James Earl Jones, RIP
Beloved actor James Earl Jones, who died at 93 (no doubt due to the vax), pioneered the now common role of black tech wiz in Dr. Strangelove...
Beloved James Earl Jones, who died at 93 (no doubt due to the vax), pioneered the now common role of black tech wiz in Dr. Strangelove, in which he played Lt. Lothar Zogg, the radioman on T.J. Kong’s B-52. (Did Stanley Kubrick have a thing for ethnically improbable names?)
In 1992, I was in a checkout line at the Dean & Deluca grocery store in Manhattan behind Geoffrey Holder, the tall, shaven-headed, broad-shouldered, deep-voiced, well-spoken "Uncola Nut" actor.
The clerk said, "Hey, I know you, you're ... you’re …”
Holder cheerfully replied, "That's right, I am James Earl Jones. But don’t tell anyone, I'm traveling in…cog…neeeeeeto!"
There’s also a rumor that Jones would tell people that he wasn’t Darth Vader, it was Holder. This is unconfirmed, but I can imagine Jones doing that to dissuade particularly boring-looking Star Wars fans.
Back in 2014 I wrote (and I believe I came up with the idea quite a few years before):
Personally, I think a giant empire like modern America would be better off splitting the roles of ceremonial Head of State and utilitarian Head of Government, rather than in getting them all entwined. The Premier or whatever we'd call him would, in today's culture, typically be some senior black entertainment or athletic figure: James Earl Jones in the past, Morgan Freeman today, Oprah tomorrow, maybe David Robinson after her.
Instead, out of that urge, we elected a part time college lecturer to fill both jobs in a mediocre fashion.
Mr. Jones would have made a fine King of America.
I remember James Earl Jones was in The Second Civil War. I watched that one long ago, but as I recall it was a U.S. turned into a mess by mass immigration. Politicians would fill an area with Koreans because the Koreans voted for their party, so they'd win that seat. An Indian would only support a proposal if they got more money for Hindu temples. And so on. Finally Idaho refuses to take in more busloads of immigrants and declares independence, and the issue is then if the federal government should attack them or not. Jones plays a reporter covering events. It was a surprising movie, as it showed the high-flying speeches about immigration to be just a joke, with cold calculation behind it all, to the detriment of Americans who are supposed to keep paying taxes and keep their mouths shut.
Didn't he audition as the King in "Coming to America"?
Would he have to have wipers?