Darth Vader Reads the Bible...Honestly!

 

Darth Vader loved reciting poetry and considered reading the bible aloud an honour. Okay, this might be somewhat misleading although not an outright lie.

The actor James Earle Jones died recently at the ripe old age of 93. Jones was a stage and film actor but he was also "The Voice." In the Star War films he was Darth Vader in voice only, with another actor in the costume. He was Mustafa in the Lion King animated film and intoned "this is CNN" for years. He also recorded the New Testament and it was a bestseller. 

Jones grew up on a farm going to church every Sunday but stopped attending because a pronounced stammer left him shy and afraid to speak. A high school English teacher named Donald Crouch learned of his love of poetry and essentially tricked young James into reciting a poem in front of the class. He soon began entering public speaking competitions, the beginning of the emergence of the immediately recognizable voice of the past fifty years. 

James Earle Jones did maintain the Christian faith of his childhood. 

“It was in the Army that a Jesuit chaplain helped me understand who God really was and opened the door to which Professor Crouch had led me,” he said. “Later, on the GI Bill, I signed up with the American Theatre Wing in New York and supported myself between roles by sweeping floors of off-Broadway stages. In 1962 I earned an Obie for my role in an off-Broadway production of Othello, and have been an actor ever since.”

Jones kept up with his mentor Crouch by discussing poetry and what roles Jones would portray next. “Every time we talked it was always, ‘Hi, Jim. Read any good poetry lately?’ He was losing his sight and I remembered his early explanation of why he had memorized poetry… Though my mentor could no longer see, he was still living in a world vibrant with all of the beautiful treasures he had stored.”

Jones recalled: “About two years later I learned Donald Crouch had passed on. I thanked God for all the professor’s help and friendship. “And so, when I was asked to record the New Testament, I really did it for a tall, lean man with gray hair who had not only helped to guide me to the author of the Scriptures, but as the father of my resurrected voice, had also helped me find abundant life.”

This is a wonderful story and one we haven't heard about in the many tributes of the past two weeks. 

Oh yes, Jones was paid $7,000 for the one-day voice gig as Darth Vader in the first film and he didn't receive an onscreen credit for his work. 

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