#Robert Earl Jones

[mimi-0007]

FATHER & SON: James Earl Jones with his Father Robert Earl Jones on Stage in the 1962 Production "Moon on a Rainbow Shawl."

Robert Earl Jones (February 3, 1910 – September 7, 2006), sometimes credited as Earl Jones, was an American actor and professional boxer. One of the first prominent Black film stars, Jones was a living link with the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s, having worked with Langston Hughes early in his career.

Jones was best known for his leading roles in films such as Lying Lips (1939) and later in his career for supporting roles in films such as The Sting (1973), Trading Places (1983), The Cotton Club (1984), and Witness (1985).

Jones was born in northwestern Mississippi; the specific location is unclear as some sources indicate Senatobia, while others suggest nearby Coldwater. He 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.

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?.

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). 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).

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. He adopted a second son, Matthew Earl Jones. Jones died on September 7, 2006, in Englewood, New Jersey, from natural causes at age 96.

THEATRE

1945 The Hasty Heart (Blossom) Hudson Theatre, Broadway

1945 Strange Fruit (Henry) McIntosh NY theater production

1948 Volpone (Commendatori) City Center

1948 Set My People Free (Ned Bennett) Hudson Theatre, Broadway

1949 Caesar and Cleopatra (Nubian Slave) National Theatre, Broadway

1952 Fancy Meeting You Again (Second Nubian) Royale Theatre, Broadway

1956 Mister Johnson (Moma) Martin Beck Theater, Broadway

1962 Infidel Caesar (Soldier) Music Box Theater, Broadway

1962 The Moon Besieged (Shields Green) Lyceum Theatre, Broadway

1962 Moon on a Rainbow Shawl (Charlie Adams) East 11th Street Theatre, New York

1968 More Stately Mansions (Cato) Broadhurst Theatre, Broadway

1975 All God's Chillun Got Wings (Street Person) Circle in the Square Theatre, Broadway

1975 Death of a Salesman (Charley)

1977 Unexpected Guests (Man) Little Theatre, Broadway

1988 The Gospel at Colonus (Creon) Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, Broadway

1991 Mule Bone (Willie Lewis) Ethel Barrymore Theatre, Broadway

FILMS

1939 Lying Lips (Detective Wenzer )

1940 The Notorious Elinor Lee (Benny Blue)

1959 Odds Against Tomorrow (Club Employee uncredited)

1960 Wild River (Sam Johnson uncredited)

1960 The Secret of the Purple Reef (Tobias)

1964 Terror in the City (Farmer)

1964 One Potato, Two Potato (William Richards)

1968 Hang 'Em High

1971 Mississippi Summer (Performer)

1973 The Sting (Luther Coleman)

1974 Cockfighter (Buford)

1977 Proof of the Man (Wilshire Hayward )

1982 Cold River (The Trapper)

1983 Trading Places (Attendant)

1983 Sleepaway Camp (Ben)

1984 The Cotton Club (Stage Door Joe)

1984 Billions for Boris (Grandaddy)

1985 Witness (Custodian)

1988 Starlight: A Musical Movie (Joe)

1990 Maniac Cop 2 (Harry)

1993 Rain Without Thunder (Old Lawyer)

TELEVISION

1964 The Defenders (Joe Dean) Episode: The Brother Killers

1976 Kojak (Judge) Episode: Where to Go if you Have Nowhere to Go?

1977 The Displaced Person (Astor) Television movie

1978 Lou Grant (Earl Humphrey) Episode: Renewal

1979 Jennifer's Journey (Reuven )Television movie

1980 Oye Ollie (Performer) Television series

1981 The Sophisticated Gents (Big Ralph Joplin) 3 episodes

1982 One Life to Live

1985 Great Performances (Creon) Episode: The Gospel at Colonus

1990 True Blue (Performer) Episode: Blue Monday

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Sessue Hayakawa (His Birthright, Bridge on the River Kwai)—One of Hollywood's earliest sex symbols, notable for being a Asian man presented as an object of desire

Robert Earl Jones (Lying Lips)—He didn't do a lot of movies but he's great in Lying Lips! Plus hes James Earl Jones' dad

This is round 2 of the bracket. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage man.

[propaganda photos submitted under the cut.]

Submitted: One of the First Hollywood Hearthrobs Was A Smoldering Japanese Actor. What Happened?

[whatamigonnawatchtoday]

The Sting

1973. Heist Film

By George Roy Hill

Starring: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Robert Earl Jones, Charles Durning, Ray Walston, Eileen Brennan, Harold Gould, John Heffernan...

Country: United States

Language: English

[lobbycards]

The Sting, German lobby card. Re-release 1970s

[horrororman]

Remembering...

Robert Earl Jones (February 3, 1910 – September 7, 2006).🕯

#SleepawayCamp

Carroll Borland (February 25, 1914 - February 3, 1994).🕯

#horror

Al Lewis (April 30, 1923 - February 3, 2006).🕯

Julie Adams (October 17, 1926 - February 3, 2019).🕯

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[aanews69]

物語をお届けします。 また、独自の作成方法に関するガイド、ヒント、コツも提供します。このチャンネルは、私��ちの机に出くわすランダムなものに専念しています。

[letterboxd-loggd]

Cockfighter (1974) Monte Hellman

July 18th 2024

[badmovieihave]

Bad movie I have Maniac Cop 2 (1990)

[batvilletv]

Long live the king.

[trulyunpleasant]

"WHAT IS STEEL COMPARED TO THE HAND THAT WIELDS IT?"

James Earl Jones as Thulsa Doom

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Ramon Novarro (Ben Hur, Across to Singapore, Mata Hari)—he's so dreamy <3

Robert Earl Jones (Lying Lips)—He didn't do a lot of movies but he's great in Lying Lips! Plus hes James Earl Jones' dad

This is round 1 of the bracket. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage man.

[propaganda photos submitted under the cut]

[bobdylan-n-jonimitchell]

Led Zeppelin performing Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" Earl's Court, 1975.

[anyataylordelrey]

my all time favourite led zeppelin moment EVER!!

the unprepared impromptu-ness of it,

their giggles,

robert signalling something with this head and all you can see is his pretty curls bouncing to the side repeatedly,

jimmy doing a little dance which then causes john to do a little dance which then causes robert to also do a little dance and then they’re ALL dancing,

john slowly sliding off the screen dancing cracks me up 😭

jimmy touching robert’s waist…

[merchantphoto]

[sukalaap]

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