124 Rolling Thunder transcript (James Earl Jones)

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Nichelle: [00:00:00] This is Famous and Gravy biographies from a different point of view. To participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousenggravy.com. Now here's the quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

Michael: This person died 2024, age 93. He started out in destitute days working in a diner and living in a $19 a month.

Cold water flat. 93 hung in there for a while. Uh, George Orwell, not George Orwell. He's probably dead for a while, huh? I think so, yeah. But it too dead, not George Orwell. All right. He collected Tony's Golden Globes, Emmy's Kennedy Center Honors and an Honorary Academy Award. He once appeared in 18 plays in 30 months.

He often made a half a dozen films a year in addition to his television work, and he did it for a half a century.

Friend: Oh, I feel like I should know who this is. Tony Bennett.

Michael: Not Tony Bennett. Good guess not. Tony Bennett. He was a [00:01:00] bear of a man. Six feet, two inches and 200 pounds. He dominated the stage with his barrel chest.

Large head and emotional fires.

Archival: I hope someone describes me that way. If you have a good show. Oh, a big man, Burt Reynolds.

Michael: Not Burt Reynolds. Yeah, we've done a Burt Reynolds episode. You did voiceover work in the original Star Wars trilogy and in The Lion King.

Friend: That's not James Earl Jones, is it? James Earl Jones.

Michael: Today's dead celebrity is James Earl Jones.

Archival: It's the concept of contentment that replaces the word happiness. If you're content with contentment. Which is just, you know, being at ease with yourself and at ease with who you are, where you are, when you are, what drives you then who'd be content with leaning into a microphone. Have a state saying, I have you now, O ob Juan Kenobi.

You know, see what I mean? [00:02:00] It's, and to get that kind of a reaction that, that, that feeds my, my contend

Michael: Welcome to Famous and Great. I'm Michael Osborne. I'm Michelle Carr. And on this show, we choose a famous figure who died in the 21st century, and we take a totally different approach to their biography. What didn't we know? What could we not see clearly? And what does a celebrity's life story teach us about ourselves today?

James Earl Jones died 2024, age 93.

All right. I am thrilled to once again have Michelle Carr back on the show. Michelle joined us previously for the Prince episode as well as Gregory Peck. Michelle, thank you for making time for the James Earl Jones episode.

Nichelle: Thank you for having me. Always happy to be here.

Michael: Okay. You and I got on the horn a few weeks ago and said, let's do the James Earl Jones episode.

We're both excited about it. I wanna know how [00:03:00] your feelings about James Earl Jones changed as a result of the research. Are you more into him, less into him, very differently into him than when you first started?

Nichelle: Yeah. So I started out being like, oh my God, this is gonna be fun. 'cause he has such a eclectic body of work.

Yeah. And then when I started doing the research, I was like, wait, hold up a minute. His views. Yeah, on like politics and stuff. Wait, what? Yeah. Say what? Yeah, and then I listened to more of his interviews, reading more of his stuff, and kind of digging in deeper. And he's just such a lovely person. Yeah. Like that's what won me over is that even his views on politics when you listen to him, there are not that off.

He definitely has some hot takes that I so wanna get into. Totally. And I know you will. But yeah, he's really lovely. And once you understand his motivation, it really kind of makes sense.

Michael: So you've done it full circle with him. You were kind of like, wait, what? And they're like, okay, maybe. All right. I'm [00:04:00] back where I started.

Okay. Yeah. That answers the question I had almost the exact same journey. Let's just get into it. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary. James Earl Jones, a stuttering farm child who became a voice of rolling thunder as one of America's most versatile actors in a stage film and television career that plumbed race relations.

Shakespeare's Rapsodo tragedies and the faceless menace of Darth Vader died on Monday at his home in Duchess County, New York. He was 93. Holy cow. What a, what? A first line of an obituary. All right, Michelle. Your reactions. That's pretty good actually. It was incredible. It was just amazing. Yeah, they managed

Nichelle: to get it all in there.

Michael: Totally. Right. I mean, I think it does deviate from form in the way that there's stuff in here. I don't think everybody knows. I'm not sure most people knew that he was a stuttering farm child, so, which is something we've gotta talk about because the journey with [00:05:00] his voice is one of the more incredible parts of his story.

I really like Rolling Thunder. Yeah. I mean, it's just got such literal resonance and like bass and boom to it. America's most versatile actors in a stage film and television. I love that they got all three of those things. This man was on stage in all its forms throughout the 20th century plumbed, race relations Shakespeare, and they got Darth Theder.

They had to get Darth Theder in there. I mean, for me it's just like checking all the boxes. I love this. I don't know if you're as hot on this as I am.

Nichelle: No, no, no. Look, he is literally a Beso profu. That is the tenor and Tamra of his voice. Right. Rolling thunder is great imagery. I, I don't know if I would've thought of that, so I'm actually quite impressed by that.

Yeah. The fact that they put stuttering first is really true to him. Yes. So I appreciate that. How they talked about plumbed race relations. I mean, some of his most remarkable work puts race at the forefront because they're about black [00:06:00] characters. And at the time of his peak, which is 60 seventies, that is where America was like, we saw everything through that lens.

Michael: It's interesting that you call that his peak. I mean, that's not what I knew him. Four.

Nichelle: Right. Well that's a, yeah, that's, that's an interesting thing. He has this peak on like stage and film. Yeah. And then he has this other like, you know, I mean that's part of the reason why we got excited about it's 'cause I saw Conan and the Barbarian and I was like, yo, we gotta do James Earl Jones.

Totally. No, because he kills and Conan and the Barbarian. So, but, and then one other thing about the obituary, they mentioned Shakespeare. Yes. He is one of the greatest Shakespearean actors period. Full stop. Totally. Just is, totally, he nails the material. He is built literally for the material in terms of his voice, in terms of his presence.

Yeah. The fact that they got that in there as well is amazing

Michael: in his memoir when he talks about all his portrayals of Othello and, and how he came to the role. Yeah. I really had a moment of like, oh, this is [00:07:00] a incredibly thoughtful actor. Like that there's Yes. All these different interpretations of that character.

I ate that up in a way that I need people like. To guide me through Shakespeare. I can't come into it unfiltered. I need somebody who understands the material and the characters and the conflict. To your point thousand percent, he is a quintessential Shakespearean actor? Absolutely. Okay. I mean, is it missing anything then?

I mean, is there something that you would have wanted to have gotten in here that they didn't get in here? I gotta say they got Darth Theder in here like that.

Nichelle: They had to. Yeah. Well, you know what? So Darth Vader is perfect because one, he makes Darth Vader. What he is like Darth Vader's also kind of undisputed one of the greatest villains in cultural history.

Yeah. So, and I guess

Michael: we should say, for anybody who doesn't know, he voiced didn't play, wasn't his body. So he,

Nichelle: yeah. It wasn't he about as he's

Michael: a, it's a special effect thing,

Nichelle: but whatever. Right. Exactly. Which is [00:08:00] really interesting. He wasn't even credited in the first film. Right. But George Lucas knew he wanted James Earl Jones.

And so Darth Vader touches off the voice work that we start to know him for later on. Yes. And so just by mentioning Darth Vader, you then point to the Lion King. Yeah. Then, you know what I mean? It takes you to and cnn, all the other, yeah, yeah. CNN and all that kind of stuff. Like that little reference opens the door to all of those things.

