How ‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Lion King’ Made James Earl Jones the Voice of Generations

Peter Debruge
·5-min read

The phrase “voice of a generation” gets thrown around a lot, but if that label were defined by sheer recognizability, it would be hard to find a better fit than James Earl Jones, who died Tuesday. The real question is: which generation?

Depending on whether you were born before or after the year 1990, chances are good that the sound of Jones’ roll-of-thunder baritone instantly conjures one of two characters in your mind: “The Lion King” father Mufasa or “Star Wars” villain Darth Vader. That means, Jones speaks, and you think either of a cosmically wise patriarch, whose ghost returns to offer his self-doubting successor an encouraging “remember who you are,” or the most malevolent dad in all the universe, a destroyer of planets determined to lure his son to the Dark Side.

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Those two projects were such pop-culture monsters — Disney’s Hamlet-on-the-savannah riff grossed nearly $1 billion, while George Lucas’ sci-fi saga spawned an almost religious following — that it hardly needs to be said that Jones made his mark without actually appearing in either franchise. But there’s still a great deal about the iconic voice you probably don’t know.

Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, Jones was a familiar face on New York stages: He played Broadway, of course, but also did Shakespeare in the Park, which is where Stanley Kubrick spotted him in a production of “The Merchant of Venice.” Kubrick had come to see George C. Scott in the same show, but wound up being impressed with Jones as well, giving the actor his first feature role in “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”

Jones can be briefly seen (and heard) as a member of the Air Force crew tasked with dropping the H bomb. Even if you don’t initially place his youthful face, his voice is a dead giveaway. No one else sounds like Jones, who spoke in deep, commanding tones — like a cross between Paul Robeson and Orson Welles.

Long before “Star Wars” was even a sparkle in Lucas’ eye, one of the first people in Hollywood to appreciate the potential of Jones’ gift was Andrew J. Kuehn, a smart young marketing prodigy who revolutionized the way movie trailers were made (check out the promo Kuehn produced for “Dr. Strangelove,” featuring avant garde editing and hand-written type from graphic designer Pablo Ferro).

For decades, movie previews had been shrill, huckster sales pitches with screaming carnival-barker narrators and overblown claims made in garish type. Kuehn thought trailers might work better if they followed Madison Ave.’s lead, so he tapped a young Black stage actor to perform a different kind of voiceover in a stylized preview for “The Night of the Iguana.” Jones came in to record the tagline — “One Man… Three Women… One Night…” — and the rest was history.

The choice not only showed the industry the potential of Jones’ pipes, but it changed the tone of film advertising going forward. Jones was one of the first to supply the sort of enigmatic, voice-of-God narration that makes you sit up and listen — the sort still used in movie trailers today.

That’s effectively what Lucas was looking for on “Star Wars.” He’d cast British actor David Prowse to perform the role, though that choice hardly mattered, since his face was covered at all times. Prowse’s voice wasn’t right for the role, Lucas felt, so he went looking for someone more … powerful, offering Jones $7,000 for a couple hours’ work re-recording all of Vader’s lines (a relatively easy job, considering there were no lips to match).

For years, Jones maintained that the arrangement was fair: The man in the suit had been Prowse, so the performance was his. The signature breathing sounds weren’t even Jones’ idea, but a defining touch that sound designer Ben Burtt added later, recording himself inhaling and exhaling through a scuba mask.

Jones didn’t even get screen credit for the first two “Star Wars” movies, “A New Hope” and “The Empire Strikes Back.” That would come later, as he returned to do Vader’s voice in other projects. Is there a more famous line in the series — heck, in the last half-century of Hollywood — than Vader revealing to Luke, “I am your father”?

By contrast, there was never any question of Mufasa’s relationship to Simba, thanks to Jones’ work on “The Lion King.” His deep-throated delivery puts the pride in Pride Rock, conveying more than any of the film’s visuals (even a small cub comparing his wee paw to Mufasa’s far-larger print) how daunting it would be for Simba to follow in his father’s steps. Irreplaceable, Jones was the only cast member to reprise his role in Jon Favreau’s 2019 remake.

Sure, Jones’ face went unseen in those films, though that can hardly be said of more than 100 appearances he made in films and television shows over the course of his career — roles that combined the versatile actor’s stentorian voice with his imposing 6-foot-plus physique and unmistakable, gap-toothed smile. Standouts include a prejudice-smashing boxer in “The Great White Hope” (for which he earned his lone Oscar nomination), Alex Haley in the original “Roots” miniseries and African king Jaffe Joffer, father of Eddie Murphy, in “Coming to America.”

The common thread through nearly all these roles was a dignified sense of authority. Even small parts sounded big when Jones embodied them. And when the role itself was the top of the food chain, à la Mufasa or the galaxy’s worst henchman, the tone of his voice said it all.

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