Subscribe
Follow Us
The iconic actor with the signature voice James Earl Jones has passed away on Monday at 93 years old. The EGOT winner played several popular characters such as King Jaffe Joffer in “Coming to America,” Terence Mann in “Field of Dreams,” and King Mufasa in “The Lion King.” Among the many Hollywood celebrities who mourned Jones' death was his co-star in the classic Star Wars trilogy, Mark Hamill. As Luke Skywalker, Hamill paid tribute to Jones and his legendary villain Darth Vader in a recent post on X, formerly Twitter.
Quoting Variety's post announcing Jones' passing, Hamill simply said, “#RIP dad.”
Mark Hamill reacts to James Earl Jones' death
Everyone in the world today has heard of Star Wars, and it's partly because of Jones, who lent deep menace to the masked character of Darth Vader. Near the end of the second part of the original trilogy, “The Empire Strikes Back,” Jones delivered one of the franchise's iconic lines: “No, I am your father.” (People often misremember this line as “Luke, I am your father.”)
This twist cemented the movies in the imagination of its viewers, and Hamill's reference to this line in his tribute is only right. After all, heroes need villains, and Luke Skywalker definitely needed Darth Vader.
Besides Star Wars, Jones has done tremendous work on the silver screen and on the stage. He is an EGOT winner, meaning he has won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony award. Likewise, he was the second African-American actor to receive a nomination for the Academy Award, next to Sidney Poitier.
Moreover, Jones was also one of the first African-American actors to play a continuing role on a daytime drama in “As the World Turns.” His first breakout role was playing Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight boxing champion, in Howard Sackler's Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Great White Hope” in 1970.
On film and stage
He has also received the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center, and in 2022, a Broadway theater was renamed in his honor. On the stage, Jones has also played in Tennessee Williams' “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” Eugene O'Neill's “The Iceman Cometh,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” and “You Can't Take It with You.”
Meanwhile, he also appeared in Stanley Kubrick's classic satire “Dr. Strangelove,” “Conan the Barbarian” with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and military thrillers “The Hunt for Red October,” “Patriot Games,” and “Clear and Present Danger.”
Additionally, James Earl Jones' most recent roles prior to his death were reprisals of his old roles as King Mufasa in the 2019 remake of “The Lion King” and King Jaffe Joffer in the sequel “Coming 2 America.”
