It is hard to imagine that the voice of James Earl Jones – also the voice of Darth Vader and Mufasa the lion, the same voice that greets you when you call using Verizon or watching CNN, the voice that symbolizes strength and power – was once suffering from speech impediment. When he was young, James had a speech impediment who made him could not express himself. When other children mocked him while he was standing in front of the church reading a line from a bible, he did not want to go to church again. “I thought, if I could not say it, I would not embarrass myself,” remember James. “So I decided not to speak.”
The problem occurred as a result of a trauma he had when he was little. James was a sole child from a short and unhappy marriage. His mother was a maid and tailor, while his father was an actor who starred in action movies. James’ father left the family right after he was born, and Economic Depression at that time made it difficult to get a job, therefore James’ mother decided to leave James with his grandparents to be raised.
When James, a smart boy, reached school age, his grandparents decided to move to Michigan for better education with less discrimination. Without telling James of the plan, they left James at a relative’s house and went to Michigan, intending to tell James right after they settled in their new farm. The fresh memory of his parents leaving him made him concluded that he was once again being left out. Even though he was put in a train to gather with his grandparents, James had felt trauma. Soon after he reached Michigan by the age of 5, his family did not realize that he had a speech impediment.James became a quiet boy; he did not speak in front of people, yet, he spent hours talking to his cattle. Like his great grandfather, he chose books as his runaway; reading lots of books about literature and science fiction. “I discovered my voice in books, and I felt that many vocabularies were important for people like me.” The voice he discovered kept on going as hours of conversation in his head. However, there were still feelings of loneliness and frustration: “One of the toughest things in life was having words in your head, but unable to express them.”
When he entered local Senior High School in his area, James was known as a very smart student yet very quiet. He received good marks, loved playing basketball and running. He also had a good mark in science. He put many interest in English and in his English teacher, Donald Crouch, a retired professor who was teaching about classic literature. James put many interest in The Song of Hiawata by Henry Hadsworth Longfellow, since the story was inspired by local Indian tribe; the Chippewa. When asked to collect a written assignment in class, James was challenged to understand Longfellow’s rhythmic language and decided to write his own poem “Ode to a Grapefruit”.
Donald Crouch always suspected that there was a big talent behind James’ quietness, and the poem gave him the opportunity to test it. Crouch accused James of duplicating the poem and insisted James to say it in front of the class to prove that he was the writer. James stood in front of the class and recited the poem line by line – and there was no stutter in his voice. Both the students and teacher was stunned; it seemed that speaking in front of many people was the cure for his speech impediment.
Enchanted by his own voice, James began to use it every time. He joined the school’s debate team. He became a part of the class committee and year book editor. He read poem in front of the whole school, quoting Edgar Allan Poe shone only by candle lights. He even gave his school farewell speech.
James’ participation brought him to University of Michigan – thanks to his grandparents’ guidance, he managed to join in the faculty of medicine. However he could not leave his public speaking activities. He enrolled acting class to improve his speaking skill and switched his subject into drama. He got several roles in college theatre and even in the Ann Arbor theatre, and he never mentioned his speech impediment problem to his teachers or classmates. They never suspected that he had one.
The step that he chose brought him to New York, the city where he was united with his father who introduced him to James’ idol, Paul Robeson, a well known African American actor and an honest activist. James did everything he could so that he could attend acting classes: worked as a janitor, made sandwich in a bakery, and lived in an apartment with no heater and electricity. By having more knowledge about acting and making speech, James did not only learn about his talent, but also his own personality. “Because of my silence, I treated language differently that most actors. During those years I spent my time in virtual silence, I improved my expression, when I found my strength in making speech and started to use it as an actor, I began to believe that a character was valid not because of its intelligence, but the voice that the character made.
James’ wisdom and rehearsal reached perfection at the age of 37, when he acted in his first Broadway drama “The Great White Hope”. In his role as a young boxer with bad behavior, James won the Tony Award and at that time Hollywood started to pay attention to him closely. He played the same role in a motion picture in 1970 and was nominated in the Academy Award.
Now, James Earl Jones is a well known name, and especially, a well known voice. He has been awarded two Tony Awards, four Emmy Awards, one Grammy Award, the National Medal of Arts, and an Honorary Doctoral Title from Yale University, Princeton, and Columbia. He even spoke in front of the Literature Congress Committee to share his
experience about the importance of reading.
Surprisingly, he still has speech impediment problem, although not as bad as when he was a boy. However, James realizes that he owes his childhood disease. His problem has encouraged him to get in touch with language and have better understanding towards himself and his character. More importantly, that problem has provided him with a challenge to deal with every day, continuously challenged him to find meaning and knowledge in his burden. Perhaps this was the reason for giving a challenge to fresh graduate students recently: “Therefore, let us dream; let us hope and pray; let us find ourselves new every morning.”
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