# Robert Earl Jones

Robert Earl Jones (February 3, 1910 – September 7, 2006), sometimes credited as Earl Jones, was an American actor. 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), Sleepaway Camp, Trading Places (both 1983), The Cotton Club (1984), and Witness (1985). He was the father of actor James Earl Jones.

## Biography
### Early life

Jones was born in northwestern Mississippi; the specific location is unclear as some sources indicate Senatobia, while others suggest nearby Coldwater. A son of Robert and Elnora Jones, Robert Earl Jones 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.

### Career

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.

## Personal life and death

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. Jones remarried twice, to Jumelle Jones from 1938 to 1950, and Ruth Williams from 1960 until her death in 1981. He had a second son, Matthew Earl Jones. Jones died on September 7, 2006, in Englewood, New Jersey, at age 96.

## Work
### Theatre

| Year | Title | Role | Venue |
| 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 |
| 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 | Circle in the Square Theatre, Broadway |
| 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 |

### Filmography

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 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 | (posse) | |
| 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 | final film role |

### Television

| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
| 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 |