James Earl Jones

One weekend in 1989, my father took my sister and I to the cinema to watch Three Fugitives - a comedy starring Nick Nolte, Martin Short and Sarah Rowland Doroff as the titular characters.

Another actor in the movie was James Earl Jones. I remember sitting there, as the movie played in the cinema, wondering to myself 'where have I seen this guy before?'

The answer was likely Coming To America. However, below the surface, the true - and real - answer was simple.

James Earl Jones was Darth Vader from Star Wars.

I feel it also important right now to acknowledge that David Prowse was also Darth Vader. Both were very important to that one role with Prowse being physically dominant and James Earl Jones offering the voice.

And what a voice.

I enjoyed a fair bit of JEJ's work. Within the last few years, I came across his 1999 Christmas film - Santa and Pete. It was the first film I watched for the 2020 edition of A Diet of Christmas Films and it turned out to be the one I enjoyed the most of that year's movie viewing.