Remembering James Earl Jones, a powerhouse actor with a voice to match

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Can a voice dictate destiny? You might almost think so when considering the achievement of James Earl Jones, the actor who died Monday at age 93 after a long and distinguished career in film, television and, most rewardingly and extensively, theater. He became the rare actor to have a Broadway house named for him when, in September 2022, the Cort Theatre was rechristened the James Earl Jones Theatre. Many people may best know Mr.

Jones for his voice alone, specifically the sonorous, sinister bass-baritone he deployed as Darth Vader, the bad guy of all bad guys of late-20th-century film in the first “Star Wars" trilogy. Mr. Jones did not wear the sweeping black garb or ominous face-obscuring helmet on the movies’ sets.

He only rumbled forth the character’s dialogue, yet in doing so left an unforgettable impression. The voice—but more than that, the actor behind it—defined the character. Mr.

Jones would continue to voice the character for decades, before bowing out in 2022. (Beginning in 1990, Mr. Jones would again have an invisible but unmistakable presence when he memorably intoned the words, “This is CNN.") Irony: In his youth, Mr.

Jones had virtually no voice. He had a pronounced stutter and was often all but mute, unable to express himself. It was only when Mr.

Jones discovered that he did not have to speak his own words and thoughts, but could channel those of others by speaking poetry and dialogue from plays, that the power of his vocal cords, and his fierce devotion to theater, began to develop. Despite a small but choice movie debut, in Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove," Mr.