So you kind of get it in through that.

Michael: I thought not only did it honor him and cover all this ground, but hints at a great story. This whole stuttering farm child, you know, voice of rolling, became a voice of rolling thunder. Yeah. I mean, there, there's a journey there. Exactly. And you wanna learn more about that.

So I, I have my score. I don't do this often. I give it a perfect 10 out of 10. I have no notes on this. This one nailed it for me.

Nichelle: I can't. Also, because the fact that they said farm child, like the way he loves wilderness. Yes. That's in there too. So it's personal to him as well. So a thousand percent I, yeah, I can't find fault either.[00:09:00]

Michael: Alright. 10 out of 10, well done. New York Times. This is what we're here for. This is why we have this category. Good for you. You fail us in so many ways. New York Times. Yeah, but, but today you got this one. Right? But today, on this day, you got this one. Right? All right. Category two, five things I love about you Here Michelle and I will develop a list of five things that offer a different angle on who James Earl Jones was and how he lived.

I would love for you to kick us off, Michelle, what do you got for this category?

Nichelle: Okay. My first one is I stutter, therefore I am nice. This is because James was so. Upfront and forthright about his stuttering. Like I admire how he really embraced that mm-hmm. As part of his identity. And it's amazing how he'll be in interviews and, you know, people will be saying, wait, wait, wait, you used to stutter as a child?

He's like, I am fighting the stuttering right now. Yeah. I know what, you know what I mean? He was quick to remind them that I'm still a stutterer, I'm always managing my stutter.

Archival: Anybody that makes fun of them or inadvertently laughs I, [00:10:00] I, I understand it completely as a stutterer. It's not, not that I condone, uh, ridicule, but I, I knew why the kids were laughing at me behind me and, uh, at Sunday School.

It's, it's, it's so nervous making, it's so, creates such anxiety in everybody that you laugh.

Nichelle: He just embraces it so fully and it's so kind of humble and I think it's inspiring for people who have to manage that, you know? Yes. Um, and for any kind of speech impediment and for him to be one of the greatest voices, not only of our generation, but because we have recordings.

He's gonna go down in history and we'll talk about later how his voice is gonna live on in the future. So for him to have this amazingly unique voice is unbelievable. It really

Michael: is like turning what was a disability into your greatest strength. It reminded me of Maya Angelou, who was mute for a period of time when, when she was young.

So the story is he was born in Mississippi. His parents split before he was born. He was largely raised by his [00:11:00] grandparents, and they moved from Mississippi to rural Michigan when he's like six years old. And that's when the stutter develops. And he later says, that must have been traumatic. I think that's why this stutter came about.

So he's, he's largely mute for 10 years or, or eight years, something like that. Age six to eight years. Yeah. Yeah. Age six to age 14 or so. And then he has this high school teacher who is apparently very compassionate and has given him a lot of space. He hands in this poem owed to a grapefruit and he is like, this is really good, but how do I know you wrote it?

The only way to know is if you read it aloud, and he kind of coaxes him into it. And then he discovers if something is written down and is read, he can begin to overcome his stutter that way. That is what plants the seed for acting. Mm-hmm. That he has. Comfort with the written word and performance because for whatever reason, his brain allows that disconnection between his stuttering and when he has to actually read lines

Nichelle: aloud.

I think for me, what's [00:12:00] really remarkable is that he wasn't, like you said, he wasn't born with a stutter. He came from this destabilizing time in his life that he processed as trauma. Yes. He wasn't born with it. He didn't have to continue to identify as a stutterer. Yeah.

Michael: He could have buried that. That's so true.

Nichelle: Yeah. It's, it's, it was a phase and he says he's still managing it. Mm-hmm. And obviously with what his voice has become, it just, it's something that would never come up. So it's not anything that people would be like, what are you not telling us, James? Like, so he didn't have to embrace it. And the fact that he does and is so forthright about it, it's just really beautiful.

Like, there's something about it that almost makes me emotional when he's like, I'm stuttering right now. You know what I mean? Totally. I mean, I, the

Michael: other thing that came up in his memoir that floored me to some extent was. When he got into acting, he had this intentionality and this sort of reverence for language because so much of his life as a stutter and not exactly mute, but he would avoid using his voice if he didn't have to, was a desire for expression.

And so that when [00:13:00] he found that outlet, it like exploded out of him. You know, and that's what we get for the entirety of his career is this like explosion of expression.

Nichelle: And it's also funny because he has this passion for language, but he also says that he comes at language different from other actors.

He comes at it standing on his head because he has to parse it out and take it apart and break it down and search for meaning. And so he also sees language as like a really weak attempt to express emotion. And I think he has thought about it to that extent because he spent years feeling like he didn't have power over it.

That's right. And didn't have access to it.

Michael: Okay, wonderful. Number one, we had to start there. I'll give you my number too. I wrote Lead From Behind. We started to talk about this a second ago when we talked about his peak. So his story is that he. Really put in the work for 14 years Grinding away largely in New York, Broadway, and really importantly off Broadway.

The Great White Hope was [00:14:00] sort of a breakout role for him, although he did get cast as his favorite bit of trivia of mine in Dr. Strangelove before that play and then eventually that movie. And he is a leading man, certainly on stage, but I was thinking about all the movies I know him from. It's actually a lot of supporting cast.

Yeah. Hunt for Red, October Field, the Dreams. Mm-hmm. Coming to America, which was sort of surprising, I would've thought, shouldn't there be a movie be because he has such innate leadership qualities where he is the leading man and he is a best actor candidate, and there are, but they all predate what I knew.

I see leadership qualities in him. But I'm sort of surprised that there's actually no role that I knew, you know, post 1980 where he is top dog.

Nichelle: Yeah. And I felt the same way. And so I immediately had to kind of go back and it kind of leads into my, my next thing that I love about him. Yeah, let's do it. Do your thing.

Number three, which is [00:15:00] master thespian. So a friend of mine used to say this. Thing he called them 27 Percenters people who, whatever film they showed up in, they made it 27% better. James Earl elevates everything that he's in. So if you look at his past films, he was absolutely a towering figure. But when you look at his later work, it's a lot of cameo roles.

Yeah, it's a lot of supporting cast parts. And he says it's because one stage was his first love. Not that he did not like theater or film, but Stage was his first love. And he really would do film and TV to pay the bill so he could then go back and do stage work. And so he was choosing film and TV roles with that in mind.

Like, is it a good cast? Is it someone that I wanna work with? So he really kind of got to pick and choose exactly what he wanted to do. And so it's almost like you sprinkle the James O. Jones dust on your film and it just, it elevates your film. Let's talk about Garth Vader and Star Wars real quick. Okay.

Darth Vader would not be Darth Vader if it weren't for that voice. The voice is so iconic and so [00:16:00] foreboding. I mean, he says it touched off his career as being seen as the voice of authority.

Michael: No, I mean, when he started getting commercial work for voice, they were like, we need the voice of God.

Archival: They asked me to just give us the sound of God.

Goodyear Vector Tires, you know, let, let God sell, sell Goodyear Vector tires. No problem. They, they, they had no, no. They, they were, they were not embarrassed about saying that, you know. So do you have a voice of yours that you think of? The voice of God? No. No.

Michael: That's the kinda language people would use. And then that did get sort of literal.

