Sandy Cohen of the Associated Press is reporting that James Earl Jones is about to receive an honorary Oscar for his nearly five decades in film, but the 80-year-old thespian says he shouldn't even be an actor.
Cohen reports:
"One, because I'm a stutterer," the deep-voiced star said by phone from London, where he is starring with Vanessa Redgrave in the stage production of "Driving Miss Daisy."
"And two," he continued, "my introduction to motion pictures was sitting on a bench in Mississippi watching a movie on a makeshift screen, a sheet stretched between two stores, and when a fistfight broke out on screen on that sheet, I freaked out. I couldn't handle the violence, so I hid under the bench and begged people to make them stop, and they didn't. They just watched."
"I guess I said if I can't stop them, I better join them."
Jones, who accepted the honorary Oscar via phone in London, made his big-screen debut in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 classic, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
He was nominated for the best actor Oscar for 1970's The Great White Hope, the same role that won him a Tony two years prior. He has appeared in scores of movies, plays and TV shows and gave voice to two of film's most memorable fathers: Mufasa in The Lion King and Darth Vader in the Star Wars trilogy. Jones also played the nation's first black president in made-for-TV film The Man, starring as Douglass Dilman, a man who accidentally becomes president through a series of unexpected events.
Jones will be lauded at Saturday's Governors Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, along with makeup artist Dick Smith and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey, who will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Jones will not be at the ceremony but will participate via video.
We're glad that Oscar has finally come calling. This award is long overdue based on Jones' impressive body of work and consistently strong performances. Congratulations to Jones on a job well done.
Read more at Yahoo News.
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