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NEW YORK — James Earl Jones, who overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen — eventually lending his deep, commanding voice to CNN, The Lion King and Darth Vader — has died. He was 93.

His agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed Jones died Monday morning at home in New York’s Hudson Valley region. The cause was not immediately clear.

The pioneering Jones, who was one of the first African American actors in a continuing role on a daytime drama and worked deep into his 80s, won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors and was given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement. In 2022, a Broadway theater was renamed in his honor.

He cut an elegant figure late in life, with a wry sense of humor and a ferocious work habit. In 2015, he arrived at rehearsals for a Broadway run of The Gin Game having already memorized the play and with notebooks filled with comments from the creative team. He said he was always in service of the work.

“The need to storytell has always been with us,” he told The Associated Press then. “I think it first happened around campfires when the man came home and told his family he got the bear, the bear didn’t get him.”

Jones created such memorable film roles as the reclusive writer coaxed back into the spotlight in Field of Dreams, the boxer Jack Johnson in the stage and screen hit The Great White Hope, the writer Alex Haley in Roots: The Next Generation and a South African minister in Cry, the Beloved Country.

He was also a sought-after voice actor, expressing the villainy of Darth Vader (“No, I am your father,” commonly misremembered as “Luke, I am your father”), as well as the benign dignity of King Mufasa in Disney’s animated The Lion King and announcing “This is CNN” during station breaks. He won a 1977 Grammy for his performance on the Great American Documents audiobook.

“If you were an actor or aspired to be an actor, if you pounded the payment in these streets … one of the standards we always had was to be a James Earl Jones,” Samuel L. Jackson once said.

Some of his other films include Dr. Strangelove, The Greatest (with Muhammad Ali), Conan the Barbarian, Three Fugitives and playing an admiral in three Tom Clancy blockbuster adaptations — The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. In a rare romantic comedy, Claudine, Jones had an onscreen love affair with Diahann Carroll.

Jones made his Broadway debut in 1958’s Sunrise At Campobello and would win his two Tony Awards for The Great White Hope (1969) and Fences (1987). He also was nominated for On Golden Pond (2005) and Gore Vidal’s The Best Man (2012). He was celebrated for his command of Shakespeare and Athol Fugard alike. More recent Broadway appearances include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Driving Miss Daisy, The Iceman Cometh, and You Can’t Take It With You.

As a rising stage and television actor, he appeared in As the World Turns in 1965, one of the first Black actors to have such a role on daytime TV. He performed with the New York Shakespeare Festival Theater in Othello, Macbeth and King Lear and in off-Broadway plays.

Early years

Jones was born by the light of an oil lamp in a shack in Arkabutla, Mississippi, on Jan. 17, 1931. His father, Robert Earl Jones, had deserted his wife before the baby’s arrival to pursue life as a boxer and, later, an actor.

When Jones was 6, his mother took him to her parents’ farm near Manistee, Michigan. His grandparents adopted the boy and raised him.

“A world ended for me, the safe world of childhood,” Jones wrote in his autobiography, Voices and Silences. “The move from Mississippi to Michigan was supposed to be a glorious event. For me it was a heartbreak, and not long after, I began to stutter.”

Too embarrassed to speak, he remained virtually mute for years, communicating with teachers and fellow students with handwritten notes. A sympathetic high school teacher, Donald Crouch, learned that the boy wrote poetry, and demanded that Jones read one of his poems aloud in class. He did so faultlessly.

Teacher and student worked together to restore the boy’s normal speech. “I could not get enough of speaking, debating, orating — acting,” he recalled in his book.

At the University of Michigan, he failed a pre-med exam and switched to drama, also playing four seasons of basketball. He served in the Army from 1953 to 1955.

In New York, he moved in with his father and enrolled with the American Theater Wing program for young actors. Father and son waxed floors to support themselves while looking for acting jobs.

True stardom came suddenly in 1970 with The Great White Hope. Howard Sackler’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play depicted the struggles of Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight boxing champion, amid the racism of early 20th-century America. In 1972, Jones repeated his role in the movie version and was nominated for an Academy Award as best actor.

Jones’ two wives were also actors. He married Julienne Marie Hendricks in 1967. After their divorce, he married Cecilia Hart, best known for her role as Stacey Erickson in the CBS police drama Paris, in 1982. She died in 2016. They had a son, Flynn Earl, born in 1983.

No artist ‘has served America more’

In 2022, the Cort Theater on Broadway was renamed after Jones, with a ceremony that included Norm Lewis singing “Go the Distance,” Brian Stokes Mitchell singing “Make Them Hear You” and words from Mayor Eric Adams, Samuel L. Jackson and LaTanya Richardson Jackson.

“You can’t think of an artist that has served America more,” director Kenny Leon told the AP. “It’s like it seems like a small act, but it’s a huge action. It’s something we can look up and see that’s tangible.”

Citing his stutter as one of the reasons he wasn’t a political activist, Jones nonetheless hoped his art could change minds.

