows as the two-hander “Paul
Robeson,” Fugard’s “A Lesson From Aloes” and, most notably, the Broadway
premiere of August Wilson’s “Fences,” in 1987. Jones won his second Tony for
his performance as the volatile garbage collector Troy Maxson. You might think
this triumph would have made the actor even more in demand onstage, but his
film career took priority and he did not return to Broadway until 2005 in “On
Golden Pond” (for which he was, once again, nominated for a Tony).
[The details of the Broadway
première of Fences is in my introduction to Part 1.
[The Egghead by Molly
Kazan (née: Molly Day Thatcher, 1906-63;
first wife of director Elia Kazan, 1909-2003) ran at the Ethel Barrymore
Theatre on Broadway from 9-26 October 1957 (21 performances). It was directed by Canadian-born
actor, director, and producer (and husband and often acting partner of esteemed
actress Jessica Tandy) Hume Cronyn (1911-2003), with scenic design by Richard
Sylbert and costume design by Anna Hill Johnstone. Aside from Richards as Perry
Hall, the cast included Karl Malden (1912-2009) as Hank Parson and Phyllis Love
(1925-2011) as Sally Parson.
[Paul Robeson, a
monodrama by Phillip Hayes Dean (1931-2014), opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne
Theatre on 19 January 1978, after a circuitous tour of the U.S. (under the
direction of Charles Nelson Reilly, 1931-2007) and moved to the Booth, where it
closed on 30 April after 3 previews and 77 regular performances. Before
reaching New York City, Richards took over the direction; the sets were designed
by H. R. Poindexter, the costumes by Noel Taylor, and the lighting by Ian
Calderon. Jones was nominated for a 1978 Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Actor in a Play.
This is the same play which, as I mention above, was revived with Avery Brooks
in 1988 and 1995 with Hal Scott at the helm. Its 1977 tour and ’78 Broadway
mounting were received with great controversy by prominent African Americans—including
Robeson’s son—who disagreed with Dean’s depiction of Robeson (see Bruce Weber, “Phillip
Hayes Dean, the Playwright of Divisive ‘Paul Robeson,’ Dies at 83,” New York
Times 23 Apr. 2014: B11). It was Dean’s last play (though it was revived
again Off-Broadway in 2014, opening a few days before his death).
[A Lesson From Aloes by South African playwright Athol Fugard ran at Broadway’s Playhouse Theatre from 17 November 1980 to 8 February 1981 (14 previews and 96 regular performances) after having its U.S. première at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut. (Aloes premiered at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg, South Aftica, in 1978.) Fugard directed his own script with scenery designed by Michael H. Yeargan, costumed designed by Susan Hilferty, and lighting designed by William Armstrong. The cast, continuing from Yale Rep, was Jones as Steve Daniels, Maria Tucci as Gladys Bezuidenhout, and Harris Yulin as Piet Bezuidenhout. The production received a single 1981 Tony Award nomination, for Best Play.
[On Golden Pond by
Ernest Thompson, in a Broadway revival of the 1978 play produced by Jeffrey
Finn and directed by Leonard Foglia, opened on 7 April 2005 at the Cort Theatre
(as of 12 September 2022, renamed the James Earl Jones Theatre), where it ran
for 93 performances, closing on 26 June. (The limited run, which was originally
scheduled to end on 5 September, was shortened by Jones’s inability to return
to the production after contracting pneumonia.) The revival, which premiered at
Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center (28 September-17 October 2004), followed by
an engagement at the DuPont Theatre in Wilmington, Delaware (22-31 October 2004),
was directed by Leonard Foglia with a set by Ray Klausen, costumes by Jane
Greenwood, lights by Brian Nason, and original music and sound by Dan Moses
Schreier. The cast included Jones as Norman Thayer, Jr.; Leslie Uggams as Ethel
Thayer; Linda Powell as Chelsea Thayer Wayne; Peter Francis James as Bill Ray; Alexander
Mitchell as Billy Ray; and Craig Bockhorn as Charlie Martin. The production was
nominated for two 2005 Tonys: Best Revival of a Play and Best Actor in a Play
for Jones.]