I mean, he did read the King James Bible

Archival: Acts chapter one, the former treatise, have I made oph of all that. Jesus began both to do and teach,

Michael: and you're totally right that Darth Vader would not be Darth Vader without his voice. I love the 27% better. Do you remember the movie sneakers? Yes, of course. The James Earl Jones cameo in that movie did exactly that for me.

I really like that movie. Mm-hmm. But then when he shows up at the end, I'm like, [00:17:00] yes. Like it's such icing on the cake of a fan favorite. So,

Nichelle: and I think it's true for the Lion King as well. So the Lion King kicked off the Renaissance of Disney animation. Yeah. Like the Lion King was, where people started saying, yo, these animated movies need to be nominated for Oscars.

Like what is happening? And it is because of James Old Jones and to a lesser, not even to a lesser extent, also Jeremy Irons. Yeah. Two Shakespearean actors. Yeah. Right. Master Thespians. Truly. James Earl Jones as the father makes Mufasa. So compelling. Mm-hmm. To the point where we're, when Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech Marine are doing the whole thing where she's like, say, you know, Mufasa, say it again.

Like, you get it because you're like, yeah, yeah. That is the presence that this lion has. Totally. And then there's this line that lives rent free in my head. Yeah. This line that he says to Simba, when Simba goes to the elephant graveyard when he is not supposed to, and he goes, you deliberately disobeyed me.

You deliberately disobeyed me. Yeah. And he says it so fast and he enunciates it so perfectly. Yeah. Once [00:18:00] again, you would be like, never. Not on your life. Not in this world. Could that be a stutterer? Yeah. You know what I mean?

Michael: Your thing number three in my thing number two pair together really well leading from behind and master thespian.

You look at the roles and he's the king in coming to America. Mm-hmm. He is the king in the Lion King. He is. Can

Nichelle: we just say real quick? Yeah. Coming to America, that's where Lion King comes from because his wife, the Queen in coming to America was Mad Sinclair and the Queen in the Lion King is mad Sinclair to his king in both coming to America and the Lion King and coming to America came out in 1988.

So Disney was just like king Queen done. Yeah. Boom.

Michael: Speaking of lines that live rent free, the moment where he is like having a A birds and bees talk with Prince Hakeem and says Yes, it says like, I am not sure if I am

Archival: ready some, I know we never had to talk about this, but. I always assume that you had sex with your bathers.

I know I do. The way he says

Michael: that, it's like he's so excited to be like, [00:19:00] yeah, you know what I'm talking about. I don't know. Like, awesome. Love this master thespian. Let me give you my number four. I wrote broad smile of contentment. I heard him give a talk where he was saying, we talk about the pursuit of happiness.

Happiness makes me uncomfortable. What if we said contentment instead? I hadn't thought about the word content or contentment. Mm-hmm. In a long time because for me it's happiness and like acceptance and a sense of peace. One of the things I love about James Earl Jones is this really is an incredible career in the way that it's unlikely that he ever found his way into this work that he did put in a tremendous amount of hard work, from a very unique perspective for 14 or 15 years before he had a breakout.

He gets a lot of critical acclaim, and then he gets a lot of commercial opportunity as he ages. You just chart it out that way. That speaks to contentment, you know? Mm-hmm. And I see it on his face. I love his smile. It just like spreads across his [00:20:00] whole mouth in this just wonderful way. So that is kind of a small thing, but I wrote broad smile of contentment for my thing.

Number four. Yeah,

Nichelle: I like that. I'm not sure if he was a thousand percent content, 'cause I think there was still things that he was grappling with. Oh,

Michael: I agree. I agree. But I like that he's offering contentment as a virtue instead of happiness. Happiness to me is dopamine hits it's short term. Mm-hmm.

Contentment is more like a way of being that is an aspiration. That is what I want to be going for. And I guess it was a reminder that that's what I wanna be aiming at is not necessarily God, I wanna be happy. I wanna be able to say, I wanna be content.

Nichelle: And I think he has countenance of contentment. Yes.

And I think by that definition, he probably, I think he was, I think he was pretty happy with his life. It was not perfect. Yeah. There's a lot. Yeah. I think, yeah. I think there is a lot of gratitude. One thing that this reminds me of on the master thespian point is that acting is so much who he is. And it was the lens through which he perceived everything like it was [00:21:00] through acting that he finally developed a bond with his father who was absent for all of his childhood years.

Right. This is also why his obituary was so great. It was this acting work that really pushed him to grapple with race relations more than he might have if he were not an actor, though. He does also say, if I hadn't been an actor, I probably would've been a revolutionary. Because at least theater gave me a way to channel this and a way to kind of change minds.

Like he talks about how theater builds experiences and can change hearts and minds without the lecture.

Michael: One other thing we should add, just about the un Unlikeliness of his career. So he was at the University of Michigan. He was one of the first members of his family to pursue a college degree. Towards the end of it, it's Korean War.

He's part of the ROTC. He thinks he's going to be deployed, and there's like an army colonel who's like, what do you really want do? I'm not sure the Army's right for you. He is like, I've always had a dream of acting. It's like, why don't you go try that? And the Army colonel said this. It's just such a like unlikely journey.

All right. [00:22:00] What do you got for number five? I know you've been saving something.

Nichelle: So for me, number five is the Man. The Man is both a 1972 film that James Earl Jones starred in. And there are some parallels to James Earl Jones himself in it. So the Man is a film about the first black US President, right.

Michael: And

Nichelle: the screenplay, funny enough is by Rod Sterling, the creator of the Twilight Zone, based on a novel. Right. So, yeah. And it's set in the present day of 1972. Basically the entire line of succession dies president, vice President, speaker of the House, and they get down to James Old Jones, who is a senator as president.

And the way that it's. Treated. The film just reads differently now that we've actually had a black president because in 1972, they treat the specter of a black president with like shock horror. It literally, the music goes dun dun dun. You know what I mean? But is, is this a movie that we should watch? Is this good?

Yeah, it's good because in 1972, race issues were still really raw. I mean, [00:23:00] Martin Luther King Jr. Had just been assassinated in 1968. And that's also part of why it reads differently. Like the idea of having a black president then is much more shocking. The N word is still being used casually, you know? So he's a professor by trade and the white senators who are still full of their racism, like this is Southern Democrats at their peak, are saying to him outright, we expect you to be the nice, mild mannered senator that we pretty much installed as a senator.

We expect you to continue to be that as a president and to do nothing more. Um,

Michael: so I mean, as you're watching this, are you thinking, I mean, you hear professor, you think Obama, right? And like are, as you're watching this, were you thinking.

Nichelle: Huh? Well, not only was I thinking, huh, because yeah, Barack Obama was a con law professor, but in the film, the most racist white senator says flat out, you know, I can tolerate this professor.

And he says it with so much spit and so much hatred that you know, he means something else. And the funny [00:24:00] thing is that when Obama was actually president in 2008, Mitch McConnell and the other Republican senators also referred to him as professor with all the venom that you can imagine. Wow. So the parallel is really intense.

And this professor who becomes president, it really takes him a while. He's very soft spoken about race. He's very thoughtful and very intellectual until he is finally just kind of pushed too far. And even his comeback to them is from an intellectual standpoint. And that kind of reminds me of James, so James Earl Jones, when he speaks about race, and this is why it was kind of a journey for me to kind of come to him.

