Actor, icon and voice, James Earl Jones has passed. He was 93.
There will be plenty written about Jones over the next few days. As there should be.
James' history is that of the 20th Century. He made his debut on the stage and found his way to the big screen. He went from obscurity to becoming the voice of one of the most complicated villains on the Big Screen in popular entertainment, to a Snake Cult wizard, to a King we all think of as Dad, to a spirit guide for Kevin Costner.
I still get choked up at everything the man does in Field of Dreams. It's a perfect performance in a perfect movie. He gave the perfect speech about baseball, and for that alone, we should be grateful.
Jones' IMDB page is interesting - he looks like a journeyman actor given his number of credits. But he was a legend to many of us. And for all those guest roles, he was still doing stage work.
Jones was one of the first actors whose names I knew, alongside the rest of the Star Wars cast. I never saw him where he was anything less than great in part after part, and I've missed him since he retired.
Here's to someone who's been there since I first knew what a movie was, and gave us some of the greatest characters we had in film in my lifetime.
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