By April MacIntyre Oct 6, 2008, 2:41 GMT
Actor James Earl Jones will receive the 2008 Lifetime achievement award during the 45th Annual Accolade to be presented during the 15th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards simulcast on TNT and TBS on Sunday, Jan. 25, 2009.
12/01/2007 - James Earl Jones - Reading of A.R. Gurney's "Love Letters" - Paramount Studios - Hollywood, CA USA © Chris Hatcher / PR Photos
James Earl Jones, whose acting legacy and baritone voice are world-renown, will receive the Guild’s most prestigious accolade—the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award for career achievement and humanitarian accomplishment.
Jones will be presented the Award, given annually to an actor who fosters the “finest ideals of the acting profession,” at the “15th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®,” which premieres live on TNT and TBS Sunday, Jan. 25, 2009, at 8 p.m. ET/PT, 7 p.m. CT and 6 p.m. MT.
SAG President Alan Rosenberg said, “James Earl Jones’ distinguished career on stage, in film, on television, in commercials and as a vocal presence without peer commands our admiration and respect. His long and quiet devotion to advancing literacy, the arts and humanities on a national and local scale deserves our appreciation. It is our honor to bestow the Guild’s highest tribute on this extraordinary actor."
James Earl Jones was born Jan. 17, 1931, in Arkabutla, Miss., to Ruth Connelly Jones and boxer Robert Earl Jones, who divorced before he was born. He was raised by his maternal grandparents, who moved their family to rural northern Michigan when Jones was 4 years old. Entering the University of Michigan in pre-med, Jones changed his major to drama.
He appeared in student productions and at the Manistee Summer Theatre, where in 1956 he played the title role in Shakespeare’s “Othello,” the first of seven different productions of the play he would tackle throughout his career.
After graduation and serving in the military, Jones moved to New York City, where he supported himself by working as a janitor and struggled to make it as an actor. He made his Broadway debut in 1957 as an understudy in "The Egghead" and returned to Broadway the following year in "Sunrise at Campobello".
Based on his success in the theater, Jones began to be cast in small television roles. In the 1960s, he was one of the first African-American actors to appear regularly in daytime soap operas (playing a doctor in both “The Guiding Light” and “As the World Turns”).
He made his film debut in 1964 in Stanley Kubrick's “Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”
Jones was appointed to the National Council on the Arts in 1972 and to the James Madison Council of the Library of Congress in 1993. He currently serves on the Actors Fund of America’s Board of Advisors.
He introduced President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Lincoln Memorial during the 1993 Inaugural festivities. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from the University of Michigan (his alma mater) in 1970 and Honorary Doctorates in Fine Arts from Princeton University in 1980 and Yale University in 1982.
He is the recipient of the Medal of Spoken Language from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1981), the Joseph Plateau Life Achievement Award from the Flanders Film Festival (1995), the Eleanor Roosevelt Center Val-Kill Medal (1998) and a career award from the National Board of Review (1995). In 2004 he was honored with the Harvard Foundation Humanitarian Award and the Actors Fund’s Julie Harris Lifetime Achievement Award.
From TBS:
Listening to Jones’ voice—recognized around the world—one would never guess that he spent his childhood as a virtual mute because of a severe stuttering problem. With the help of an outstanding high school teacher, Donald Crouch, Jones overcame his stutter and transformed his weakness into his greatest strength.
Today, Jones’ voice is known by people of all ages and walks of life—the “Star Wars” fans who know him as the voice of Darth Vader, children who know him as Mufasa from Disney’s “The Lion King,” those who hear him intone “This is CNN” while watching the news and the countless people who use Verizon phone services, for which he was the exclusive spokesperson for many years.
Jones’ work in front of the cameras and on stage is as imposing as his magnificent basso profundo. His stature as one of the greatest actors of the past half-century has been underscored by numerous accolades. He received the National Medal of Arts in 1992 and a decade later was a Kennedy Center Honoree. Screen Actors Guild previously honored Jones in 1995 with an Actor® nomination for his portrayal of South African priest Stephen Kumalo in the film adaptation of the Alan Paton classic, “Cry, the Beloved Country.”
In 1969, Jones won a Tony® for his breakthrough role as boxer Jack Johnson in the Broadway hit, “The Great White Hope.” His work in the 1970 film adaptation also garnered him an Oscar® nomination and a Golden Globe® and landed him on the cover of “Newsweek.” He won a second Tony in 1987 for August Wilson's “Fences,” in which he played a former baseball player who finds it difficult to communicate with his son, and a Tony nomination in 1995 for the critically acclaimed revival of “On Golden Pond,” playing crotchety Norman Thayer opposite Leslie Uggams. Jones returned to Broadway this year to portray Big Daddy in a revival of “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof,” starring with Terrance Howard, Anika Noni Rose and Phylicia Rashad. Earlier this year, Jones earned his sixth Drama Desk Special Award as “a commanding force on the stage for nearly half a century,” adding to the other awards since 1965 for his performances in “Othello,” “The Great White Hope,” “Hamlet,” “The Cherry Orchard” and “Fences.”
James Earl Jones has championed literacy as his pet cause. For many years, as the spokesperson for Verizon, he was an integral part of the Verizon Foundation’s Literacy Initiative, which gave him the chance to tour and speak with children about the importance of reading.
Jones spoke of the roots of his passion for the value of literacy.
“In my family, we say the love of reading and book learning is in our bone memory,” Jones says about the significance reading has had in his life “We would never think of not learning to read and getting an education. My great-great grandparents secretly learned to read when they were slaves and indentured servants. They passed on their love of reading to my great-grandfather who, as a free man, amassed a modest library and encouraged his family to read his books and revere them.”
He continues, “Growing up, I was mute to the outside world, but there were hundreds of conversations in my head. And that is the beauty of reading that exists for people to discover. For me, reading was a key to self-possession … a treasure that gave me the ability to be my own person. Reading gave me a way to move past my silence and to live all the vicarious lives though the words I found in books. The written word became my own private mentor, teaching me and guiding me forward. Through a love of reading, I was able to overcome my muteness and pursue a career in which my voice would be my most prominent asset.”
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