“I realized early on, from people like Athol Fugard, that you cannot change anybody’s mind, no matter what you do,” he told the AP. “As a preacher, as a scholar, you cannot change their mind. But you can change the way they feel.”
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Havana, Cuba — Socialist Cuba, the birthplace of salsa and other rhythms that have conquered the world, is now surrendering to the invasion of South Korean pop music.

Thirteen thousand kilometers of distance separate the Asian nation and the communist-run island, as well as a different language and cultural traditions. However, all of these barriers would seem to vanish in a split second thanks to K-pop’s infectious beat and elaborate choreography.

Korean popular music, or K-pop, has spread far and wide from its Asian roots as boy bands like BTS and NCT and their female counterpart Blackpink rival Taylor Swift for downloads and album sales globally.

But it was slow to catch on in Cuba, where salsa is king and internet speeds were glacial until recently.

On Saturday, far from Seoul, dozens of teenagers clad in plaid, prep school skirts, baggy bomber pants and heavy black eyeliner busted their best moves as images of the genre’s idols were projected on a large screen of a Havana dance club.

“K-pop has opened a new world to me,” said 24-year-old Fransico Piedra, who when not working with his father as a blacksmith dreams up meticulous dance steps. Known by his artistic name Ken he one day aspires to be a professional K-pop choreographer. “It’s a place where I can be myself, and share with friends the joy of laughter, song and dance.”

Many of the teenagers hope to follow in the footsteps of two Cuban groups — Limitless and LTX — that before the pandemic traveled to South Korea to partake in the K-POP World Festival, an annual talent competition.

K-pop — a catch all for musical styles ranging from R&B to rock — first penetrated the island when Cubans fell in love with South Korean soap operas about a decade ago. As internet speeds improved, and government controls eased, more young Cubans got online and started streaming videos like teenagers everywhere.

While Cuban kids may be mesmerized by K-pop, an older generation of leaders have had frostier ties to South Korea. The two countries only restored diplomatic relations that were severed following the 1959 Cuban revolution this year and have yet to exchange ambassadors.

Meanwhile, Cuba remains a staunch ally of North Korea, which views K-pop as a dangerous form of propaganda from a capitalist enemy with whom is has been locked in a military standoff since the 1950s.
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MIP Africa — an event that matches African film and TV creatives to the people and countries that produce their work, wrapped up last week [Sept. 4] with several signed deals. Industry members and legislators from film meccas worldwide attended the event, part of the larger Fame Week Africa conference for creative professionals. Reporter Vicky Stark has the story from Cape Town, South Africa.
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Beirut — At a shop nestled in a busy, crowded Beirut district, Hasan El-Makary is weighing out containers of warm, fragrant mufataka, a traditional sweet in the Lebanese capital that is rarely found in stores.  

“I’ve been in this shop for 50 years, but we started specializing in mufataka 30 years ago,” Makary said from the humble shop with its aging decor and low ceiling.  

A kind of rice pudding made with turmeric, tahini sesame paste, sugar and pine nuts, mufataka is traditional in Beirut but less known even outside the city.  

Makary, 73, said he used to sell other sweets but as demand grew for mufataka, he abandoned the rest and now he and his cousin – who is also his business partner – just make the yellow pudding.  

“At the beginning you add turmeric, that’s the main thing, then tahini, sugar and rice … we cook it slowly on fire,” he said.  

The rice must be soaked overnight, and Makary said he comes to the shop at 5:00 a.m. to make the dish, which takes around four hours and requires regular stirring.  

He said his father started making mufataka despite initially believing people would not pay money for a dish that is normally prepared at home.  

Plastic containers of the pudding, which is eaten with a spoon, dotted trays and tables across the shop, waiting for customers who peered through a window to place their order from the busy street outside.  

Customer Iman Chehab, 55, was picking up mufataka for her mother, who used to make it herself.  

“She is elderly now and she can’t stir … it takes a lot of work,” said Chehab, who works in human resources management.  

The dish is “something traditional for us who are from Beirut,” she told AFP. 

Places like Makary’s shop “are the old face of Beirut that we love and always want to remember,” she added.  

‘Heritage’ 

A few bustling neighborhoods away, Samir Makari, 35, is carrying on the family tradition.  

At a gleaming shop also selling Arabic sweets like baklava, Makari attends to a huge copper pot of mufataka behind the counter, stirring it with a long, wooden-handled implement.  

He weighs out and mixes the sugar, tahini paste and pine nuts in a second pot, later combining it all.  

Mufataka used to be made just once a year on the last Wednesday in April, with families gathering by the sea at Beirut’s public beach, father and son said.  

The occasion was “Job’s Wednesday,” a reference to the biblical figure also mentioned in the Koran and who is renowned for his patience, the younger Makari said, noting the virtue is also required for making mufataka.  

On the wall of his shop, which he runs with his brother, were photos of his father and his grandfather at work.  

