Career Stories: Issue #1
This is a new Blog series of mine that I intend to post once per month profiling individuals who have made significant life transitions leading to fulfilling work and careers. Some known, and some little known, but all individuals of value.
James Earl Jones
Many of you have heard of James Earl Jones as an actor with a commanding and highly recognizable voice.
James Earls Jones was born in 1931 in Arkabutla, Mississippi. As a youth James was afflicted with a severe stutter and was mostly mute for much of his youth until high school.
His father, the actor Robert Earl Jones, left his family before James was born. James was raised mostly by his mother (a tailor and a teacher) and his grandparents, both farmers; whose farm he moved to when he was five. This move, he later attributed to his stuttering.
James rarely spoke to anyone but his family from 6-14 years of age. When at Sunday School James was unable to read his recitations without the other kids laughing at his stuttering. He acted as if he was mute until he attended high school.
In high school his English teacher Donald Crouch read a poem James had written and challenged James saying he plagiarized it. “Jim, he said this is a good poem. In fact, it is so good I don’t think you wrote it. I think you plagiarized it. If you want to prove you wrote it, you must stand in front of class and recite it by memory,’ which I did. As they were my own words, I got through it.” Thus James was given the first step to overcoming his stuttering.
James eventually was accepted into the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance, He learned to control his stuttering. To this day Jones is still challenged by it, “I don’t say I was ‘cured,’ I just work with it.”
While Jones auditioned for acting jobs, he took on jobs as a janitor to get by.
Jones career spans six decades in theatre, film and television. Known for his role as Darth Vader in Star Wars and other roles in film, television and theatre, James won a Tony award for his role as a boxer in the Great White Hope. Films James acted in included Field of Dreams (“people will come Ray, people will most definitely come.”), Driving Miss Daisy, Dr. Strangelove and with Eddie Murphy in Coming to America.
Because of his distinguishable and resonate voice Jones did many voiceovers and characters in animated films such as the voice of Mufasa in The Lion King. Jones is also a two-time Emmy Award Winner. Jones has also received an honorary Academy Award, as well as one of the four individuals who are an “EGOT,” meaning that he has received at least one of all the four major entertainment industry awards; an Emmy, a Grammy and Oscar and a Tony. In 2008 James received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award for his “lone and quiet devotion to advancing literacy, the arts and humanities on a national and local scale,” said SAG president Alan Rosenberg.
Jones published his memoir Voices and Silences in 1993.
As his program bio for his appearance in Tennessee William’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof read, James Earl Jones “transformed his weakness into his greatest strength. At 91 years of age Jones is still active. His most recent film role was with Eddie Murphy in Coming to America 2.
If you need guidance with your own career challenges or transition reach out to me at 303-819-6178, danmacy@yahoo.com or at danmacy.org.
Sources: www.IMDb.com, www.brittanica.com, www.stutteringhelp.org, https://prod-www.tcm.com, www.biography.com