Korean War Vet James Earl Jones passes

One of the greats passed Monday. James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader, the actor who brought Jack Johnson back to life, the B-52 bombardier  in  “Dr. Strangelove” (his first film role, btw),  the immortal voice of Terrence Mann in “Field of Dreams”, has left us. He was 93.

Born Todd Jones on Jan. 17, 1931, he grew up in Arkabutla, Mississippi, and was raised by his maternal grandparents. At age 5, the family moved to a farm in Dublin, Michigan.

“That move was traumatic somehow,” he once recalled. “My ability to communicate dropped out. I couldn’t speak to people without breaking up and stuttering,” and he pretended to be mute.

The inspiration for Cuba Gooding in “Lightning Jack”?

When an English teacher in high school encouraged Jones to read a poem to the class that he had written, he discovered that his stutter vanished whenever he spoke words that he had memorized. He won a public-speaking contest as a senior and earned a full scholarship to the University of Michigan, where he studied medicine and discovered acting.

He made his stage debut in a community theater production in Manistee, Michigan, before he left to serve in the Korean War.

Jones told THR in 2011 that his career was guided by words that his father, Robert Earl Jones — an actor who had been blacklisted from the industry by the House Un-American Activities Committee but appeared in The Sting — told him when he was just starting out.

(You probably remember his father as the unfortunate Luther who was defenestrated after the first street con.)

In college, he had also joined the Army under an R.O.T.C. commitment, then washed out of infantry Ranger School. But he did so well in cold-weather training in the Rockies that he considered a military career. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in mid-1953, after the end of the Korean War, and was subsequently promoted to first lieutenant.

In 1955, however, he resigned his commission and moved to New York, determined to be an actor.

Nothing can touch this:  They will come

Terence Mann: Ray. People will come, Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. “Of course, we won’t mind if you look around”, you’ll say. “It’s only $20 per person”. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it, for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.

Terence Mann: People will come, Ray.

Terence Mann: The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game; it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh…people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come. Wiki

(I edited out the brother-in-law’s lines.)

There are a few things guaranteed to choke me up every damn time. The Star Spangled Banner, Charly, and this speech head the list. Godspeed, Mr. Jones.

Category: Army, We Remember