Yeah. Yeah. He speaks about it in a quite detached and intellectual way. Like he'll talk about black people and then use pronouns like they, even though he very much identifies as a black man, but also later on, James Earl Jones' politics are different from other artists of his time. Like say James Baldwin or Ossie Davis, who was an actor and an activist.

So for instance, what James Earl Jones [00:25:00] does, one of his major projects was playing Paul Robeson in a one man flight. Yeah. And

Michael: help me understand Paul Robeson. And like James Earl Jones playing him. 'cause there was like controversy around

Nichelle: this. Yeah. So Paul Robeson is a figure from the early 20th century.

He was a scholar, an athlete, an actor, a singer, and an activist. He was a renaissance man in the true sense of the term. He was a threat to the white establishment because he was so talented, so intelligent, and so outspoken about his politics and his views.

Archival: And yet, in 1978, he was the epicenter of one of the most intense offstage dramas ever to rock the American theater.

The play was Paul Robeson. You gotta remember that every actor, every activist, every everybody in the country at that time were were being asked to take sides. And every place we played in whatever city we played in, there were people who, uh, [00:26:00] Paul's son had recruited to picket the theater. I then went to Paul Robeson Jr.

And asked him why was he protesting the play? He said, because the play did not do his father's memory just time ago,

Nichelle: and most of their critiques were without having ever read or seen the play. So it was the idea of raising this character, of playing Paul Robeson that had them up in arms and by someone who probably was not the most overt activist, like Ossie Davis, like his wife, Ruby D like James Baldwin,

Archival: opposition mounted an ad signed by more than 50 prominent black celebrities and civic leaders condemned the play.

Nichelle: I had kind of come to peace and then saw this conflict with James Baldwin and was shocked because James Baldwin is so articulate about the issue of race in America. Like he still is mind blowing fair for us today. Yeah. To this day. [00:27:00] And his stature only grows the more that he's revisited. And it's funny, James Old Jones refers to James Baldwin is Jimmy Baldwin and James Earl Jones basically says about James Baldwin.

You know, he lives his life on high in Europe and then parachutes in, in Paris, right? Yeah, yeah. He lives in Paris and Turkey and you know other places. Yeah. He parachutes in when he sees an issue that he wants to discuss and that he wants to speak for black America and speak for the race. And James Earl says, I resented his spokes.

Manship.

Michael: Okay, so these two roles, you know, this is all in your thing you love. Help me understand it as a thing you love.

Nichelle: I think what I love is what it tells us about the time. So to be very clear, the role in the man. Is not anything like Paul Robeson, the character or the person. The role in the man is a lot like the way James himself seems to be approaching race and politics.

This kind of very thoughtful, soft spoken, intellectual aspect, right? And so I love that because one, I think the man is something that folks should revisit. And two, I think it's very [00:28:00] interesting to have a different take on people like James Baldwin. People should revisit Paul Robeson and this play is not a bad place to start.

James Earl Jones is thinking about it differently than the convention of the community. And he's very quick to say, race is not the number one problem that the black man faces. He recognizes it, I think, in a lot of the same ways that I do, which was part of me kind of coming full circle with him. He recognized that not enough has been done, but are you gonna let that stop you?

Which is exactly how I think a lot of us feel about it. A lot of folks. I can't speak for everyone, but I know that's how I feel about it. Like it is there. It is always. There it is. Harmful, but are you gonna let that stop you? No,

Michael: I think what you said earlier really resonates that like what you love is that this is a moment to be studied and understood.

This whole podcast, Michelle, is an opportunity for me to take an interest in subjects that I feel like I should have learned in high school. And whenever we choose a black figure, it, there's always an education for me in terms of [00:29:00] African American history. I never had a black studies class in college.

Like that was true with everybody. Muhammad Ali and Hank Aaron and Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner and Maya Angelou. I mean, it goes on, you know? So, and I think that James Earl Jones is actually a kind of fascinating figure in that light, in that he is like Sidney Poitier. He's somebody who just codes for a lot of dignity and grace.

Yes. And authority. But there is a kind of question that I didn't really understand about how pioneering he was and his role choices were.

Nichelle: Yeah. And also wanting to get to like, the reason why I think he talks about it and doesn't wanna discourage young people is that we all know that the ideal is this true sense of not colorblind the way that it's being co-opted now, but the idea of like the content of my character and not the color of my skin.

Like we know that that is the goal, but then how do you acknowledge the reality that that is not the world we live in? It wasn't then, and it isn't now. His story embodies that tension. Yeah,

Michael: exactly. In a way [00:30:00] that I don't think I knew, I, I, I don't think I knew until I got here. Okay. All right. Well let's leave it at that.

Let's recap. So number one, I stutter, therefore I am number one. I stutter. Therefore I am number two. I said lead from behind Number three. You said master thespian, is that right?

Nichelle: Yes. 'cause I will say, 'cause I got to see him live playing big daddy in cat on a hot tin roof in London. So I actually gotta see him at work.

Oh, that's cool. It was dope. It was dope. So

Michael: that's awesome. All right, number four. I said big, broad smile of contentment. And number five, the man. Great list. Let's take a break.

Hey, famous and gravy listeners, Michael Osborne here. Our podcast is produced at 14th Street Studios. Over the course of this show, we have learned that the best podcast don't necessarily require a large budget. Famous and Gravy has been an incredible success story, and we believe it's built on a foundation of strong ideas, smart editing, and knowing your audience.[00:31:00]

That's the approach we bring to every project at 14th Street Studios. So if you have an idea for a show that you want to develop or if you wanna sharpen an existing show, send me an email atMichael@famousandgravy.com. Okay. Category three, one love. In this category, we will each choose one word or phrase that characterizes James Earl Jones's Loving relationships.

First, we will review what we know about the marriages and the kids. Okay. Two marriages. The first to Julianne James was 37. They divorced at 41 about the time that his rocket ship of fame was really taking off. They met when she played, uh, Des Demon in Othello. A second marriage was to Cecilia Hart. James was 51 when they got married.

She died when he was 85 years old. They had one child. She died of ovarian cancer, so he was widowed at 85. She also played Des Dimona after they got married. There was this myth that he married all his Des demons, but that's not true.

Nichelle: I have a quote about that. He actually says, I will [00:32:00] concede that I have had a way of falling in love with my Des demons, but I've had more than 10 des demons for crying out loud.

Archival: That's

Michael: sweet.

Nichelle: Uh, do you want me to go or do you wanna go? I mean, we we're almost at it. Mine is Othello and Des Dam. Okay. It started out being just Des Dimona, but then it became Othello and Des Dimona when I thought about his kind of family life. Mm-hmm. So I just felt like with his wives, when you think about Othello and his kind of view and his juxtaposition with Des, he's both kind of idealizing of Des Dam, yet Des Dam is also kind of distant from him.

Yeah. You know what I mean? There's a detachment there and maybe it's destructive. I mean he does end up killing her, so, and I felt like maybe it was unexpectedly What? It's a little al

Michael: nothing. I like where you're going with this. Yeah, keep going. He does. Yeah.

Nichelle: And I thought maybe it was unexpectedly illustrative of his view of the women in his early life, you know, especially his mother and grandmother.

