James Earl Jones Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In “Is That Black Enough for You?!?,” Elvis Mitchell’s highly pleasurable and eye-opening movie-love documentary about the American Black cinema revolution of the late ’60s and ’70s, Billy Dee Williams, now 85 but still spry, tells a funny story about what it was like to play Louis McKay, the dapper love object and would-be savior of Billie Holiday in “Lady Sings the Blues.” The year was 1972, and African-American audiences had rarely (if ever) been given the chance to gawk at a movie star of color who was not just this sexy but this showcased for his sexiness. Louis was like Clark Gable with a dash of Marvin Gaye; when he was on that promenade stairway, Williams says that he just about fell in love with himself. That’s how unprecedented the whole thing was. The actor recalls how the lighting was fussed over (we see a shot in which Louis appears bathed in an old-movie glow), and how unreal that was to him on the set. At the time, Black actors didn’t get lighting like that. But Black audiences drank it in with a better-late-than-never swoon, even as they knew that this was a representation they’d been denied for more than half a century.

Colman Domingo Colman Domingo is an Emmy winner, as well as Academy Award and Tony-nominated actor, playwright and director. Domingo and Gossett Jr. co-starred in 2023’s “The Color Purple,” one of the late Oscar winner’s final films. There is a moment that our wunderkind director Blitz Bazawule set up for the great Louis Gossett Jr.

Louis Gossett Jr., who won an Emmy for his role in the groundbreaking TV miniseries Roots and an Oscar for An Officer and a Gentleman, died last night in Santa Monica. He was 87.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, as well as a number of James Bond films, passed away on February 27, aged 85. A cause of death has not been disclosed.The news was announced by Alliance Agents on Tuesday (March 12), with the agency paying tribute to a career “spanning over 50 years with notable roles in Sherlock Holmes, A Passage to India, Secret Army and of course one of the most memorable death scenes in the Star Wars franchise.”Culver played Captain Needa in The Empire Strikes Back, the character who is Force-choked to death by Darth Vader after losing track of a rebel ship.“Apology accepted, Captain Needa,” Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones) says as Culver’s character drops to the ground clutching his throat.

Addie Morfoot Contributor AMC Theaters and Fifth Season are teaming up to release Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb’s feature documentary “Butterfly in the Sky,” about the beloved 1980’s PBS children’s series “Reading Rainbow.” The film, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2023, takes audiences behind the scenes of the children’s series and tells the story of the show’s creators, who believed the small screen could inspire a love of reading. The docu also spotlights the show’s host LeVar Burton and gives an inside look at the challenges he and the show’s creators faced in cultivating a love of reading through television.

Ellen Holly, the first Black person to star in a soap opera with her lead role on One Life to Live, died Wednesday at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, N.Y. She was 92 and died in her sleep.

Variety. Approved by both Stewart’s estate and family, the sleep time app managed to re-create the voice of the Hollywood legend, who died in 1997 at the age of 89 due to pulmonary embolism, through AI voice-cloning technology. “Well, hello.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor It’s a wonderful… robot? An AI-generated voice of Jimmy Stewart, the legendary Hollywood actor who died in 1997, reads a new bedtime story on the Calm sleep and meditation app. The voice of Stewart, who starred in films including “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Vertigo” and “Rear Window,” was recreated for the Calm story using AI voice-cloning technology. The project has the consent of Stewart’s family and his estate (managed by CMG Worldwide).

Broadway box office held steady last week with total grosses for 28 shows tallying up to $28,106,860, with 224,832 ticket buyers paying an average $125.01 per seat.

Broadway‘s starry Merrily We Roll Along revival had another strong run of previews last week, grossing a hefty $1,471,644 and setting another house record at the Hudson Theatre.

EXCLUSIVE: South Africa’s Videovision Entertainment is heading to next week’s Mip Africa event with a new TV sales division.

Pamela Blair, who originated the role of the surgically enhanced Valerie Clark in the Broadway smash A Chorus Line, died Sunday at her home in Phoenix, Arizona, following a lengthy illness. She was 73.

Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells, who first shared a stage in The Book of Mormon, will return to Broadway together this fall in Gutenberg! The Musical!, the Scott Brown-Anthony King musical to be directed by Alex Timbers.

The official opening night of Broadway’s The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window was last week to make the eligibility cut-off for the 2023 Tony Awards, but a gala opening was just held to celebrate in an even bigger way!

Naveen Kumar The playwright Lorraine Hansberry was near death at age 34 when “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” premiered on Broadway, for a three-month run that ended with her passing in 1965. Set in the heady and libidinous bohemia of Greenwich Village, the play was considered too sprawling and radical a departure from “A Raisin in the Sun,” her landmark drama about a Black Chicago family striving from the margins.  The sublime revival that opened on Broadway Thursday night, starring Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan at the theater recently named for James Earl Jones, is a mind-blowing restoration of an overlooked battleship. Crackling with ideological argument and loaded with withering observations about American progressivism, “Sidney Brustein” is thrilling and unwieldy in a way that too few plays are given sufficient berth to be on Broadway. Exquisitely directed by Anne Kauffman, its first production in over half a century demonstrates both the play’s stunning modernity and its viability as invigorating popular entertainment. 

The current Broadway season schedule seemed done and dusted at the start of this month: With an opening night of April 26, the new Kander & Ebb musical New York, New York would be the final production of 2022-23, arriving just a day before the April 27 Tony eligibility cut-off date.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Ephraim Sykes, a Tony nominee for the Temptations musical “Ain’t Too Proud,” is returning to Broadway in “Room,” a stage version of the Oscar-winning movie. The play and the 2015 film, starring Brie Larson, were based on Emma Donoghue’s 2010 best-selling novel. “Room” tells the story of Ma, who was kidnapped as a teenager and held in captivity for seven years. She’s trapped with her five-year-old son Jack, who was born in confinement and has no concept of the outside world. But the time has come to escape imprisonment and face their biggest challenge to date: life outside Room. As previously announced, “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” star Adrienne Warren is leading the cast as Ma. Sykes, whose stage and screen credits include “Hamilton” and “Hairspray Live,” is playing SuperJack.

Many decades after her brilliant and unsettling plays became seen Off Broadway, at regional theaters or, sometimes, not at all, the great playwright Adrienne Kennedy is making her Broadway debut tonight when her 1992 work Ohio State Murders opens as the inaugural production at the newly renamed James Earl Jones Theatre.

Ohio State Murders, in which she is on stage for the entirety of the 75-minute play. The very next day, she will perform to a sold-out Carnegie Hall for a solo concert. And that’s all after she drops her six-year-old daughter off at the school bus. “To be honest, ‘me time’ is kind of nonexistent right now,” she says from her New York home.

Only Bruce Willis has the rights to Bruce Willis’s face, it transpires.

In some ways, James Earl Jones‘ baritone voice is as iconic to Darth Vader as the Sith lord’s helmet and red lightsaber. But now, after forty years, it’s time for someone else to take over the role — or at least, for someone to recreate the actor’s voice.

according to Vanity Fair.The Ukrainian start-up Respeecher, which specializes in voice cloning for content creators, used archival recordings and an AI algorithm to generate Jones’s voice for Disney+’s “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series, released in May.This was done in collaboration with Disney-owned “Star Wars'” production company Lucasfilm, which explained that Jones “guided” the character’s lines in the show, but his actual voice was generated by Respeecher, according to AV Club.Although the project coincided with the early days of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, Respeecher’s employees saw it to completion.

It looks like James Earl Jones will no longer be providing the voice of Darth Vader.

Additional casting and the full creative team for the Broadway premiere of Adrienne Kennedy’s Ohio State Murders were announced today, with Bryce Pinkham (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) and Lizan Mitchell (Cullud Wattah) joining previously announced star Audra McDonald.

Encouraging her fans and fellow Broadway-goers to spread the hashtag “The Majestic Is Fit For A Prince,” TV and stage icon Carol Burnett has launched a social media campaign to get Broadway’s Majestic Theatre renamed for legendary producer and director Harold Prince.

