Upon hearing of the death of James Earl Jones, my mind went back to 1993, when he did a press tour to promote his autobiography, “Voices and Silences,” and I got the chance to talk with him on my DC-101/Washington morning show.
One of the things I was always proud of as an interviewer was avoiding the subjects I knew every other host would bring up. So I didn’t inquire about Jones’ famous baseball speech from “Field Of Dreams” or being the voice of Darth Vader in “Star Wars.” Instead, I asked how he got his first film role as the bombardier in Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” — and whether he, Billy Dee Williams, and Richard Pryor had as much fun making “The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings” as it seemed.
I didn’t know until reading the book that Jones had a problem with stuttering when he was a kid. I was quite surprised because he had become so well known for his deep voice and perfect enunciation. When I asked him about it, he told me in heart-wrenching detail of being mocked not just by other kids, but also by his grandparents, who raised him after he’d been abandoned by both of his parents.
He recalled how the ridicule hurt so much he stopped speaking completely at age eight and stayed mute for several years. It wasn’t until he went to high school that he regained the confidence to use his voice in front of others by taking his time, using pauses and breath control to keep from stammering. Doing so made everything he said seem so much more profound. I’ve heard Joe Biden say he used similar techniques to get over his childhood stutter.
I told Jones that, a dozen years earlier, I had seen him on stage at the Shakespeare festival in Stratford, Connecticut, where he and Christopher Plummer starred in a wonderful production of “Othello.” He remembered it fondly and said he loved the role so much he returned to it many times over his career. When I told him I had been awed watching them, but happy I sat several rows back, outside what I called “the saliva splatter zone,” he guffawed and replied, “Yes, Chris and I sprayed a lot! The challenge was not doing it in each others’ faces!”
I wish I still had the audio of that conversation to share with you.
My last exposure to Jones was in November, 2023, when my wife and I went to see the Broadway show “Gutenberg! The Musical!” at the newly renamed James Earl Jones Theatre. In my review, I wrote:
The evening opens with a recorded voice announcing itself as Deepfake James Earl Jones intoning, “You may remember me from I am your father.” As it goes on to remind attendees to turn off their cell phones and other noisy electronic devices, there’s a quick reference to Mufasa from “The Lion King” before the announcement ends with, “This is CNN.”
That set the tone for the two hours of silliness that followed and put a smile on my face, as James Earl Jones had done so many times before.