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How ‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Lion King’ Made James Earl Jones the Voice of Generations
Though he appeared constantly on stage and screen, James Earl Jones will forever be remembered for his authoritative voice as Darth Vader and Mufasa.
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. 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. 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.”
Or read this on Variety
