"James Earl Jones, a stuttering farm child who became a voice of rolling thunder as one of America’s most versatile actors..."

"... in a stage, film and television career that plumbed race relations, Shakespeare’s rhapsodic tragedies and the faceless menace of Darth Vader, died on Monday at his home in Dutchess County, N.Y. He was 93.... From destitute days working in a diner and living in a $19-a-month cold-water flat, Mr. Jones climbed to Broadway and Hollywood stardom with talent, drive and remarkable vocal cords. He was abandoned as a child by his parents, raised by a racist grandmother and mute for years in his stutterer’s shame, but he learned to speak again with a herculean will.... Some theatergoers, aware of Mr. Jones’s childhood affliction, discerned occasional subtle hesitations in his delivery of lines. The pauses were deliberate, he said, a technique of self-restraint learned by stutterers to control involuntary repetitions. Far from detracting from his lucidity, the pauses usually added force to an emotional moment.... 'Because of my muteness,' he said in... a 1993 memoir... 'I approached language in a different way from most actors. I came at language standing on my head, turning words inside out in search of meaning, making a mess of it sometimes, but seeing truth from a very different viewpoint.'"

From "James Earl Jones, Actor Whose Voice Could Menace or Melt, Dies at 93/He gave life to characters like Darth Vader in 'Star Wars' and Mufasa in 'The Lion King,' and went on to collect Tonys, Golden Globes, Emmys and an honorary Oscar" (NYT).