2012
‘Gore Vidal’s The Best Man’
It’s hard to pick one out of the six Broadway shows that
Jones, in what might be deemed his patriarch years, appeared in between 2005
and 2015. All of them were revivals of crowd-pleasing plays and in all of them
he gave strong performances. Let’s single out, then, the one that earned Jones
his fourth trip to the Tonys: his turn as a former president of the United
States in the political satire “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man.” The production
received mixed reviews, but The Times [Charles Isherwood, “Mr. Chairman, the
Great State of Nostalgia . . .,” 2 Apr. 2012: C1] praised him for digging “into
his role with a relish you can surely sense from the back row of the balcony.”
Other roles in that busy decade include the loyal chauffeur
of “Driving Miss Daisy” opposite Vanessa Redgrave (2010), and a beloved
eccentric grandfather in the George S. Kaufman [1889-1961] and Moss Hart [1904-61]
comedy “You Can’t Take It With You” (2014).
In a fortuitous move, the strands of Jones’s theatrical
career came together in what turned out to be his final appearance at a New
York theater: He appeared in a revival of the two-hander “The Gin Game” with
Cicely Tyson — his castmate from “The Blacks,” back in 1961 [see above].
[There is a report on The
Best Man by Kirk Woodward on
Rick On Theater; see Rick On Theater: 'Best Man', 19 July 2012.
[The 2012 revival of the political
drama was produced with the extended title with Vidal’s acquiescence. Michael
Riedel of the New York Post reported on a meeting of Jeffrey Richards, wannabee
producer of The Best Man, and the would-be director, Michael Wilson,
with Vidal (1925-2012) and his partner, Howard Austen, at which permission to
produce was granted.
At
the time, there was a Taye Diggs movie called “The Best Man” [1999; directed by
Malcolm D. Lee for Universal Pictures]. Richards asked if he could change the
title to “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man” to avoid confusion.
“I
thought you’d never ask,” Vidal said (“To the Gore of the matter,” 3 Aug. 2012,
To the Gore
of the matter (nypost.com)).
[The revival opened on 1 April
2012 (four months before the playwright’s death on 31 July) at the Gerald
Schoenfeld Theatre and closed on 9 September after 31 previews and 185 regular performances.
Wilson directed with scenery designed by Derek McLane, costumes designed by Ann
Roth, lighting designed by Kenneth Posner, sound designed by John Gromada, and projections
designed by Peter Nigrini. The cast included Jones as Former President Arthur
"Artie" Hockstader; Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Sue-Ellen Gamadge, Chairman
of the Women's Division; John Larroquette as Secretary William Russell; and Eric
McCormack as Senator Joseph Cantwell, among not a few A-list names. The production
was nominated for two 2012 Tonys: Best Revival of a Play and Best Performance
by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play for Jones; it was nominated for three 2012
Drama Desk Awards: Outstanding Revival of a Play, Outstanding Featured Actress
in a Play for Lansbury, and Outstanding Sound Design in a Play for Gromada,
winning the last one.
[The 2010 revival of Driving
Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhry played at the John Golden Theatre on Broadway
from 25 October 2010 to 9 April 2011 (20 previews and 180 regular performances).
The director was David Esbjornson, the scenic designer was John Lee Beatty, the
costume designer was Jane Greenwood, the lighting designer was Peter
Kaczorowski, the sound designer was Christopher Cronin, and the projection designer
was Wendall K. Harrington. Jones played Hoke Colburn, Vanessa Redgrave played Daisy
Werthan, and Boyd Gaines played Boolie Werthan. The production got only one 2011
nomination, the Tony for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a
Play for Redgrave.
[The revival in 2014 of You
Can’t Take It With You by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart was at the Longacre
Theatre from 28 September 2014 to 22 February 2015, staged by Scott Ellis. The scenery
was designed by David Rockwell, the costumes by Jane Greenwood, the lighting by
Donald Holder, and the sound by Jon Weston. The cast included Jones as Grandpa
Vanderhof, Kristine Nielsen as Penny, Mark Linn-Baker as Paul Sycamore, Patrick
Kerr as Mr. DePinna, Annaleigh Ashford as Essie, and Will Brill as Ed. Ashford
won both the 2015 Tony for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in
a Play and the 2015 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play.
The production was nominated for four other Tony Awards: Best Revival of a Play,
Best Direction of a Play (Ellis), Best Scenic Design of a Play (Rockwell), and Best
Costume Design of a Play (Greenwood); Julie Halston was also nominated for the Drama
Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for her portrayal of Gay
Wellington.
