James Earl Jones Passes at 93: How He Came to Meet 'the Author of the Scriptures' He Once Narrated

Fans and fellow actors are paying tribute to legendary actor James Earl Jones who passed away Monday at the age of 93. Jones overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a pioneer on stage and on the big screen.

He was one of the most famous actors in America, known as the voice of Darth Vader, the Lion King, and even the taglines for CNN. He won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, and an honorary Oscar.

Jones told CBN's Ben Kinchlow in 1993 how he overcame his childhood problem with stuttering when a high school teacher challenged him to read a poem he wrote – in front of the class.

The stutter began after Jones' mother, abandoned by her husband, took him to live on her parents' farm near Manistee, Michigan when he was just 6. His grandparents adopted 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."

He further explained in a Guideposts article in 1993, "Since I was eight I'd had trouble speaking. It was so bad that whenever I stood up in class to read, the other kids snickered and laughed. I always sat down, my face burning with shame." Jones wrote, "I'm not sure what caused my stuttering. Perhaps it was an emotional problem. I was born in Arkabutla, Mississippi, and when I was about five, I moved to live with my grandparents on their farm near Dublin in northern Michigan. It was traumatic moving from the warm, easy ways of catfish country to the harsh climate of the north, where people seemed so different."

Jones also wrote in that article that, despite it being a traumatic time in his life, God used this major life event in other ways. "Fortunately, my granddaddy was a gentle man, a farmer who taught me to love the land. He was short and he had a prodigious amount of energy. He even built a church to please Grandmother, a fervent worshiper of the Lord. All sorts of people were invited to our little church; white, black and American Indian came together in a nondenominational fellowship." 

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But his stutter persisted and made him too embarrassed to speak, so he remained virtually mute for many years until a sympathetic high school teacher, Donald Crouch, learned that Jones wrote poetry, and demanded that he read one of his poems aloud in class. He obeyed and finally found his voice.

He eventually became an accomplished actor and was even asked to record a narration for the New Testament which he called his "greatest honor," saying he did it for the childhood mentor who had helped him overcome his stutter and who had pointed him God.

"And so, when I was asked to record the New Testament, I really did it for a tall, lean man with gray hair who had not only helped to guide me to the author of the Scriptures, but as the father of my resurrected voice, had also helped me find abundant life," he wrote.

James Earl Jones' cause of death is currently unknown.