James Earl Jones, the American actor, has died at the age of 93, his agent has said.
Jones, who is best known for being the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars, died early on Monday morning surrounded by his family, CBS News reported.
During his lengthy career, he appeared in dozens of films including Field of Dreams, Coming To America and Conan the Barbarian. He was also the voice of Mufasa in The Lion King.
His long list of awards included Tonys for “The Great White Hope” in 1969 and “Fences” in 1987 on Broadway and Emmys in 1991 for “Gabriel’s Fire” and “Heat Wave” on television. He also won a Grammy for best spoken word album, “Great American Documents” in 1977.
Although he never won a competitive Academy award, he was nominated for best actor for the film version of “The Great White Hope” and was given an honorary Oscar in 2011.
He began his movie career playing Lieutenant Luther Zogg in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classic “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” in 1964.
Later acclaimed movie roles included novelist Terence Mann in 1989’s “Field of Dreams” and South African Reverend Stephen Kumalo in 1995’s “Cry, the Beloved Country.”
He also starred in “Conan the Barbarian,” “Coming to America,” “The Sandlot,” “Matewan,” “The Hunt for Red October” and “Field of Dreams,” among others.
Jones also was heard in dozens of television commercials and for several years CNN used his authoritative “This is CNN” to introduce its newscasts.
Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, posted “RIP Dad” with a broken heart emoji as he shared a news report of James Earl Jones’ death.
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