[D. L. Coburn’s 1976 tragicomedy
The Gin Game was revived for a limited run at the John Golden Theatre
from 14 October 2015 to 10 January 2016. The two-hander was staged by Leonard
Foglia (who had previously directed Jones in On Golden Pond; see above),
and Riccardo Hernández designed the set and costumes, Jules Fisher and Peggy
Eisenhauer designed the lights, and David Van Tieghem designed the sound. On
stage were Jones as Weller Martin and Cicely Tyson as Fonsia Dorsey.
[Aside from the ones named
here, the sixth late Broadway outing to which Vincentelli refers was Tennessee Williams’s
[1911-83] Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which had a limited engagement from 6 March
to 22 June 2008 (27 previews and 125 regular performances) at the Broadhurst
Theatre. Directed by Debbie Allen, the scenic design was by Ray Klausen, the costume
design by Jane Greenwood, the lighting design by William H. Grant III, and the sound
design by John Shivers. Jones played Big Daddy, with Phylicia Rashad as Big
Mama, Terrence Howard as Brick, and Anika Noni Rose as Maggie. No awards were made
for the Broadway revival of Cat, but Jones traveled to London with the production
in 2009 and the show won the 2010 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Revival of a
Play.]
[Elisabeth Vincentelli is a
New York-based arts and culture journalist and a regular contributor to the New York Times’ Arts section. She served as the chief drama reviewer for the
New York Post from 2009 until 2016, succeeding Clive Barnes.]
*
* * *
“JAMES EARL JONES, DISTINGUISHED ACTOR
AND VOICE OF DARTH VADER, DIES AT 93”
by Adam B. Vary and Carmel Dagan
[I’m posting a second obituary of James Earl Jones here
because I thought it was worth seeing what an entertainment-industry periodical
had to say of the actor. This notice was
published on Variety’s website on 9
September 2024 (James
Earl Jones Dead: Darth Vader Voice, Lion King Star Was 93 (variety.com)).
[The Broadway League, the committee of theater owners, announced
that it would dim the lights of Broadway marquees to honor the legacy of James
Earl Jones on Thursday, 26 September, at 6:45 p.m. The lights of Broadway’s 41 theaters will darken
for one minute. (Dimming the lights of
Broadway theater marquees to honor people who have made significant
contributions to the theater world is a tradition that began in the 1950s. The
lights are dimmed for one minute at curtain time on a show night; most shows on
the 26th will start at 7 p.m.)]
James Earl Jones,
the prolific film, TV and theater actor whose resonant, unmistakable baritone
was most widely known as the voice of “Star Wars” villain Darth Vader, died
Monday morning at his home in Dutchess County, N.Y., his rep confirmed to Variety. He was 93.
After overcoming a
profound stutter as a child, Jones established himself as one of the pioneering
Black actors of his generation, amassing a bountiful and versatile career
spanning over 60 years, from his debut on Broadway in 1958 at the Cort Theatre
— renamed the James Earl Jones Theatre in 2022 — to his most recent performance
in 2021’s “Coming 2 America.” For that film, Jones reprised his role as King
Jaffe Joffer from the 1988 Eddie Murphy comedy “Coming to America” — one of
several roles, along with Darth Vader, that Jones revisited, including the
voice of King Mufasa in Disney’s animated feature “The Lion King” in 1994, the
1998 direct-to-video sequel and the 2019 remake, and CIA deputy director Vice
Admiral James Greer in three Jack Ryan movies [based on Tom Clancy novels],
1990’s “The Hunt for Red October,” 1992’s “Patriot Games” and 1994’s “Clear and
Present Danger.”
[The 1958 show Vary and Dagan refer to as Jones’s Broadway début at what was then the Cort Theatre was Sunrise at Campobello by Dore Schary (1905-80). In truth, the actor’s first job on Broadway was in Molly Kazan’s The Egghead in 1957 at the Barrymore (see above). He was the understudy for Lloyd Richards.]
Among his more than
80 film credits, Jones’ other notable movies include as a B-52 bombardier in
Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Cold War satire “Dr. Strangelove” (his feature film
debut), as the first Black president of the United States in 1972’s “The Man,”
as the fearsome villain in 1982’s “Conan the Barbarian,” as a reclusive author
in 1989’s “Field of Dreams,” as a blind former baseball star in 1993’s “The
Sandlot,” and as a minister living in apartheid South Africa in 1995’s “Cry,
the Beloved Country.” [Several of the films listed here are discussed briefly in
Noel Murray’s article in Part 1 of this Rick On Theater series.]
