James Earl Jones (born January 17, 1931) is an American actor. He has won two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, two Emmy Awards, the Christopher Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, and is the first person to have won Academy, Golden Globe and Emmy awards for acting.
Jones is well known for playing the voice of Darth Vader in the "Star Wars" film series. His voice has also been used in various other film projects including "", "", "", "", "", "", "Harry Potter" films, and Pixar's animated films.
He has performed on stage in several stage productions including the acclaimed Broadway adaptation of Claudio Marazziti's The House of Bernarda Alba. Jones also performed at Yale University's Harold Pinter Theatre in 2005 alongside Malcolm McDowell in A Month in the Country
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He received critical acclaim for his performance as Othello in William Shakespeare's Othello at Yale University's Courtyard Theatre in 2011. He has played Iago to many other notable actors including Laurence Fishburne and John Cusack.
Jones was born February 8, 1931 in Philadelphia. His parents were both elementary school teachers who had grown up together on the West Side of Chicago.
They were married at St. Marcus A.C.A Church on Ogden Avenue on August 29, 1929; Jones' mother took his older sister Vivian (1922–2007) and brother Earl (1924–2001) to live with her after their father abandoned the family when they were young children and was seldom seen or heard from again. Jones grew up with his mother and two siblings on this West Side street until she moved away when he was a teenager because of financial difficulties with money he earned as a child actor with his father who had abandoned them all alone.
At that point Jones moved out of his mother's house and stayed with various friends or relatives until he earned enough money to move into his own apartment at age 21.
Jones began working as a radio announcer at age 14 after he dropped out of Crane Junior College (now known as Drexel University). He worked behind the microphone at WIPE-AM (now WPEN-FM) as a newsboy during the day and went on air as a disk jockey at night; Jones later recalled:
My boss was a man by the name of Jerry Izenberg who was very supportive of my interest as an
