American actor James Earl Jones. Jones has had a long and successful career on stage, in movies, and as a voice actor, but he may be best known today for giving Darth Vader his voice in the first three Star Wars movies.
James has won many awards over the course of his career, including three Tony Awards, a Grammy Award, and an Emmy Award. Jones has stayed busy in the entertainment world for many years and is still a well-known figure.
James Earl Jones Early Life
James Earl Jones was born in Arkansasville, Mississippi, on January 17, 1931. James Earl was mostly raised by his grandparents on a farm in Jackson, Michigan. His father had left the family to try to make it as an actor in New York and Hollywood. As part of the Great Migration, Jones moved to Michigan.
Jones had trouble speaking not long after he moved out of Mississippi. At first, he wouldn’t say anything at all. He didn’t start talking until he was in high school. Later, a teacher helped him deal with his stutter, but he still has some small signs of it.
Jones went to the University of Michigan to study to become a doctor after he graduated from high school. But the structure of the military was too good to pass up, so he joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps. Later, he gave up on becoming a doctor and went to the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre, and Dance to study drama with all his heart.
One simple reason he got involved in the drama was that he wanted to do something fun before he was sent to fight in the Korean War because he wasn’t sure if he would ever come back.
After working briefly as a stagehand, James Earl Jones was sent to Korea as a second lieutenant when the Korean War was over. He went to Ranger School, and then he went to the Colorado Cold Weather Training Command. He worked his way up to the rank of first lieutenant before he was let go.
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In Michigan, where he was born, James Earl Jones got his start in the theatre. In 1955, he played a part in a play called “Othello.” This led Jones to start working on Shakespeare plays for the rest of his life, and in the 1960s he became a well-known Shakespearean actor.
Jones also started acting in movies in the 1960s, beginning with “Dr. Strangelove” and “The Comedians.” Then, he became known for his role in the play and movie versions of “The Great White Hope.” Jones did more theatre work and roles in movies like “The Man” and “Claudine” before taking on the voiceover role of Darth Vader in “Star Wars: A New Hope,” which came out in 1977. Then, in “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi,” he played the same character again.
After doing more theatre, Jones starred in a number of successful movies in the 1980s, such as “Conan the Barbarian,” “Coming to America,” and “Field of Dreams.” Throughout the 1990s, he kept getting good roles in movies. He was in “The Hunt for Red October,” “Patriot Games,” “Clear and Present Danger,” and a lot of others.
During this time, he also got better at voice acting and was asked to play Mufasa in “The Lion King.” During this time, he also starred in TV shows like “Gabriel’s Fire,” “Roots: The Next Generations,” and “Heat Wave.”
Over time, he got more roles on TV shows like “Law & Order,” “Will & Grace,” “Two and a Half Men,” “The Big Bang Theory,” and “The Simpsons.” Jones put more effort into theatre work again in the 2010s.
What is the NetWorth of James Earl Jones?
According to CelebrityNetWorth James Earl Jones has a net worth of about $40 million. Earl Jones is thought to be worth a good amount of money, but he could have had a lot more. When he agreed to work on the Star Wars movies, he chose to get paid upfront instead of getting a cut of the money made at the box office.
This is said to have meant that he only made $7,000 at the time, which is the same as $27,000 today, instead of the millions of dollars he could have made. But he has since come back to the Star Wars movies. We want him to have the best birthday party ever.
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Star Wars Salary Debacle
When James Earl Jones was asked to voice Darth Vader in “Star Wars” (later renamed “A New Hope”) in 1977, he didn’t think the movie would be very good. Even though he was offered a share of the movie’s total earnings, he chose to be paid in cash right away for his voice role.
He ended up spending a few hours in the studio recording his lines, and he was paid a total of $7,000. James thought this was a great deal because he was short on cash and needed money to buy food. To give you an idea of how much things have changed, $7,000 in 1977 is about the same as $27,000 today.
Jones’s choice to pay in cash, however, turned out to be a very bad idea. As everyone knows now, the Star Wars series became one of the most popular movie franchises of our time, and the first movie made over $775 million (not adjusting for inflation). This made it the third most profitable movie ever. So what did it all mean for James Earl Jones? Shortly, it means that he lost a lot of money. This is about tens of millions.
Sir Alec Guinness, on the other hand, chose to have a share of the movie’s box office earnings as part of his contract, even though he was also skeptical about the movie’s chances. This decision has paid out more than $95 million to his estate and heirs so far. This shows you what Jones was missing out on.
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