James Earl Jones is about to receive an honorary Oscar for his nearly five decades in film, but the 80-year-old thespian says he shouldn't even be an actor. “One, because I'm a stutterer,” the deep-voiced star said by phone from London, where he is starring with Vanessa Redgrave in the stage production of “Driving Miss Daisy.” “And two,” he continued, “my introduction to motion pictures was sitting on a bench in Mississippi watching a movie on a makeshift screen, a sheet stretched between two stores, and when a fistfight broke out on screen on that sheet, I freaked out. I couldn't handle the violence, so I hid under the bench and begged people to make them stop, and they didn't. They just watched. “I guess I said if I can't stop them, I better join them.” Jones was nominated for the best actor Oscar for 1970's “The Great White Hope,” the same role that won him a Tony two years prior. He has appeared in scores of movies, plays and TV shows, and gave voice to two of film's most memorable fathers: Mufasa in “The Lion King” and Darth Vader in the “Star Wars” trilogy.