Wilson Chapman editor Barry Jenkins is heading to Pride Rock. At D23, the acclaimed “Moonlight” director appeared on stage to officially announce “Mufasa: The Lion King,” a new prequel to the 2019 “Lion King” film. Originally announced in 2020 as a sequel to the 2019 film, “Mufasa” tells the origin story of the iconic Disney father, exploring his childhood growing up with his brother Scar. The film will feature the voice of Aaron Pierre and Kelvin Harrison Jr. as younger versions of the characters, filling in for James Earl Jones as Mufasa in both the 1994 original and the 2019 CGI remake, and Jeremy Irons and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the villainous Scar. In addition to announcing the title, exclusive preview footage of the film was shown to the audience of the D23 expo.

renamed to honor of the EGOT winner. “The dedication of the James Earl Jones Theatre honors one of the most beloved Broadway and film actors of all time,” Shubert Chairman and CEO Robert E.

“Black Panther” star, the late Chadwick Boseman, “Grey’s Anatomy” actress Ellen Pompeo, and “black-ish” alum Tracee Elliss Ross are among the 2022 Disney Legends Honorees set to be honored at this year’s D23 Expo.Also being honored are Anthony Anderson, Kristen Bell, Rob’t Coltrin, Patrick Dempsey, Robert Price “Bob” Foster, Jonathan Groff, Don Hahn, Josh Gad, Doris Hardoon, Idina Menzel and Chris Montan, at a ceremony hosted by Tamron Hall.The Disney Legends Award is given to individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the Disney legacy. The awards have been given away for 35 years.

Jered Barclay, a longtime stage and screen actor who found a second career as a TV voice-over artist for series including The Smurfs and The Transformers, has died. He was 91. His longtime friend Myra Turley said Barclay died July 23 of MDS leukemia in North Hollywood, CA.

the struggling streamer’s quarterly earnings report Tuesday was that it lost fewer subscribers than it expected to — 1 million instead of 2 million. Pop the cork, losers! While it is possible that third quarter results will look somewhat rosier thanks to the enduring fandom surrounding the show “Stranger Things,” that lil bump will be a short-lived distraction from the inevitable:Netflix has lost the streaming wars.Disney+ has “Star Wars,” Marvel and “Avatar”; HBO Max boasts DC Comics, “Harry Potter” and “Godzilla.” Woebegone Netflix — sigh — touts migraines starring Melissa McCarthy.“Stranger Things,” you say? The Duffer Brothers’ popular sci-fi series has just one more season to go, now that its once adorable stars’ voices have become deeper than James Earl Jones’.  “The Crown”? Who cares?In any case, Netflix desperately needs more than one reliable megahit to stay afloat.

Not all dreams are meant to come true.Peacock’s straight-to-series order of “Field of Dreams” is no longer moving forward. The 1989 baseball classic starring Kevin Costner was being adapted for the small and streaming screen by writer and executive producer Michael Schur (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “The Good Place”).

Emily Longeretta The “Field of Dreams” TV adaptation is no longer happening at Peacock, Variety has learned exclusively. Universal Television is currently shopping the project to other outlets.The show adaptation of the 1989 movie was ordered straight-to-series at Peacock in August 2021. Michael Schur was set as writer and executive producer under Fremulon, with Lawrence Gordon of The Gordon Company also executive producing with David Miner of 3 Arts and Morgan Sackett.

EXCLUSIVE: Jason Alan Carvell (NCIS: New Orleans) has been tapped to play the key role of Malcolm X in the upcoming third season of Epix drama series Godfather of Harlem in a recasting. Production begins this week in New York on the series, starring Forrest Whitaker.

Broadway is about to make history. On Thursday, the Nederlander Organization announced it will rename the Brooks Atkinson Theatre after legendary performer Lena Horne, who died in 2010 at 92.

Dazzling in a bright white topcoat and pants, Tony Awards host Ariana DeBose trumpeted progress on Broadway in a high-energy opening number and monologue. (See video clip below.)

passed away in May 2010.This will mark the first time a Broadway theater has been named for a Black woman. The theater, which opened in 1926 as the Mansfield, in 1961 became the first venue named for a theater critic, the longtime New York Times reviewer Brooks Atkinson.