Denzel Washington called him his “northern star.” Whoopi Goldberg said “getting to see him onstage was heaven.” Some of the most notable names in show business gathered in Times Square on Monday afternoon for a starry, and sometimes emotional, send-off for James Earl Jones, who died last year at the age of 93. He was remembered for his thunderous voice and his enviable acting chops, as well as for being a gentle guiding presence in the lives of young actors.
For more than 90 minutes, at the Broadway theater that now bears his name on West 48th Street in Manhattan, a packed house laughed, cried and shared numerous personal stories that not only painted a bright picture of Jones, but cast him as an important figure who inspired fellow actors to reach their personal bests.
In a short speech, Denzel Washington described Jones as having personified grace, power and dignity. Washington, who is currently starring in a Broadway revival of “Othello,” a role that Jones had made his own on Broadway more than four decades ago, said he hoped to be as good a stage actor as Jones. “He was powerful, he was present, he was purposeful, he was humble,” Washington said. “He is not only the greatest African American actor; in my opinion he is one of the greatest actors ever to be on a Broadway stage.”
The actress Linda Powell recalled starring with Jones in a Broadway revival of “On Golden Pond,” which opened 20 years ago this week. She said Jones had pushed for her to be cast in the role of his daughter. “It was one of the best jobs of my life, one of the best experiences of my life, and his faith in me was a gift,” she said.
Phylicia Rashad recalled seeing Jones perform when she was a young adult, and later performing as Big Mama to his Big Daddy in the 2008 Broadway revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”
Frankie Faison, Candice Bergen, Glynn Turman and Kelsey Grammer also attended and shared similar stories of Jones’s generosity, while Laurence Fishburne and Mark Hamill delivered short video messages.
Whoopi Goldberg, who worked with Jones on “The Lion King” movie, said he never delivered a “bad” performance. “When you think about Broadway,” she added, “when you think about people of color, when you think about Black men doing things that are extraordinary, you think about him.”
There were also reminiscences from some of the people who were closest to Jones, including two of his first cousins, Terry Connolly and Tracy Connley Johnson. Jones, they said, had introduced them to poetry, Black literature and even helped them build houses for other family members.
Jones’s son, Flynn Earl Jones, 42, who kept his remarks at the end of memorial relatively short, had more to say during an interview earlier that afternoon. He described his father as being “frustratingly humble,” adding that wrangling his modesty was difficult. “People think of him as a king, a president, the leader of a criminal organization, an ancient Atlantean sorceress dictator, a father to the whole world,” Flynn said. “He was just one of the simplest, humblest, smartest, most curious guys.”
Jones, whose illustrious career spanned television, film and the stage, died in September. His road to success and fame was anything but smooth. His parents abandoned him at a young age and he was raised by his grandparents on a farm in Dublin, Mich. As a young child, he stammered so badly that he stopped talking altogether, enduring years of isolation because of his silence. He later learned to control his speech impediment with the help of an English teacher who encouraged him to write and recite poetry. Jones said that being able to manage his stutter led to his career as an actor.
Jones became a fixture on Broadway over his career — making his mark in classics, experimental theater and plays by contemporary writers. He first worked on Broadway in 1957, as an understudy in a short-lived play called “The Egghead” and the next year he landed a role in “Sunrise at Campobello,” which ran for 16 months at the same theater as Monday’s memorial service. (The James Earl Jones Theater, formerly known as the Cort Theater, was renamed in Jones’s honor in 2022 after Black artists pressed for greater recognition following the death of George Floyd in police custody two years earlier.)
Altogether, he appeared in 21 Broadway productions and won two competitive Tony Awards for best actor: in 1969 for “The Great White Hope” and in 1987 for originating the role of Troy Maxson in August Wilson’s “Fences.” He also won a special Tony for lifetime achievement in 2017.
Jones was a regular presence in the theater world who not only drew audiences, but also resonated with a generation of younger Black actors who relished seeing male actors of color in leading roles. Among them was Courtney B. Vance, who played the son of Jones’s character in “Fences” on Broadway in 1987. On Monday, Vance recited lines from that August Wilson play in an emotional tribute that drew applause.
Before the memorial — as guests crowded into the theater’s lobby, exchanging greetings and hugs — Vance recalled how Jones and the “Fences” cast had looked after him and were patient with him “until I got up to speed.”
“I literally didn’t know upstage from downstage,” he said, adding, “I really owe all of them a debt to teaching me the ropes of how this thing called ‘the business’ works.”
Vance remained friends with Jones and last saw him at his home in upstate New York during the pandemic, when Jones joked that his family had kept him in a bubble and that he thought he would live to be 100. “We all just giggled and said, ‘Yes you will, you will,’” Vance said.