There Aren't Enough Words for James Earl Jones
Plus in one hour you can livestream an event I'm doing with the Washington Post!
A quick note before we celebrate James Earl Jones . . .
I’m doing an event in DC in one hour, and you can live stream it for free here on YouTube. I’ll be talking about the power of public service with Michael Lewis (author), Geraldine Brooks (journalist and novelist) and David Shipley (Washington Post opinion editor). I’ll also be announcing a new project I’m working on.
Today, Tuesday 9/10 4:00 p.m. ET/1:00 p.m. PT
Honoring Public Service: The Untold Stories
Best-selling author Michael Lewis has teamed up with The Washington Post to enlist recognized writers and storytellers to profile government workers whose commitment and dedication to service fuels the essential business of government that impacts our daily lives. On Tuesday, Sept. 10 at 4:00 p.m. ET/1:00 p.m. PT, Lewis, W. Kamau Bell and Geraldine Brooks join Washington Post opinion editor David Shipley to talk about putting a spotlight on exemplary federal employees.
Yesterday, news broke that actor James Earl Jones passed away at age 93. I saw many people post pictures and social media tributes. I started to do the same, because he was so important and a living legend for most of his life. But I quickly realized I had too many words for social media, so here they are.
Star Wars premiered in 1977. I saw it at a drive-in theater that year. When Darth Vader first spoke, I immediately knew it was James Earl Jones. I have no idea why I knew that. You may say, “Well, of course you did.” But I was only four years old. Was James Earl Jones already that iconic? Apparently so. He had already starred on Broadway and on screen as a fictionalized version of the first heavyweight boxing champion, Jack Johnson, in The Great White Hope. He had already been in director Stanley Kubrick’s legendary film Dr. Strangelove. And he was already a fixture at New York City’s Shakespeare in the Park, most notably playing the title role in Othello when the theater community was still cool with casting white actors in Blackface for the part. (They weren’t sure that a Black guy could play a Black guy.) By 1977, James Earl Jones had already begun lending his powerful baritone to narration, appropriately in documentaries about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. A year later, on Broadway, Jones would play Paul Robeson, the legendary actor who blazed the trail for actors like Jones. Even without his film work, Jones was one of the greats of theater.
There are certain Black figures who I feel like I have been aware of my entire life. James Earl Jones is one. The aforementioned Martin Luther King, Jr. is another one. And there is one more. (Be the first to guess in the comments below and I’ll send you a “Who’s With Me?” tote bag.) These figures are bigger than life. They are even bigger than their race, whether they want to be or not. These are figures who have been embraced by people of all colors, and especially by white people. While all three figures have completely different careers, they always put their Blackness front and center. Their very existence imbued the entire Black race with great pride and a sense of accomplishment, even if we knew we would never accomplish what they did. Somehow they also all ended up with postage stamp appeal. Everybody’s grandma loved them. The only difference I can tell between James Earl Jones and the other two is that, while the other two spent much of their lives bathed in controversy because of their pro-Black stances, Jones maintained his political integrity while being consistently beloved by all. But that wasn’t because he always chose cuddly roles.
The first time I heard Jones’ Jack Jefferson utter, “All I got to do is to be Black and die,” the line imprinted itself on my brain. I’m not even sure where I heard it first. It feels like something I would have stumbled across on a UHF channel when I was a kid and the TV only had five channels. The character summed up everything it is to be Black in America in one line. And Jones’ delivery is what really sells it. He isn’t defeated when he says it, although his character is literally getting ready to throw a fight. He is defiant. The movie came out in 1970, and it would be nearly another 20 years before America was ready to hear that particular brand of Black defiance regularly. By then it was coming from musical groups like Public Enemy and N.W.A. in the relatively new form of music called Hip Hop.
Around the time N.W.A. rapper Ice Cube was using Black defiance in the incendiary 1988 song “Fuck The Police,” James Earl Jones was making sure he would have white fans forever by playing Terrence Mann in the classic baseball film Field of Dreams, a film so white and acceptable that the mayor of white people, Kevin Costner, is in it. But nobody in the Black community held those kinds of mainstream decisions against him. Those roles didn’t make him “less Black.” He was already JAMES EARL JONES. He didn’t need to prove anything else to us. He had come up in a time when saying you wanted to be a working Black actor was just short of saying you wanted to eat the moon. It didn’t make any sense. It made even less sense to say that you were going to be a Black actor who, from the very beginning of your career, would play roles that were dignified, gave voice to, and – maybe most importantly – normalized the Black experience.
James Earl Jones did all those things. He also managed to become an essential part of one of the most enduring, most iconic, and – maybe most importantly – most money-generating entertainment franchises in the history of this galaxy… and probably in the history of galaxies far, far away. The Star Wars franchise doesn’t exist without Darth Vader. And Darth Vader isn’t Darth Vader without James Earl Jones’ voice. The funny thing is that George Lucas even knew that when he made the first film. David Prowse – the white British actor who is the person wearing the Darth Vader costume in the film – spoke Darth Vader’s lines when they made the film. Of course he did, because that’s how movies generally work. However, during the filming process, George Lucas realized that a proper Brit wasn’t giving off the menace that he wanted, so George brought in James Earl Jones to redub all of Darth Vader’s lines. Story has it that David Prowse didn’t know his lines had been redubbed UNTIL HE WAS WATCHING THE MOVIE AT THE PREMIERE. (YIKES!) Whether that is true or not, Prowse never seemed to be happy about the switch. I can understand. Try convincing people that you were Darth Vader when everybody knows that voice is definitely James Earl Jones. Jones has been the voice of Darth Vader ever since. He will apparently continue doing the voice, even now that he has passed on. In 2022, Jones struck a deal with Disney so they could continue to have his voice using A.I. technology.
