His resume includes
Othello as well as television episodes of
Tarzan. He has been laden with Tony, Emmy, and Obie awards, and yet he can be heard as the voice announcing "This is CNN" for Cable News Network. With film appearances ranging from the classic
Dr. Strangelove to the forgettable
Conan, the Barbarian, Jones admitted in the
Saturday Review that he takes roles to surprise people--including himself. "Because I have a varied career, and I've not typecast myself, nobody knows what I'm going to do next. They don't know if I'm going to drop 20 pounds and play an athlete. They don't know whether I'm ready to be a good guy or a bad guy."
Whatever Jones plays--villain or hero--he infuses each role with "enormous talent, range, courage, taste, [and] sensitivity," in the words of a Newsweek correspondent. During a career that began in the late 1950s, James Earl Jones has struggled to define himself not as a black actor, but simply as an actor. In an effort to resist stereotypes, he has opted for maximum variety, but each new part bears his particular, memorable stamp. In Newsweek, Jack Kroll called Jones "the embodiment of the living paradox that informs all great acting: his powerful persona is at once intimate and apart, friendly and heroic.
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