James Earl Jones: Voice of a million childhoods as Darth Vader and Lion King's Mufasa dies aged 93

Born in 1931, Jones overcame a stutter in his childhood, with one of his high school teachers helping him master it by having him recite poetry before class.

His voice later became one of the most instantly recognisable in the world.

Jones was arguably best known for giving Darth Vader his classic husky voice but he was already an award-winning star of stage and screen when the original movie was being developed by George Lucas in the 1970s.

He later reprised the voice in 2005 for Revenge Of The Sith and he returned to the role nine years later in the first episode of Star Wars Rebels, in 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and most recently the Disney+ original series Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Before Star Wars, he had wowed critics with his Tony Award-winning performance as a boxer in the 1968 play The Great White Hope, later taking on the lead in the 1970 movie adaptation, for which he picked up a Golden Globe.

He later secured the best actor Tony award for a second time for Fences and in 2017 he was presented with the Tony for lifetime achievement in the theatre.

His versatility covered everything from Shakespearean epics to television dramas and comedies. He played memorable film roles including reclusive writer Terence Mann in 1989’s Field Of Dreams and a South African minister in Cry, The Beloved Country.

His notable films included the 1988 romcom Coming To America starring Eddie Murphy and 1982 epic Conan The Barbarian, where he played opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Jones won two Primetime Emmys for his roles in the 1990 thriller Heat Wave and the 1990 crime drama Gabriel’s Fire and the Grammy in 1977 for best spoken-word recording for Great American Documents.

His stage credits include a host of Broadway productions and several plays in London, one of the latest being a production of Much Ado About Nothing at The Old Vic in 2013.

In 2022, the Shubert Organisation’s Cort Theatre on Broadway was renamed after Jones to recognise his “lifetime of immense contributions to Broadway and the entire artistic community”, according to a statement by the Shuberts at the time.

Among his numerous awards, Jones received the National Medal of Arts, a Kennedy Centre Honour and an honorary Oscar in 2011.

His childhood was less well starred. Jones was born by the light of an oil lamp in a shack in Arkabutla, Mississippi, to a father who had already deserted his wife to pursue life as a boxer and later an actor.

When James was six, his mother took him to her parents’ farm in Michigan. His grandparents adopted the boy and raised him but the trauma made him withdraw into near silence.

He remained virtually mute for years, communicating with teachers and friends only with handwritten notes. It was a sympathetic high school teacher named Donald Crouch who, upon learning that James enjoyed reading poetry, convinced him to read a verse aloud. He did it faultlessly.

He went on to study drama at the University of Michigan, where he also played basketball for four seasons before his Army service from from 1953 to 1955.

Later he went to New York and moved in with his father, where the two of them supported each other by cleaning floors while looking for acting work.

Jones married twice: first to the actress Julienne Marie Hendricks in 1967; and in 1982 to Cecilia Hart, who played Stacey Erickson in the TV police drama Paris. She died in 2016 and Jones is survived by their son, Flynn Earl.