Robert Earl Jones

Jones was born in northwestern Mississippi; the specific location is unclear as some sources indicate Senatobia,{{cite news| first=David Patrick| last=Stearns| url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/dec/01/guardianobituaries.usa| title=Robert Earl Jones: US actor rooted in the Harlem renaissance| newspaper=The Guardian| location=London| date=December 1, 2006| access-date=January 26, 2007}} while others suggest nearby Coldwater.{{cite web| url=http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=47197| title=Robert Earl Jones profile| website=Internet Broadway Database| access-date=January 26, 2007}} A son of Robert and Elnora Jones, Robert Earl Jones left school at an early age to work as a sharecropper to help his family. He later became a prizefighter. Under the name "Battling Bill Stovall", he was a sparring partner of Joe Louis.{{cite news| first=Margalit| last=Fox| title=Robert Earl Jones, 96, Broadway Actor, Dies| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/obituaries/19jones.html?_r=0| newspaper=The New York Times| date=September 19, 2006| access-date=April 21, 2008| url-access=subscription}}

Jones became interested in theater after he moved to Chicago, as one of the thousands leaving the South in the Great Migration. He moved on to New York by the 1930s. He worked with young people in the Works Progress Administration, the largest New Deal agency, through which he met Langston Hughes, a young poet and playwright. Hughes cast him in his 1938 play, Don't You Want to Be Free?{{cite book| last=Peterson, Jr.| first=Bernard L.| url=https://archive.org/details/africanamericant0000pete/page/92/mode/2up?q=%22robert+earl+jones%22| title=The African American Theatre Directory, 1816–1960: A Comprehensive Guide to Early Black Theatre Organizations, Companies, Theatres, and Performing Groups| publisher=Greenwood Publishing| year=1997| page=92| isbn=978-0-3132-9537-9| url-access=registration}}

Jones also entered the film business, appearing in more than twenty films. His film career started with the leading role of a detective in the 1939 race film Lying Lips, written and directed by Oscar Micheaux, and Jones made his next screen appearance in Micheaux's The Notorious Elinor Lee (1940).McLellan, Dennis (September 20, 2006). [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-sep-20-me-jones20-story.html "Robert Earl Jones, 96; Actor, Father of James Earl Jones"]. Los Angeles Times. Jones acted mostly in crime movies and dramas after that, with such highlights as Wild River (1960) and One Potato, Two Potato (1964). In the Oscar-winning 1973 film The Sting, he played Luther Coleman, an aging grifter whose con is requited with murder leading to the eponymous "sting". In the later 20th century, Jones appeared in several other noted films: Trading Places (1983) and Witness (1985).{{cite book |author1=Berry, S. Torriano |author2=Berry, Venise T. |title=The A to Z of African American Cinema |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W28vCHtlJyUC&pg=PA188 |year=2009 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=978-0-8108-7034-5 |pages=188–189}}

Toward the end of his life, Jones was noted for his stage portrayal of Creon in The Gospel at Colonus (1988), a black musical version of the Oedipus legend. He also appeared in episodes of the long-running TV shows Lou Grant and Kojak. One of his last stage roles was in a 1991 Broadway production of Mule Bone by Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, another important writer of the Harlem Renaissance. His last film was Rain Without Thunder (1993).

Although blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s due to involvement with leftist groups, Jones was ultimately honored with a lifetime achievement award by the U.S. National Black Theatre Festival.

Jones was married three times. As a young man, he married Ruth Connolly (died 1986) in 1929; they had a son, James Earl Jones. Jones and Connolly separated before James was born in 1931, and the couple divorced in 1933. Jones did not come to know his son until the mid-1950s. Jones remarried twice, to Jumelle Jones from 1938 to 1950, and Ruth Williams from 1960 until her death in 1981. He had a second son, Matthew Earl Jones.{{cite news |last1=McLellan |first1=Dennis |title=Robert Earl Jones, 96, Veteran Actor |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/88641559/robert-earl-jones-96-veteran-actor/ |access-date=2021-11-09 |newspaper=South Florida Sun Sentinel |agency=Los Angeles Times |page=13B |date=2006-09-24}}{{cite web |title=Matthew Earl Jones Bio |url=http://earljonesinstitute.com/matthew-earl-jones/ |website=Earl Jones Institute for Film & Television |access-date=8 September 2021 |archive-date=September 8, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210908132704/http://earljonesinstitute.com/matthew-earl-jones/ |url-status=dead }} Jones died on September 7, 2006, in Englewood, New Jersey, at age 96.

{{unreferenced section|date = February 2021}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

{{Commons category}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20061125221634/http://earljonesinstitute.com/history.htm Earl Jones Institute website]
• {{IMDb name|0429149}}
• [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=wiarchives;cc=wiarchives;type=simple;rgn=Entire%20Finding%20Aid;q1=Robert%20Earl%20Jones;view=reslist;subview=detail;sort=freq;didno=uw-whs-tape00339a Robert Earl Jones profile], University of Wisconsin's [https://web.archive.org/web/20140502211533/http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi/f/findaid/findaid-idx?c=wiarchives;view=reslist;subview=standard;didno=uw-whs-tape00339a Actors Studio audio collection]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Robert Earl}}

Category:1910 births

Category:2006 deaths

Category:Actors Studio alumni

Category:American male film actors

Category:American male stage actors

Category:Male actors from Mississippi

Category:Hollywood blacklist

Category:African-American boxers

Category:Works Progress Administration workers

Category:American male television actors

Category:20th-century African-American male actors

Category:20th-century American male actors

Category:People from Tate County, Mississippi

Category:American male boxers

Category:Boxers from Mississippi

Category:20th-century African-American sportsmen

Category:20th-century American sportsmen

Category:21st-century African-American people