This idea that he loved and revered them. [00:33:00] Yet at the same time when he describes them, there's a fair amount of judgment and detachment. He talks about how they're dramatic and they're ferocious and he kind of exoticizes and others them in a way that I think we typically think Othello does of Des Diona.

You know, James Earl is so thoughtful about ath that he's like Absolutely like changed my view of ath. Like I wanna revisit it now. Yeah, I do actually, after hearing his analysis of it. 'cause he goes so much deeper than anyone has. But look, James Earl Jones has two wives. They were both white. Yeah. There's this very kind of clear parallel that his wives and all the loves we know of in his life have been white women.

Othello is the character he most identifies with. And then the reason why I added Othello and didn't say just Des Damone is because I started to feel like James was maybe not fair with his mother and grandmother and was overly reverential of say, his grandfather. But then you look at his relationship with his father and his father's a very complicated relationship too.

Totally. So it really is about the people who are close to him. He has this [00:34:00] detachment, like with his father. They were friends. Like he even surmises whether or not his father was a little bit of an Iago. So with one of his early des demons where they have a crush on each other, his dad makes a point of being like, oh, you know, she was flirting with me.

Right, right. Just so you know, she really liked me. Yeah. And just this idea that there's this latent competition. 'cause his father was an actor. Yeah. James Earl became an actor. James Earl was more successful. Like there's this latent kind of competition. I think later on it becomes much more loving and supportive.

Like as James Earl is going through the Paul Robeson controversy. Yeah. His father's very much a supporter and a protector. But yeah, there's Oth Fellow just is this current that runs through James' Life and how he even views the people around him. Yeah.

Michael: Okay. I love it. Mine is similar. I wrote even playing field, and here's where I'm going with that.

So one, I was thinking about field the Dreams and I do like, like even the obit described him as Farm Boy and I do think that he has a sort of like man of the earth quality that he gets from his grandfather. [00:35:00] Something else that struck me. He is like technically an only child. His grandparents, their youngest is only four years older than him, Randy, so he's almost like a older brother.

And then the way he describes his relationship with his father, it gets complicated because his dad. It was kind of cut out from being able to be a father. It didn't sound like it wasn't clear if he wanted to be, but he wasn't able to be. And his dad was a prize fighter and then became an actor. Mm-hmm.

And was blacklisted for a while because of political views. And James Earl Jones describes it as, look, the opportunity for him to be a father. That wasn't possible by the time we reconnected because they didn't reconnect until his early twenties. So there, there was something about the kind of cross generational flattening that happened that led me to even playing field that, and you mentioned both his wives were white, it's noteworthy.

Mm-hmm. Right. That uh, a black man in the sixties marries a white woman that's not as common. And so all of [00:36:00] it led me to even playing field like May. Is that a lame metaphor? Maybe it is. I don't know. No. In a way I didn't have a whole lot to say on in this category. Yeah. Is there more to say.

Nichelle: I mean, I don't know that there is like, you know, he was able to finally have a child with his second marriage

Michael: who's a, who's apparently doing voice work now.

Flynn does all audio. Oh, really? Books? Yeah. I saw he's getting work at doing, which is great. So apparently the, the voice is, that's lovely. Yeah. Earl Jones.

Nichelle: Yeah. Beautifully named Robert Earl Jones. James Earl Jones Flynn. Earl Jones,

Michael: yeah. All right. Let's move on. Category four, net worth. In this category, we will write down our numbers ahead of time.

We'll then discuss our reasoning, and then finally we'll look up the net worth number in real time to see who's closest. Lastly, we will place this person on the famous and gravy net worth leaderboard. He is insanely prolific. He is saying yes to everything. Mm-hmm. He's on the stage, he's on tv. What really led me to a slightly higher number is some of the commercial work.

So there's a civic bell. He was the voice of [00:37:00] CNN.

Archival: Is CNN.

Michael: The voiceover work looked pretty lucrative and it looked like there was a lot. So I, I kind of skewed high and I thought a little bit about comps. I figured he had to be a little bit higher than Sidney Poitier, only because of the longevity of his career.

And Sidney Poitier was at 25 million.

Nichelle: Okay. Oh, I skewed. Yeah, I skewed higher as well. Okay. And for me, I'm very specifically including what I call the last transaction. And this is the deal that he made to license his voice to Lucasfilm. Yes. And maybe Disney Lucas film, whatever it is. But he's licensed his voice to be used as Darth Vader using AI far into the future.

Basically into perpetuity from what I understand. Yeah. And so that licensing deal. It better be lucrative. I would get, again, with the residual get I get paid for the original. I mean it was like 9,000 bucks. He got paid like either 7,000 or $9,000. Yeah. Is all he got paid and he got like a bonus,

Michael: like Christmas bonus.

George Lucas gave him like another 9,000. Like that was really good. Yeah.

Nichelle: So yeah, I [00:38:00] think it was 7,000 for the first gig. And then, yeah, 9,000 is Christmas bonus. Which is ridiculous. 'cause it was already like the worlds, world's largest blockbuster at that time. Yeah. It, it had come out as Star Wars. Right.

So I think that he probably so, but his voice, he did the voice in the more recent trilogy. Right. So I'm sure he got a good payday for those kind of make up for lost time. And then I think this idea of licensing his, licensing his voice basically into perpetuity, which is gonna benefit his family. I would hope and believe, I would hope that be high.

That that is huge. Okay. Yeah.

Michael: All right. Let's go ahead and reveal, so Michelle Carr wrote down 70 million,

Nichelle: and Michael wrote down 40 million.

Michael: The actual net worth for James Earl Jones is estimated at 40 million. I got it. Birthday. Wow. Oh, that never happens. I feel like light bulbs are going up. I'm a little bit bummed for James 40.

Nichelle: Really? 40 million. Maybe they're counting what it is now. Maybe they're not counting this last [00:39:00] transaction, which is gonna pay dividends going into the future.

Michael: Oh, man. I'm so glad. I reason I'm, I gotta say I'm proud of myself. I, I don't have that many wins today, Michelle, but this is one of them. Well done.

James Earl Jones. All right. 40 million. Let's put him on the famous and gravy net worth leaderboard. So at 40 million, he is in the 46th percentile. The other. People at the famous Eng Gravy, 40 million net worth dinner table include Peter Fonda, JJA Gabor, Bob Dole, Nora Aron, Wes Craven, and Patrick Swayze.

It's a, that's a good table. Interesting. Yeah. There's some fun conversations going on there. I

Nichelle: bet him and

Michael: Patrick Swayze

Nichelle: would get

Michael: a along. That's who I was thinking that I think he would have a lot to talk about with Patrick Swayze, Nora Aron and Bob Dol can argue in the corner. Jaja can just do her thing.

All right, well done. James Earl Jones. 40 million. Okay. Next category. Category Five. Little Lebowski, urban Achievers. They're the

Archival: little Lebowski. Urban achievers. Yeah. The achievers.

Michael: Yes. And proud. We [00:40:00] are, of all of them in this category, we each choose a trophy and award, a cameo, an impersonation, or some other form of a hat tip that shows a different side of this person.

I'll go ahead and give you mine. I found a reading that James Earl Jones did of a letter that Kurt Vonnegut wrote to a group of high school students. So there's a series on YouTube that. I learned about called Letters Live, where people read inspirational letters. Apparently in 2006, a group of students at Xavier High School in New York were given an assignment by their English teacher, Ms.