Jones was nominated
for four Tony Awards, and won two, in 1969 for playing boxer Jack Johnson in
“The Great White Hope” (which he reprised on film in 1970, receiving his only
Oscar nomination), and in 1987 for originating the role of Troy Maxson in August
Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Fences.” [Both these plays are covered
above in Elisabeth Vincentelli’s article and Noel Murray discusses the film adaptation
of GWH in Part 1.] He was nominated for eight primetime Emmy awards, winning
twice in 1991, for supporting actor in the miniseries “Heat Wave,” about the
1965 Watts riots, and for lead actor in the drama series “Gabriel’s Fire,”
about a wrongfully imprisoned ex-cop who becomes a private detective. It was
the first time an actor won two Emmys in the same year.
[Heat Wave was a TV movie (not a
miniseries) which aired on TNT (Turner Network Television) on 13 August 1990. Gabriel’s Fire was a TV series that ran
for one season from 12 September 1990 to 6 June 1991 (22 episodes) on ABC. Jones
won the Primetime Emmys for Heat Wave as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or
a Special and for Gabriel’s Fire as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. His 1971 Oscar nomination for
GWH was as Best Actor in a
Leading Role; both his Tonys were for Best
Actor in Play. (His two Tony nominations
were as Best Actor in a Play in On
Golden Pond in 2005 and as Best
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play in 2012 for Gore Vidal’s The Best Man.)]
Jones earned a
Kennedy Center Honor in 2002, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement award in
2009, an honorary Oscar in 2011 and a lifetime achievement Tony Award in 2017.
His Grammy award in 1977 for spoken word album makes Jones only one a handful
of actors to receive an EGOT.
[EGOT
is the acronym for winning an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony. Some in show
business and the entertainment press believe that an honorary award isn’t enough
for EGOT status. There is a continuing debate over whether honorary or
noncompetitive awards count toward an EGOT. Only 21 people have won all four
awards competitively; 6 people have won an EGOT with honorary or special awards.
(Only one person, playwright and musical-theater songwriter Robert Lopez, 49, has
won an EGOT twice.)]
Jones’ looming yet
ultimately affable presence and rich speaking voice made him a natural for
Shakespeare, and he played some of the great roles, such as Macbeth and
Othello, for Joseph Papp’s American Shakespeare Festival. Jones narrated
several documentaries, from 1972’s “Malcom X” to the 2007 Disneynature doc
“Earth,” and, famously, he intoned the tagline “This is CNN” for the cable news
channel.
[Jones
played Macbeth (1966) and Othello (1964) for Joseph Papp’s Shakespeare Workshop
(1954-67; renamed New York Shakespeare Festival in 1967 when it opened the
Public Theater with Hair). There was an American Shakespeare
Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut (1955-82), unconnected with Papp, for which
Jones also played Othello (1981; transferred to Broadway, 1982; see above and
Part 1), but not Macbeth. He was the “Voice of CNN” starting in 1990, the 10th
anniversary of the all-news network, and his rendition of the tagline is still
in use—and is likely to be well into the future, according to the network.]
His television
credits, which number over 70, including many movies and miniseries such as
“Roots” [Roots: The Next
Generations, 1979; not the
original Roots of 1977] and “The Atlanta Child Murders” [1985],
recurring roles on “L.A. Law” [1988, 1989] “Homicide: Life on the Street” [1997]
and “Everwood” [2003, 2004], and guest roles on shows like “The Simpsons” [1990,
1994, 1998], “Picket Fences” [1994], “Law & Order” [1993], “Frasier” [1997]
and “House” [2009].
As for his most
famous role, Jones was paid $7,000 to lend his voice to Darth Vader in 1977’s
“Star Wars: A New Hope” [see Part 1], but he declined screen credit for that
film and its sequel, 1980’s “The Empire Strikes Back,” out of deference to the
actor who played the role on screen, David Prowse [1935-2020]. By 1983’s “Return of the Jedi,” however,
Jones had become fully synonymous with one of the most memorable and terrifying
villains in cinema history, and received credit for his work. He returned to
Vader’s voice again for 2005’s “Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” and 2016’s
“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” but for the 2022 Disney+ series “Obi-Wan
Kenobi,” Jones instead authorized Lucasfilm to use archival recordings and AI
technology to recreate Vader’s voice.
When asked in 2014
by the New York Times about how he’d kept his career alive for so long, Jones’
response evoked the kind of plainspoken humility that he had so often brought
to his performances as well.
