98a} Acclaimed Actor James Earl Jones Reveals That He Still Occasionally Eloquent actor James Earl Jones had a stuttering problem as a youth, but managed to overcome it. He sometimes still stutters. James Earl Jones, the actor known for his booming, legendary voice recently told Parade maga- zine that he still stutters at times. The man behind the voice of Mustafa, the father lion in The Lion King, Darth Vader in the three Star Wars films and Othello to name a few, revealed his stutter was so bad as a youth that he literally stopped talking. “T was unable to talk from the age of 8 to the age of 15,” Jones was quoted as saying in JET (Nov. 1, 1979). “] just gave up. I thought, if I can’t Has Stuttering Problems say it, I just won't make an ass of myself...so I didn’t talk.” Adopted by his grandparents when his parents went their sepa- rate ways shortly after his birth, Jones passed his courses through written exams until high school when an English teacher discov- ered he could write poetry. The teacher requested that he read the poetry he had written in front of the class. Jones, 63, recalled in Parade mag- azine that he felt it better to be laughed at for stuttering than dis- graced. Although he was scared, the words flowed smoothly, he said. The stutter disappeared. The respect and confidence gain- ed from that experience grew into a desire to communicate to larger and larger groups until Jones finally found himself on stage in the theater as a budding actor. His father, Robert Earl Jones, is also an actor. Even now Jones still stutters, but he’s able to handle it. “You keep the stuttering under control because you have a script,” he told the maga- zine. “In real life I just try to get through the day. Or through the con- versation. I'r1 not good in talk show interviews. ™ will think of something that might be brilliant to say, and I can’t get it worded.” a7