Lockwood, that was to test their persuasive writing skills. They were asked to write to their favorite author and ask him or her to visit the school. Five of those students chose Kurt Vonnegut. He didn't make it, but he did write a letter to them, and it's a short letter. James Earl Jones reads it as part of this series in 2018.

The gist of the letter, I mean, this is, you know, both at Vonnegut, who we've done on the show, of course, and James Earl Jones Point. But the gist of the letter [00:41:00] is it's a simple message. Do art,

Archival: what I had to say to you, practice any art, music, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, no matter how well or badly.

Not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you.

Michael: It's a hilarious and beautiful letter, and the way James Earl Jones reads it, like he mails it, it's just like, it's the, your 27% better point from earlier. It's so wonderful to hear this famous author talk to a group of high school students in the voice of.

I don't know if you wanna say voice of God, but the voice of Darth Vader. Anyway, so that was my leki. I just love this moment and I ended up bringing it up to a friend recently. Look, something that's become really important for me in my life. I didn't know this Michelle, until I got really deep into my research as a PhD, how important it's to have a creative outlet [00:42:00] that needs to be a daily intention.

Am I feeding my creative outlets? That's what this really said to me, because when I do that, it, it exercises parts of my mind that are otherwise not. Finding an expression. So that was my moment.

Nichelle: Awesome. All right. What do you got? So I had like three, yeah. I'm gonna narrow it down to one. Okay. In 1969, he participated in test films for the Children's Education series, Sesame Streets.

You may have heard of this. I saw this. Yes, I saw this. Yes. Yeah, so he did a bunch of test films and basically, and this was a children's educational series put together by people who do kind of children's educational work. It wasn't just TV people, it was a combination of TV people and like academics we did.

Yeah. So the, A bunch of testing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Children's television workshop. Yeah. And the film that had the greatest impact with test audiences, which were groups of children. The one that had the most impact was James Earl Jones, counting to 10.

Archival: 1, 2, [00:43:00] 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

Michael: That was it. That was the best one.

That was the best one. I mean, that tracks, so he's That totally tracks.

Nichelle: Yeah. Yeah. He's technically the first celebrity guest star on Sesame Street, but he didn't air first. Carol Burnett's segment aired first, but he filmed first. Wow. As a celebrity guest star, so,

Michael: wow. Okay. That is, that's pretty amazing.

Pretty, that is dynamite. Awesome. One.

Nichelle: One other quick one. Darth Vader. Is a gargoyle on the Washington National Cathedral. Did you know that? Really? So the Washington National Cathedral. Yeah. One of the gargoyles on the cathedral is Darth Vader. Really? And to my point of Darth Vader would not be Darth Vader without James Earl Jones' voice.

Like that is a level of impact this guy has. They did some renovations, obviously within the past 50 years. Yeah. And they added Darth Vader's head. It's very [00:44:00] recognizable to the Washington National Cathedral. Holy cow. That's beautiful.

Michael: You said you had a third leki.

Nichelle: Yes, this one, folks should know this, but it just cannot be overlooked.

It is in treehouse of horror, one from The Simpsons, which I believe is the second season of the Simpsons. The Raven. The Raven, exactly. James Earl Jones recites Edgar Allen pose the Raven with Homer as a protagonist, and Bart as the Raven. The Raven,

Archival: once upon a midnight weary while I pondered weak and weary over many acquaint and curious volume of forgotten law.

While I nodded, nearly napping suddenly came a tapping and my soul mounted that shadow that lies floating on the floor. Shelby lifted Never more.

Michael: I'm glad we got that in thing number three, the Raven. All right, let's take one more break.[00:45:00]

Category six words to live by. In this category, we each choose a quote. These are either words that came out of this person's mouth or was said about them.

Nichelle: You know what? This actually gets to your point about contentment. This is related to that. So when he's breaking down Othello as a character, so Othello, who has roots in Mauritania?

So Othello was actually a real person. I didn't even know this. I was a real person. There was a novella that had been written about him, and then Shakespeare kind of did his play based on that. Okay. So he's highly fictionalized in the way that we know him, but he was a real person and he was a Spanish war.

So he has roots in Mauritania. His first language is Arabic, second language is Spanish. And then he finds himself in Italy, in Venice as a general. And so he comes from high birth? Yeah, he's an aristocrat. He's a noble, yeah. And so. James Earl Jones is saying that what Othello would be thinking as a stranger in a strange land in Venice is that he's thinking, look, I have had such privilege to have been all over this world.

If this experience I have had does not give me the [00:46:00] grace to be gentle with you, then life has wasted all these experiences on me. So in short, if you do not come out of your life experience with overflowing grace, then it has all been a waste. You have not really lived your but a ghost. And I'm like, that's beautiful.

I saw that. I loved, I

Michael: read that twice. I thought that was so beautiful. Yeah. And I do think that one of his defining qualities is grace. Like this is a very, very graceful man. Yeah. And gracious. And gracious, graceful and gracious. Yeah. All of it. Yeah. Okay. I'll give you mine. He said, and this goes back to his roots as a stutterer, he said, one of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.

This is what creativity is, right? We have this stuff inside of us that we don't even know what it is, and it's gotta find a way out. And this is a man who found that and found his channel and found it through characters and found it on TV and on stage, and in film, and in voiceover work, and found it in playing this instrument that is the human voice.

In a way [00:47:00] it's literal, but this is true of every creative outlet. One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter. And part of our task is people. Is to figure out a way to utter those words. So that was my words. Live back.

Nichelle: Yeah.

Michael: No, that's beautiful. Okay. Category seven, man in the Mirror.

This category asks a fairly simple question. Did this person like the reflection? Yes or no? This is not about beauty, but rather a question of self-confidence, verse self-judgment. I think we can make this kind of a fun category. One thing about great white hope, that man looked incredible. Like he is cut and like, holy cow, James Roll Jones is a stud in that movie, and he trained like crazy to play the role of a prize fighter.

I wonder about the stutter as a point of insecurity. I also think there's no way around it. This man struggled with sweets. I mean, it's, I think he carries the weight well, but is a heavy guy and he mm-hmm. Even talks about that. I, I saw him in an interview, say somewhere, one of the. [00:48:00] Myths I have in my head is that I can eat just one cookie.

Mm-hmm. And I relate to that. I cannot eat just one cookie. And I do think that that plays into this question. Ultimately I see a man who is in command of his voice and largely in command of his body in as much as we ever can be. So with all the ways I'm making it complicated, I lean towards Yes.

Nichelle: I also had Yes.

And I said yes. And that he came to it through the hard work of introspection. Yeah. Like I think the work of kind of writing an autobiography, his analysis and breakdown of acting, like even just the way he describes method acting. Yes. And things like that. It's beautiful. Like, well, and

Michael: he's not a method actor, right.

This is one of the interesting points is that Lee Strasberg is like, you're the rare bird who would not benefit from my any kind of training. Right. Like you already got do your thing.

Nichelle: Yeah. Yeah. He's like, you already have a technique. There's nothing, I don't have anything to teach you. Which is

Michael: really interesting 'cause he's hanging out with that crowd like Brando and Newman and you know, all those.

People hanging around the actress studio. I mean,

Nichelle: he, he applied to Strasberg school seven times [00:49:00] and was rejected seven times and Lee finally told him, he's like, Hey, 'cause you didn't need it. And James is like, sure. Okay. So being an actor and really embracing this stutter, not overcoming and leaving it behind.