“The secret is
never forgetting that you’re a journeyman actor and that nothing is your final
thing, nothing is your greatest thing, nothing is your worst thing,” Jones
said. “I still consider myself a novice” [Dave Itzkoff, “‘I Don't Hear the Voice You Hear,’” New York Times Magazine 19 Jan. 2014: 12].
James Earl Jones
was born in 1931 on a farm in in Arkabutla, Miss. His father, Robert Earl
Jones, left home soon after to pursue his own acting career (the two
more-or-less reconciled when the younger Jones was in his 20s, and they even
performed together). When Jones was 5, he moved with his maternal grandparents
to Michigan. The shock of the relocation induced a stammer so severe that he
often could communicate only in writing. It wasn’t until high school when he
started to overcome his stutter, when his English teacher, upon learning that
Jones composed poetry, encouraged him to read his writing aloud in class.
As an undergraduate
student at the University of Michigan, Jones initially set out to study
medicine, but wound up more interested in drama. His first stage role was a
small part in the 1957 Off Broadway production “Wedding in Japan.” He took side
jobs to supplement occasional theater work in Broadway’s “Sunrise at Campobello”
[1958], “The Cool World” [1960] and “The Pretender” [Off-Broadway, 1960] He
also appeared in summer stock.
[Jones
matriculated at the University of Michigan in 1949, but he joined the army in
1953 before graduating. After a two-year stint in the service, he returned to
UM in 1955, finished his degree, and was awarded a BA from Michigan’s
Department of Music, Theater, and Drama.
[He worked at the Ramsdell Theatre in Manistee, Michigan, a community theater in the town in which he grew up. In 1953, he was a stage carpenter, and between 1955 and 1957, he acted and was a stage manager. In his first acting season at the Ramsdell, he gave his first portrayal of Othello. (Jones had also acted at UM, so Wedding in Japan, a drama of interracial romance by Ted Pollack, was perhaps his first professional stage role.)
[Wedding, a drama of interracial romance by Ted (Theodore) Pollack, opened, in a revised version from productions in 1949 and 1952, on 11 March 1957 at the Greystone Theatre. The production was the inaugural offering of the new space that had been converted from a ballroom in the Greystone Hotel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side at West 91st Street and Broadway. (I was unable to determine the closing date, but the reviews were generally dismissive.) Jones had a small role as an American GI in post-World War II Japan, and he understudied Ivan Dixon (1931-2008), one of the show’s leads. The production was directed by Leo Nemetz, who was also a producer, with Stanley Greene.]
In 1960, Jones
joined Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival [known then as the Shakespeare
Workshop]. The following year he made his first serious impact in a landmark
Off Broadway production of Jean Genet’s “The Blacks” [see above] as the
protagonist Deodatus. Afterwards, for Papp, he played Oberon in “A Midsummer
Night’s Dream” [1961; Delacorte Theater] the first of many heralded
Shakespearean turns. His masterful 1964 performance as Othello for Papp [see
above] was moved Off Broadway, where the production ran for almost a year.
Jones’ first big
break into cinema came by way of Papp’s production of “The Merchant of Venice,”
in which Jones played the Prince of Morocco to George C. Scott’s Shylock [1962;
Delacorte Theater]. When Stanley Kubrick came to see Scott, whom he was
considering for one of the leads in “Dr. Strangelove” [1964; see Part 1], the
film director was so impressed that he cast Jones in the film, too. In 1966,
Jones had the title role in “Macbeth” at the New York Shakespeare Festival,
again to great acclaim. He also booked a recurring role on “As the World Turns”
in 1966, marking the first time a Black actor had a continuing role on a
daytime soap opera
Still, he was
almost one of Broadway’s best-kept secrets until 1968 with his performance in
Howard Sackler’s “The Great White Hope” [see above] as Jack Johnson, the first
Black man to win the world heavyweight boxing championship. The Tony, the
acclaim and its timing in the late ’60s propelled Jones into the spotlight at a
time when it was difficult for Black actors to secure quality roles. The actor,
however, has said that the accolades he received for for [sic] both the play and its film adaptation did not do that much for his
career.
It wasn’t until
1977, when Jones’ voice terrified audiences for the first time as Darth Vader,
that things truly began to shift for him. That same year, Jones also appeared
in ABC’s “Roots” playing the author Alex Haley, whose genealogical novel of the
same title inspired the groundbreaking miniseries. He never quite became an
outright star in the classic sense of the word, but the back-to-back successes
that year did ultimately make Jones a household name, whose presence connoted a
stature and gravitas to projects that might otherwise be lacking.
