From City Escapes

James Earl Jones

James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931) is an American actor of stage and screen, well known for his deep basso voice. To modern audiences, he is best known for providing the voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise and Mufasa in The Lion King and for the role of Terrence Mann in Field of Dreams.

Jones is an accomplished stage actor as well; he has won Tony awards in 1969 for The Great White Hope and in 1987 for Fences. Othello, King Lear, Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Abhorson in Measure for Measure, and Claudius in Hamlet are Shakespearean roles he has played. He received Kennedy Center Honors in 2002.

In February 2008, he began starring on Broadway as Big Daddy in a limited-run, all-African-American production of Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Debbie Allen and mounted at the Broadhurst Theatre.

In November 2009, James will reprise the role of Big Daddy in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof at the Novello Theatre in London's West End. This production also stars Sanaa Lathan as Maggie, Phylicia Rashad as Big Mamma, and Adrian Lester as Brick.

On October 5, 2009, Jones made a guest appearance on the television series House playing African dictator Antipas Dibala.

Born in 1931, Jones spent his first five years in rural Mississippi, living with his maternal grandparents while his mother looked for work (his father, Robert Earl Jones, left before he was born). It was a big household, with 13 people, and for a while it was thought that Jones might live with his paternal grandmother in Memphis "to ease the burden". But when he was driven to her house, he clung to the car. "It was the only way I could express that I wanted to be with them. They accepted that." Soon after, Jones moved with the family to Michigan; the turmoil was so traumatic he developed a stutter that lasted into his teens.