Yeah. But embracing and integrating that stutter is just emblematic of this idea of self-love and self-acceptance. So I had said yes.

Michael: Also, one of the things that's interesting about this stutter is I, I heard him say in other places, people will read a certain kind of emotionality in an effort to get something out.

Like it plays to his advantage in a way. Does the stutter come back very much for you?

Archival: You've heard it several times. Mm-hmm. Now it's always with me, you know, and I have to be careful not to talk too fast. Mm-hmm. It certainly, uh, becomes a problem whenever I do something emotional, whether in real life or as an actor, then Gladys Vaughn was the first to, to notice it.

She says, when you get emotional, when you, when you o fellow, for instance, gets emotional, I sometimes believe you less. And it's because I'm being too careful. You. You can't measure out emotionally. It has a flow.

Michael: But it's funny because once he tells you that [00:50:00] information, you suddenly become very attentive to when he is and is not stuttering Right.

In a way that you would not have known had he not told you that, that this was part of the condition. I. So we're both yes and a yes. Uh, let's move on. Category eight, cocktail coffee or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most wanna do with our dead celebrity. So I struggled here because sometimes I approach this category as opportunity to unlock or ask something that I'm still sort of curious about.

I don't know that I have that here. I don't know that. Mm-hmm. I want something from him that he hasn't already told us or said. So maybe this is a cheap way out. I try to keep a dream journal. I'm sporadic about it, but you know how dreams just like leave you within the first minute of waking up.

Nichelle: Yeah.

Michael: I've done a thing where I try and roll over and I'll either dictate it into my phone or I'll try and scratch some things down. And the more you write 'em, the better you remember 'em. Some of my dreams are to me fascinating. So I wanna get high. And have James Earl [00:51:00] Jones read my Dream journal. Oh, I just think that'd be an interesting way to experience my dreams because there is a command of voice.

There is like, you know, these chambers in him, like a two bar, like an instrument. What was the one you said earlier? A sousaphone. A sousaphone? Yeah.

Nichelle: They're, they're different. Yeah. Whatever. They're

Michael: both very low porn instruments. Right. I mean, it, it, it's booming. So yeah. I want to get high and have Dream Journal Jones read my dream journal.

This was the fantasy I came up with. I don't know, I don't have big questions here. Exactly. What about you? How did you think through this category? I,

Nichelle: I think for me it's cocktail. Okay. He can have his favorite, whatever that is. Mm-hmm. And I'll have, you know, what old fashioned, some whatever

Michael: you had an old fashioned with Gregory Peck.

You gotta choose a different drink.

Nichelle: I think the perfect drink for James Earl is the dark and stormy. Oh, that's

Michael: perfect. Rolling

Nichelle: thunder. Well done. Yeah. Rolling. Dark and Stormy. It's rum. That's a very kind of Caribbean black drink. It signpost him as Darth [00:52:00] Vader and how dark, like even the Darth Vader theme comes to mind when you think about that.

It's good choice. Yeah, good choice. But I wanna have a cocktail because I do think, like I totally agree with you, that I feel like there's not a whole lot that he's not open about. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's forthcoming, but I do still think that there are some things that I would wanna work through and noodle.

About with him, make that specific, like what's the question you would wanna put to him? I think, I think it's really the politics stuff. I think I would wanna like the fact that he can talk about politics in a way that seems like he doesn't wanna talk about it. That he can be so fierce in this. I am a human, do not put me into a box even.

And the way he talks about his family, like he is quick to point out that his family is very mixed, which I mean. Clearly he has like blue eyes, gray eyes, green eyes, light skin. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like he obviously has his, was Native

Michael: American, I think, or part Native American. Yeah. Well she

Nichelle: was, she was black, but she had Native American blood.

Yeah. So in his family there's African blood, native American blood and Irish blood. Right. He has a great, great grandfather who was a [00:53:00] slave who married a white woman right back in like the 18 hundreds. So, and I'm like, oh my God, that's such his origin story. A black man and a white woman. Of course. Of course.

So here's the thing, he really threw me out. Part of the journey was he would refer to his heritage as Oid Negroid. No. First Negroid. He knew that, he knows he's black. Like I, I don't wanna do him a disservice, but like all of us black Americans, we are mixed. Like I have Native American blood in me that I know.

Right, right, right. Part of why I look the way that I look. Right. But he would say, my family is Negro oid and even Mongoloid. And I'm like, oh my God,

Michael: James, you can't say that.

Nichelle: Right? It's, it's not even like, you can't say, it's not even like, you can't say that, like someone's gonna be mad at you. It's like these are race science, eugenics terms.

Totally don't, yeah. They are incorrect. Right? They are doing a disservice to you. You say that and your family say, yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, this is, no, this is not, we're going like, it is nuts the way these terms are used and what they mean and what they signify. [00:54:00] So I'm just like, oh my God, we need to work through this.

But like I said. I think his intentions are good. I can get there, but I feel like there's some stuff that I wanna understand about his self understanding. Like I think we'd have a lot of agreement, but he just expresses them and processes them differently. And I think I'd wanna go through that without filters.

Yeah,

Michael: because like there is a way in which he's pioneering. I watched a lot of interviews of him talking about Sidney Poitier, who is the sort of first, you know, blockbuster Hollywood black star. Mm-hmm. Like his career is extraordinary and happens at a time. Where all these issues are coming to the fore or or entering a new chapter in American History.

So I would wanna listen in on that conversation, Michelle.

Nichelle: Yeah, I mean, and also I would just, I'll just say like, I think because he is just one kind of, I don't know if he's one generation or one kind of step behind Sidney one. Yeah. He describes it as like the next

Michael: crop is what he says and Yeah. Yeah,

Nichelle: exactly.

He's, he's the next crop, like the [00:55:00] next class of actors kind of like coming through. That maybe makes it harder because there are expectations there. Yeah. It also could mean that maybe he felt like he had the freedom and the liberty to be like, I don't have to get into this, but it's one of the reasons why I was saying like, Ugh, I watch a great white hope and I wasn't really looking for it.

I knew I was gonna have to watch blah, blah, blah. And I realized that. Even though it is early on, it doesn't feel groundbreaking. And when I think about why it doesn't, it's because, you know what? I already saw guest who's coming to dinner. Right. That already came out. Right? Right. And in the heat of the night already came out where Sidney Poitier slaps a white man in the face.

Right. You know what I mean? Right, right. And demands to be called Mr. Tips. So Sidney Poitier had already kind of tread that ground of I am the defiant standing up for myself, black man. Yeah. And so when you see the great white hope, you're kind of like, yeah. You know, like it doesn't feel as fresh and as new as maybe you would want it to.

To the

Michael: extent it is groundbreaking at all. It feels incremental, not earth shattering. Right.

Nichelle: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah.

Nichelle: But at the same time, I think that's good because we need to relearn our [00:56:00] history until we finally learn to stop repeating it, which we're in the process of doing right now. Yeah. You

Michael: and I need to start a podcast all about this.

All right. Pin in that thought. In the meantime, we have arrived category nine, the Vander Beak, named after James Vander Beak, who famously said, and Varsity blues. I don't want. Your life in that varsity blue scene. James makes a judgment that he does not want a certain kind of life based on just a few characteristics.