[As
I noted earlier, this is an error. Jones wasn’t in the 1977 Roots miniseries; his character,
Alex Haley, didn’t appear in that program. Jones portrayed Haley in Roots:
The Next Generations, the 1979 sequel.]
Theatre is where
Jones most frequently was a box office draw in his own right — and well into
his 80s. He returned to Broadway in 2005 for a production of “On Golden Pond”
opposite Leslie Uggams, drawing another Tony nomination. In 2008, he played Big
Daddy in a production of Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” that
featured an all-Black cast including Terrence Howard, Anika Noni Rose and
Phylicia Rashad. [These plays are covered above, in Elisabeth Vincentelli’s
article, as is the show in the paragraph below.]
Two years later, he
returned to Broadway in a revival of “Driving Miss Daisy” opposite Vanessa
Redgrave; the production’s move to London in 2011 meant he had to miss the
Honorary Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles. Instead, Sir Ben Kingsley surprised
Jones with his statuette in person after he’d concluded a matinee performance
of the show.
Jones was first
married to actress-singer Julienne Marie. His second wife of 34 years, actress
Cecilia Hart, died in 2016. He is survived by his son, Flynn Earl Jones. [Jones
met both his wives when they played Desdemona to his Othello, one in 1964 and
the other in 1981.]
[Adam B. Vary is a senior entertainment writer covering
the business of genre storytelling and fandom across movies, television, and
streaming platforms. He joined Variety in 2019,
after seven years at BuzzFeed News and six years at Entertainment Weekly.
[Carmel Dagan, a news editor at Variety, went to Harvard and worked for the entertainment industry bible Variety for 16 years,
and during the last five he wrote more than 300 advanced obituaries, a number
of which were published on Variety.com. Dagan also writes current obituaries.]
*
* * *
“JONES SET AN EXAMPLE FOR ACTORS”
by Jonathan Abrams
[Two days after James Earl Jones’s obituary appeared in
the New York Times, Jonathan Abrams published a column reporting on how Jones’s art and
work had left an impression on some of his professional colleagues. The article, which ran in the print edition on
13 September 2024, section C, page 3, focuses on Wendell Pierce, who was most
recently seen on Broadway in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman at the
Hudson Theatre (9 October 2022-15 January 2023), and Courtney B. Vance, who played
Troy Maxson’s son Corey in Fences opposite Jones in 1987-88.]
Courtney B. Vance and Wendell Pierce discuss one of their heroes.
James Earl Jones
had already made a lifetime impression on Wendell Pierce by the time Pierce
patiently waited in a receiving line to meet Jones after his opening night
performance of August Wilson’s [1945-2005] “Fences” nearly 40 years ago [26 March 1987].
Years earlier,
Jones had mesmerized Pierce in the 1970 film “The Great White Hope,” embodying
integrity, creativity and dignity in the role of the boxer Jack Jefferson. The
performance inspired a teenage Pierce [b. 1963] as he began his studies at the
New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. That, he decided, was the type of actor
he yearned to be.
Pierce told Jones
of his impact. “Are you an actor?” Pierce recalled Jones asking in his
barreling baritone of a voice. Delighted to learn that he was, Jones discussed
how he enjoyed the night, but was glad it was over. There was shared energy
between the actors and audience except the hole where the critics sat stoic and
unmoved. They wouldn’t be there after opening night.
“Now that it’s
over, there won’t be that hole there,” Jones said. “People can just respond to
the play. That’s the great thing about doing theater. It’s that energy between
the audience and the performance. Don’t you find that?”
It’s a moment
Pierce cherishes after carving his own impactful career by starring in
television shows like “The Wire” [2002-2008, HBO] and “Treme” [2010-2013, HBO] and
on Broadway in “Death of a Salesman.”
“I knew I was part
of a collective whole of the people who had seen it that would have this
unique, seminal experience that would be something that you had to be there to
see,” Pierce said. “And I feel privileged that I was a part of that very few,
especially in theater performances with Mr. Jones, that got to see it.”
Art reflects
society’s values, hopes and dreams, he said. An actor’s mission is to project
those onto a communal setting. No one did it better than Jones, who died at 93
on Monday [9 September 2024].