That’s how it works. James Earl Jones’ voice is in such a class by itself that once an audience hears it in a role, that is his role until he is ready to give it up (or you can’t afford him). This didn’t just happen with Star Wars. Jones was Mufasa’s voice in Disney's 1994’s animated movie The Lion King, and he was Mufasa in Disney’s 2019 computer-animated uncanny valley The Lion King.
When I was first hired at CNN, I had visions of all the things I would do at that company. One thing I thought I would do was eventually replace James Earl Jones as the voice that says, “This is CNN.” I thought one day he would be done collecting those checks, and I could step in. But he never was done collecting those checks. If I was in charge at CNN, I would check the files to make sure we had the rights to that voice as long as there was a CNN. Think about it. James Earl Jones’ tagline is probably one of the most positive and heartwarming things that network has going on. To put it in a way my kids would hate, James Earl Jones has rizz. And he will have rizz long after we move onto a new way to say that.
As much as I’ll treasure the memory of hearing James Earl Jones say “This is CNN” during my show’s commercial breaks, today I’m picturing a different version of the icon. I still think 1988’s Coming To America is Eddie Murphy’s best film, and a big part of that is James Earl Jones as King Jaffe Joffer. When the King’s limousine pulls up in Queens, New York and the King steps out of his car as the music swells and flower petals are thrown at his feet, Black people in 1988 didn’t see King Jaffe Joffer dressed in his finest attire. We saw James Earl Jones as we have always seen him, as Black royalty, finally being treated the way he deserves.
Rest in power, King James Earl Jones. You more than earned your rest.
You’re With Me
Some updates before you go:
September Office Hours: Special Guest HARI KONDABOLU!
Paid subscribers, save the date! On Tuesday September 24th from 11 - 12pm PT / 2pm - 3pm ET we’re meeting on Zoom and we’ll be joined by my friend and longtime collaborator, the brilliant comedian Hari Kondabolu. As you might know, we had a podcast together called Politically Re-Active. We thought it might be fun to get the band back together and react to some politics. If you aren’t already a paid subscriber, you can upgrade to get the zoom link and join our conversation:
International Queer Women of Color Film Festival: FREE Online Encore Screening
Did you know that starting next week, you can watch the 20th annual International Queer Women of Color Film Festival online at your own pace for seven days!? The online Encore Screening is completely FREE, virtual, and available worldwide, September 11-17, 2024.
This year’s Festival Focus, "Joyful Reunion," invites attendees from around the Bay Area and the world to explore a diverse slate of 5 screenings and filmmaker discussions. We’re especially excited to watch SK8RGRLS, a documentary about women and nonbinary people of color mapping out a quad skating community, co-directed by Jean Zamora. Jean is a recent graduate of U.C. Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and an important part of the WKB Productions team.
CA resident, is your license plate up to good?
Are you a California resident in the market for a new license plate? Do you also happen to care about the mental health of our youth? I’ve got just the thing for you! The California Mental Health License Plate Campaign was started by BeingwellCA, an organization that is passionate about childhood suicide prevention and reducing the stigma surrounding mental health. Their campaign to sell license plates to California residents is to help raise awareness for mental health and to raise money to support youth mental health in our schools.
Make that Muhammad Ali instead!
He was the first villain I was terrified of as a child— that voice! And as I grew older, he is the actor that taught me that one character did not define who you were as an actor. I got to see return of the Jedi in theaters when I was a kid— and then later on of course, The Lion King.
James Earl Jones never let anyone define that voice as one thing or another. And of course, later in my life when I became aware of theater, seeing all the roles that he inhabited— the complexity and the unending variety of that man, that voice, that legend.
I was going to post something as well yesterday listing all the roles that he had done that many folks didn’t realize he had done— but like you, I don’t have enough words, although by the length of my response, you might raise an eyebrow at that statement
A few weeks ago, we were re-watching an episode of The Big Bang theory. In it, James Earl Jones plays a version of himself, dragging Sheldon all over doing all manner of things just because he can. He is having a time of his life while Sheldon is horrified. I looked at my husband at that time and said “what are we gonna do when he’s gone?” My husband shook his head and said, “I don’t know.” I feel like his voice will be with us forever, and with that voice, the strength of who he was.
I love that he started out on soap operas, and if people go look at his IMDb page and his Playbill page, I think they’d would be surprised. I love that he played on The Big Bang theory-that in his own meta-way he got to show all the joy he must’ve had inhabiting such a variety of roles in his career.
Please understand I’m only speaking from the point of view of his acting and vocal career. I know he had to fight to get roles in his life— but he became that voice of CNN and I hope that he reveled in the joy of his talents and that it brought him joy.