He remained mute for all intents and purposes for the next eight years until he entered high school. A teacher at this high school, Donald Crouch, discovered Jones had a propensity and a gift for poetry. Believing that forced public speaking would lure Jones out of his silence, Crouch made Jones recite a poem in front of the class every day. Slowly, he began speaking, but even to this day must think very carefully before forming his sentences.
Jones graduated from the University of Michigan where he enrolled in the ROTC program and during the late 1950s, he was an Army officer stationed in Alaska. He landed his first film role in the Stanley Kubrick classic Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in 1964. His role as Lt. Lothar Zogg was widely overshadowed by the immortalized characters of Peter Sellers and George C. Scott. Jones worked steadily in television until his breakout performance as boxer Jack Jefferson in The Great White Hope in 1970, winning a Tony for his stage portrayal of the same character in 1969. For his film effort, Jones was rewarded with an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, but lost out to George C. Scott of Patton.
Jones continued to work onstage and onscreen when he was approached to provide the sinister and memorable voice of Darth Vader for George Lucas’ Star Wars in 1977. While this remains some of his most memorable work, in some versions of the film he wasn’t actually the voice of Darth Vader.
Jones established himself in the following years as a prolific and talented actor. Some of his more famous roles include Terence Mann in 1989’s Field of Dreams, Mr. Mertle in 1993’s The Sandlot, and Admiral James Greer in the Tom Clancy inspired trilogy Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, and Clear and Present Danger. Jones also provided the voice for Simba’s father Mufasa in Disney’s The Lion KingThe Lion King II: Simba’s Pride (1998). Many people know and love Jones for his voice credit on multiple episodes of The Simpsons, including several Treehouse of Horror episodes of the long running animated comedy.
Major accolades for Jones include his Emmy nomination for Under One Roof in 1995, in which he portrayed a widowed police officer named Neb Langston; and an Emmy win for his work as Gabriel Bird in Gabriel’s Fire in 1991. In addition to Jones’s Tony for The Great White Hope, he also won for the 1987 production of the August Wilson play Fences.
Still working, Jones limits many of his roles to voice work perhaps due to his recent hospitalization for pneumonia during the stage production of On Golden Pond in 2005. He was the voice of Michael’s past in the 2006 Adam Sandler film Click, and he is currently providing the voice of The Professor in 2004: A Light Knight’s Odyssey.
Jones has been married twice. His first wife was two-time Tony nominee Julienne Marie, and his second wife is actress Cecilia Hart, whom he married in 1982 and remains with today. The couple have one child together, Flynn Earl Jones.
YUDDY