“The more specific
you are and the more authentic and truthful you are, like he was, the more
universal it becomes,” Pierce said. “That’s why people identify with his famous
performances, because we all were touched by it because he was so truthful, so
authentic that it spoke to all of us.”
Jones’s voice is
instantly recognizable for his work in the original “Star Wars” trilogy, “The
Lion King” and “The Simpsons.” His face is known for classics like “Coming to
America,” “The Sandlot” and “Field of Dreams.” However, it may have been
Broadway where Jones’s presence resonated so personally and profoundly not just
with the audience, but with a young crop of Black actors who cherished seeing
male actors of color in leading roles.
“He’s my hero,”
Denzel Washington [b. 1954] told Variety. “My college theater career started
because of ‘The Emperor Jones’ and ‘Othello’ with James Earl Jones.”
[It’s
unlikely that Washington saw Jones’s 1964 portrayal of Othello at Central Park’s
Delacorte Theater, but he might have seen the 1982 Broadway mounting or even the
1981 version in Connecticut. Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones is another matter, however.
There is a 1971 recording from Caedmon of Jones in a reading of the play, but I
can’t find a record that it was derived from a staged version. Jones did
perform the title role on the stage, but it was in 1964 (when Washington would
only have been 9), and it was at the Boston Arts Festival. I haven’t been able
to find a record of any other performance of James Earl Jones playing Brutus
Jones that Washington’s likely to have seen.]
“I wasn’t going to
be as big as him,” Washington added. “I wanted to sound like him. He was
everything to me as a budding actor. He was who I wanted to be.”
Courtney B. Vance [b.
1960] described acting alongside Jones in “Fences” as “the seminal event of my
life.” High expectations existed around a play that showcased a Black
playwright (Wilson), Black director (Lloyd Richards) and Black lead actor
(Jones). Vance often sensed a power struggle, but for the most part, he was
just trying to find his footing.
In the play, Vance
played Cory, the son of the protagonist, Jones’s Troy Maxson. Vance was 25 [actually,
27] years old at the time, planting the seeds for his own long career, which
includes Emmy and Tony wins. Everyone else in the cast knew one another. Vance
originally felt isolated.
“They all knew
him,” Vance said. “He was Jimmy and James Earl Jones. I didn’t know what to
call him, and of course, in the play, he demanded that his son — ‘You put a sir
on that when you speak to me. Yes sir.’ So, he was sir to me and that’s what I
called him.”
Vance was
referencing a memorable scene in which his character asked his father if he
liked him. Jones, as Maxson, forcefully responded that he provided for him and
that should suffice.
“It’s so timeless,”
Vance said. “It’s the struggle between fathers and sons.”
Jones and Vance
giggled through rehearsing the scene for the first couple of weeks. “It was too
deep for us, I guess,” Vance said. Finally, Richards requested they go deeper.
“Jimmy had a sinus
thing, so the snot would just roll on out of his nose and he would just let it
hang there with the snot just bouncing in the air and you didn’t know whether
to look at him or the snot or to the ground,” Vance said. “It was very otherworldly.”
Jones made his
Broadway debut in the 1950s, receiving three Tony Awards (one for lifetime
achievement) over the decades while playing a range of rich roles like Maxson,
or Jefferson in the 1967 play “The Great White Hope,” written by Howard
Sackler, that was adapted into the movie Pierce loved.
In the years before
Pierce met Jones at “Fences,” he had arrived in New York to study at Juilliard,
“lost, uncomfortable, a little nervous about stepping into this new chapter of
my life with studying theater,” he said.
In 1982, he watched
Jones perform in “Othello” at the Winter Garden Theater.
“It gave me focus
and it made me come to understand that I was in the right place at the right
time and doing the work that I needed to do, because I saw what I possibly
could become embodied in this man playing the Moor,” Pierce said. “That’s how
you know that something is authentic, the lasting impact that it has on the
people that receive it.”
Vance said he had
made plans to visit Jones later this month. “The world shifted on me,” Vance
said. “I’ll have to see him in my dreams.”
[Jonathan Abrams writes about the intersections of
sports and culture and the changing cultural scenes in the South.
[American Theatre, the quarterly magazine of the Theatre Communications Group, has just released an online tribute to James Earl Jones by his co-star in the Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Phylicia Rashad. I have decided to add a third part to the memorial series to repost that essay, which I will accompany by three additional articles I think are interesting. Part 3 will be posted on Saturday, 28 September 2024.]