So here Michelle and I will form a rebuttal to anyone skeptical of how James Earl Jones lived. Where does James have a point? Why would you not want this life? I suppose there is a certain amount of, I don't know if it's alienation exactly, but there does seem to be a tremendous amount of reverence. I think there's comradery.

I think that there's community, but I, I still sort of detect some hint of loneliness in all of that somehow. Yeah. You

Nichelle: know, do you see that too? Absolutely. Detached is how I described, and maybe it's one of those things where you're trying to examine yourself for an autobiography that maybe you, [00:57:00] you're, you're going to.

Conveyed detachment, even if it's not there. But I feel like, yeah, he was an only child raised by his grandparents. His grandparents were certainly lovely. No, you know. Yeah, no was just there. But there's this question around his mother and his father. Like with both of them, he doesn't feel fully.

Comfortable fully in their bosom. Yeah. The way that a child should Yeah.

Michael: I, the relationship with his dad and the way he describes it as almost closer to a friendship than a father son relationship on one hand Makes sense. On another hand, that's confusing. I don't know. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm grasping at straws a little bit for why you might not want this life.

Nichelle: No, no, no. One of the first things he says is that, in my large family, your personality didn't count for much. You needed to do your choice, earn your keep, carry your load. And it kind of reminded me of Gregory Peck. He wasn't in a big family, he was almost an orphan because his parents were just all over the place.

Just gone absent. Working nights, just not there. Yeah. Yeah. Not present. And so he felt like, yeah, he had to earn his keep. He had to make himself [00:58:00] easy to love so that someone would be willing to take care of him. Mm. And they both found solace in the structure of military life. Yeah. So I definitely think there's something there with him and his family not feeling like the full cocoon of support that a child can feel from their family.

And then I think in his adult life. With him and the other community, black actors. So there's a way to be black and not feel fully accepted by the black community. And I think this, all the controversy around the Paul Robeson play. Mm-hmm. The fact that other actors felt fit to protest his work, like Ossie Davis and James Baldwin were out there protesting his work, it leaves you feeling a little bit outside of that community.

And that's a community you need to lean on. Like, he very much understands what it means to be a black actor and how difficult and how tough that is. And when you, you don't feel that that support the way that you need it. I think that's hard too. That can be lonely making as well.

Michael: Really good point that Paul Robeson play, [00:59:00] I'm sure to your point, affected him on a deep level.

Nichelle: Yeah. And I will say Paul Robeson's grandson was in support of it. So the family was kinda all, all over the place too with that. So. All

Michael: right. Well, let's move on to why you would want this life. I think the reasons are pretty numerous. I mapped out earlier, I think that this is one of the more perfect careers.

Whatever career you are in doesn't have to be creative. If it starts off with an unlikely origin story to years of struggle, to critical acclaim and to ultimately financial success, that's kind of how I want everybody's career to go. That's certainly how I want my career to go. Uh, I find that deeply desirable.

Point number one here though, and I maybe I'm burying the lead, is to take something that was an uh, affliction, an inhibitor. Something that held him back this stutter and then turn it into one of the most memorable, recognizable voices of all time, like it is going to be remembered. To your point about Darth Vader for forever, that's an [01:00:00] amazing, it's just such a powerful lesson of this is how we're supposed to, I think, deal with fears.

The things that we feel like are holding us back, barriers, frustrations in life. Unlock something deeper in you to. Get through that, and that is such a like deep and profound life lesson. I mean, that's reason number one and that it leads to the career is really downstream of that.

Nichelle: Absolutely. I agree 1000%.

I think that's why I'm so moved by it and that he doesn't let that go. That he makes sure that we all know that this is possible. Hugely inspiring. I also think just to be like his career itself, just to be so good. Yeah. Like just so good. Watch me. I am so good at what I

Michael: do. He looks like he's having fun.

Right. There's a great moment where I saw him talking about this point of contentment where he slips into the Darth Vader voice and the audience just goes bananas. Right. He says something about OB one and like, ah, it's, you know, [01:01:00] like, right. Right. I think he is having a good time on stage. Right. Right, right.

I think he's exploring himself through a range of characters. I think he is discovering leadership within himself and a command of his own

Nichelle: physicality. And when I say be good at something, it's so nice to stretch yourself, to grow, to feel like you're going as deep as you can go. Like we talked about how thoughtful and intelligent and smart he is about the craft of acting in addition to being an incredibly emotional and compelling actor.

That's fulfilling,

Michael: I think, and, and, and he owns it too. There's a, I, I'm remembering this now. I think it was in a fresh air interview where he talked about learning to own his talent. It's okay to say I'm very good at this and in fact I'm supposed to, I'm not supposed to have false modesty.

Archival: You are the only person who can tell what, whether you have talent or not.

And there's a a certain point where you gotta be really honest with yourself and say, yeah, I do and I'm going on, or No, I don't. And, uh, your parents can't do it for you. Critics can't do it for you. Once you [01:02:00] determine that. Then there should be no room for doubt.

Michael: So with that, James VanDerBeek, I'm James Earl Jones, and you want My life.

Before we close, if you enjoyed this episode and you're enjoying our show, and if you've got your phone in your hand, please take a moment to share this with a friend. We want to grow our podcast one listener at a time. Okay. Speed round. Michelle plugs for past shows. If people enjoyed the James Earl Jones episode, what else might they like from the famous and Gravy back catalog?

Nichelle: Well, can I, can I do two? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Hell yeah. This is awesome. Okay. I think Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin. I love it.

Michael: Uh,

Nichelle: and I like that because one teen of, she feels to me like she was off the beaten path just a little bit. Yes. You know, she obviously overcame adversity and she has an amazing voice.

She's compelling. But yeah, just the idea that she is very recognizably black. But is doing is marching to the beat of her own drum. Yeah, I [01:03:00] love that episode. And then Aretha Franklin. Yeah. The Queen of Soul. And that is just the idea of mastery and versatility of excellence. And, you know, quintessentially being at the top of your game is amazing.

Uh,

Michael: episode 87, simply The Best with Tina Turner and episode 1 0 1, soul Queen Aretha Franklin. I'm gonna plug Episode 95, total Consciousness with Harold Rams. There's something about this idea of contentedness that I think he has. So there's something about these two rotund men. Uh,

Nichelle: I mean, Harold Ramus wasn't rotund until the end of his life.

Well, same for James Earl. They both exactly right. They were, they, they both at the end of their lives on the

Michael: pounds. Not to judge, but it just happened. All right, so episode 95, total Consciousness. Harold Ramis. Here is a little preview for the next episode of Famous and Green. In 1958, she married an architect from Jamaica.

They were divorced in 1964 in interviews. She rarely spoke of the marriage, though. She intimated that her husband had wanted a traditional 1950s wife and [01:04:00] that she could never be.

Archival: Oh my gosh. This is a hard one.

Michael: And gravy. Listeners, we love hearing from you. If you wanna reach out with a comment, a question, or to participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousenggravy.com.

In our show notes, we include all kinds of links, including to our website and our social channels. Famous and Gravy was created by Amma Kur and me, Michael Osborne. Thank you so much to the wonderful Michelle Carr for guest hosting. This episode was produced by Ali Ola, with assistance from Jacob Weiss, original music by Kevin Strand.

Thank you and see you next time