His agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed Jones died on Monday morning at home. The cause was not immediately clear.
The pioneering Jones, who 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 theatre was renamed in his honour.
James Earl Jones uttered the iconic "I am your father" line as Darth Vader in the Star Wars series., (AP PHOTO)
He cut an elegant figure late in life, with a wry sense of humour and a ferocious work habit. In 2015, he arrived at rehearsals for a Broadway run of The Gin Game having already memorised 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.
Jones laughed when a BBC interviewer asked if he resented being so closely tied to Darth Vader, a role that required only his voice for a few lines.
"I love being part of that whole myth, of that whole cult," he said, adding that he was glad to oblige fans who asked for a command recital of his "I am your father" line.
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 with Angela Lansbury at a media call for Driving Miss Daisy in Sydney in 2013. (Tracey Nearmy/AAP PHOTOS)
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, becoming one of the first African American actors in a continuing role in a daytime drama.
Jones was born by the light of an oil lamp in a shack in Arkabutla, Mississippi, on January 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 six, 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."
with Reuters
