As of James Earl Jones’s death on Sept. 9, the voice actor known for his rich baritone and roles in The Lion King, Field of Dreams, and Star Wars had amassed a net worth of $40 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Though his acting prowess was widely recognized with two Emmys, a Golden Globe, Grammy, and two Tony Awards, the actor’s success did not come overnight. Jones was paid just $7,000 to voice the iconic villain Sith Lord Darth Vader, who struggled with inner turmoil while also wielding a red lightsaber and Force choke abilities in the first Star Wars film in 1977.
Film director and creator George Lucas was searching for a deep, authoritative voice for the role, which was physically played by David Prowse, an actor who embodied Vader’s intimidating stature, but not his deep tone. While Lucas considered American actor Orson Welles for the role, he feared his voice would be too recognizable, and contacted Jones’s agent instead.
“George wanted, pardon the expression, a dark voice,” Jones said in a 2009 American Film Institute interview. “So he hires a guy born in Mississippi, raised in Michigan, who stutters. And that’s the voice. That’s me.”
Taking the role of Vader was a one-day affair for the first Star Wars film. Jones was not credited in the franchise’s first two movies, his name first appearing in 1983’s Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. The actor still counted himself lucky.
“I lucked out from all these so-called handicaps for a job that paid $7,000!” Jones said. “And I thought that was good money. And I got to be a voice on a movie.”
By comparison, Mark Hamill, who played Vader’s son Luke Skywalker, reportedly earned $650,000 for the first Star Wars film. Harrison Ford reportedly made $10,000 for his role as Han Solo, though his salary ballooned to $500,000 by the third film.
Jones was born in Arkabutla, Miss. In 1931, and shortly after, his father left his mother, a teacher and maid, to pursue a career as a boxer. At age 6, Jones moved to Manistee, Mich., where he was adopted by his grandparents. The move was devastating to Jones, who developed a stutter shortly after. He remained mostly mute during his schooling, communicating with teachers via handwritten notes, until a high school teacher insisted Jones read his poems out loud—igniting Jones’s love of oration and performance.
The poet launched his acting career on stage and made his Broadway debut in 1958 with Sunrise At Campobello before adding television and movies to his resume. In 1965, Jones would become one of the first African American actors in a recurring daytime drama television role in As the World Turns. Though he was critically acclaimed for his work in August Wilson’s play Fences in 1987 as well as films Gabriel’s Fire and Heat Wave, Jones is best known for his role as Darth Vader, which he continued to voice in Star Wars sequels and television spin-offs.
Jones’s immortalized voice
Jones’s rendering of the Star Wars villain will be immortalized not only in popular culture, but through artificial intelligence as well. The actor signed over his archive of voice work in September 2022 to Ukrainian AI startup Respeecher, according to Vanity Fair, and gave LucasFilm permission to use AI reproductions of his voice. Jones’s AI-generated Darth Vader voice appears in Disney’s 2022 Obi Wan Kenobi series.
AI voice recreations have been subject of controversy among fans of now-deceased stars concerned about a dead actor unable to give consent to have their voice used by companies, as well as the lack of character and nuance an AI-generated voice is able to provide. Actor Scarlett Johansson said she was “shocked, angered, and in disbelief” after OpenAI’s Sam Altman used an incredibly similar version of her voice for a ChatGPT bot. Respeecher CEO and co-founder Alex Serdiuk insists the company operates from an ethics-first approach.
“Consent is obtained from those who own the rights; in case of deceased actors, it could be estate or family,” he told Techcrunch.
LucasFilm will have a trove of archives of Jones’s iconic baritone to work with for future projects, but it wasn’t always guaranteed. Rushing to complete the database as Russian forces invaded the Ukraine in February 2024, Skywalker Sound, the recording division of LucasFilm, exchanged thousands of emails with Respeecher and Star Wars show-runners to fine-tune Vader’s AI dialogue.
“For a character such as Darth Vader, who might have 50 lines on a show,” Matthew Wood, Skywalker Sound supervising sound editor, told Vanity Fair, “I might have a back-and-forth of almost over 10,000 files.”