He said he sometimes makes mufataka twice a day depending on demand, with some customers taking it outside Beirut to introduce it to those who do not know the dish.  

At the original store, the elder Makary said he was happy his children had kept up the tradition.  

Mufataka is part of “my heritage,” he said, and the family has “taken it from generation to generation.”
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NEW YORK — Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka beat American sixth seed Jessica Pegula 7-5, 7-5 in the U.S. Open women’s final on Saturday.

Sabalenka blocked out the wild cheers of the home crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium to break Pegula in the final game and win her first title at Flushing Meadows.

A year after coming up short in the final, the second seed fought back from a break down in both sets to claim victory and fell to the court in her moment of triumph.

The 30-year-old Pegula had waited a long time to reach her first major final but could not match her opponent’s raw power despite the noisy backing of the New York crowd.

The roof on Arthur Ashe Stadium was closed because of heavy rain, and the players traded breaks twice as they settled into the stormy affair in front of a celebrity-packed house.

Sabalenka held her serve through a four-deuce 11th game and fought through a spine-tingling 12th, mixing precision at the net with her usual power from the baseline before breaking her opponent on the fifth set point.

Pegula struggled with her rackets throughout the match, complaining to her coaches as she seemed unable to find the right tension on her strings, and it looked as though she would not put up a fight in the second set when Sabalenka went 3-0 up.

But the American found another level and brought the fans to their feet when she won the next five games in a furious fight back.

Sabalenka leveled when she sent over a forehand winner that just kissed the line on break point in the 10th game and sought to bring a swift end to the contest, holding serve and then applying pressure from the baseline in the final game.

The tears flowed immediately for Sabalenka as she claimed her third Grand Slam title after winning the Australian Open twice, and she high-fived fans as she ran up the stands to share a joyful celebration with her team.
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VENICE, ITALY — Spanish director Pedro Almodovar’s first English-language movie “The Room Next Door,” which tackles the hefty themes of euthanasia and climate change, won the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.

Starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore, the film received an 18-minute standing ovation when it premiered at Venice earlier in the week — one of the longest in recent memory.

Almodovar is a darling of the festival circuit and was awarded a lifetime achievement award at Venice in 2019 for his bold, irreverent and often funny Spanish-language features.

He also won an Oscar in the best foreign language category for his 1999 film “All About My Mother.”

Now aged 74, he has decided to try his hand at English, focusing his lens on questions of life, death and friendship. Speaking after collecting his prize, he said euthanasia should not be blocked by politics or religion.

“I believe that saying goodbye to this world cleanly and with dignity is a fundamental right of every human being,” he said, speaking in Spanish.

He also thanked his two female stars for their performances.

“This award really belongs to them, it’s a film about two women and the two women are Julianne and Tilda,” he said.

While “The Room Next Door” had been widely tipped to win, the runner-up Silver Lion award was a surprise, going to Italian director Maura Delpero for her slow-paced drama set in the Italian Alps during World War Two — “Vermiglio.”

Australia’s Nicole Kidman won the best actress award for her risqué role in the erotic “Babygirl,” where she plays a hard-nosed CEO, who jeopardizes both her career and her family by having a toxic affair with a young, manipulative intern.

Kidman was in Venice on Saturday, but did not attend the awards ceremony after learning that her mother had died unexpectedly.

France’s Vincent Lindon was named best actor for “The Quiet Son,” a topical, French-language drama about a family torn apart by extreme-right radicalism.

Road to Oscars

The best director award went to American Brady Corbet for his 3-1/2 hour-long movie “The Brutalist,” which was shot on 70mm celluloid and recounts the epic tale of a Hungarian Holocaust survivor played by Adrien Brody, who seeks to rebuild his life in the United States.

“We have the power to support each other and tell the Goliath corporations that try and push us around: ‘No, it’s three-and-a-half hours long and it’s on 70mm,” he told the auditorium Saturday.

The festival marks the start of the awards season and regularly throws up big favorites for the Oscars, with eight of the past 12 best director awards at the Oscars going to films that debuted at Venice.

The prize for best screenplay went to Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega for “I’m Still Here,” a film about Brazil’s military dictatorship, while the special jury award went to the abortion drama “April,” by Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili.

Among the movies that left Venice’s Lido island empty-handed were Todd Phillips’s “Joker: Folie à Deux,” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, the sequel to his original “The Joker” which claimed the top prize here in 2019.

Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” with Daniel Craig playing a gay drug addict, and Pablo Larrain’s Maria Callas biopic “Maria,” starring Angelina Jolie as the celebrated Greek soprano, also won plaudits from the critics but did not get any awards.

The Venice jury this year was headed by French actress Isabelle Huppert.
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Six years after Jifeng Bookstore was forced to close its doors in Shanghai, the shop has reopened in Washington to bring debate and literature to a new audience. Liam Scott has the story for VOA News. Videographer: Yi Ruokun
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