May 6, 1989 | In Shoeless Joe, the 1982 novel on which Field of Dreams is based, the hero of the piece is Ray Kinsella, an Ohio farmer who heeds a supernatural summons to build a baseball diamond in his cornfield. In response to his efforts, the legendary “Shoeless Joe” Jackson appears on the field, to once again enjoy the Great American Pastime.
A few days later, Ray gets another summons to seek and revitalize another baseball fan: J.D. Salinger, the ultra-reclusive author of Catcher in the Rye.
“No,” says Phil Alden Robinson, director and scriptwriter of Field of Dreams, “we didn’t even consider keeping Salinger as a character for the movie.”
Exit Salinger, and any possibility of a lawsuit by the notoriously litigious author. Enter Terence Mann, a fictional character who, not coincidentally, also happens to be a reclusive cult favorite. Once a highly visible figure during the turbulent ‘60s, Mann despaired of changing the world into a better place. So he crept off into obscurity to nurture his cynicism, and to design interactive software. But then Ray Kinsella (played by Kevin Costner) shows up at his door, and jump-starts his stalled idealism.
It’s a vital, vibrant character, this Terence Mann, the sort of role that calls for an actor who can be just a few meticulously measured degrees larger than life. In the great James Earl Jones, award-winning star of stage, screen and TV commercial voice-overs, Robinson found just the actor he needed.
Jones took one look at the script, heartily approved of the color-blind casting — the character need not have been played by a black actor — and enthusiastically accepted Robinson’s offer.
“There’s usually one of three reasons why I’ll do a movie,” Jones said, in his trademark orotund tones, during a recent Manhattan press gathering. “And, hopefully, as happened on this movie, all three are concurrent.”
Reason No. 1? Jones is nothing if not honest: A good paycheck is a major attraction.
“This is my profession,” he said. “I do need to make a living at it, because I can’t make a living any other way. And all I ever ask of a movie that I do only for the money is that it’s a wholesome movie — usually, an adventure movie. Or a cameo part that I can do, then get out quick. Just so it’s not a movie saddled with a controversial issue, or an issue that I have to have a moral responsibility with.
“So, a movie like Coming to America,” in which he played the haughty father of Eddie Murphy’s African prince, “is ideal. It paid some bills. And it gave me the chance to work with a fine young actor.”
Another good reason to make a movie, Jones said, is “when I sense a good story — which is what it’s all about, really — and I see they’ve assembled a cast that I’m attracted to. And I want to see what we actors can do with this story. That’s the healthiest reason.”
And then there’s a third reason, one Jones readily concedes has more to do with personal challenge than artistic excellence. “Sometimes,” he said with a Cinemascope-size smile, “I just see a role that I want to do.”
For Field of Dreams, Jones scored a triple play: A good paycheck, a great story to be told with actors he respected, and a terrific part that may earn him yet another Oscar nomination. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse. And the movie itself, with its delicate interweaving of the cosmic and the comical, the magical and the mundane, offers an exhilaration he can’t resist.
“The movie insists,” Jones said, “that you participate with your heart more than your mind, more than your critical facilities.
“The first time I saw it, I was affected when the score welled up, even before Kevin began the narration. The music, I think, was enough — I started crying. And by the time Kevin started saying certain things about his father, and several situations were introduced — even before my character came in, I was so emotionally affected by it.
“And I didn’t know why, I couldn’t explain it to myself. By the time I got to the scenes with my character, I was not objective — I couldn’t tell whether I was doing a good job or not.”
Such moments of uncertainty have been extremely rare for Jones during his 30-plus years as a professional actor. Indeed, even before he first set foot on stage, he already was preparing himself for his lifework through sheer force of will.
A native of Arkabutla, Miss., he developed a traumatic stammer during his grade-school days in Michigan, where he was raised by grandparents after the breakup of his parents’ marriage. (He was reunited with his father, actor Robert Earl Jones, only after graduating from college, and serving two years with the U.S Army.) In grade school, Jones could communicate with classmates and teachers only through written notes. In high school, though, Jones drove himself — relentlessly, mercilessly — to join debating teams, and to enter oratorial contests, to overcome his handicap.
Jones took much the same obsessively single-minded approach to developing his craft as an actor. Moving to New York after his Army discharge, he studied acting at the American Theatre Wing on the G.I. Bill. He also studied with acting guru Lee Strasberg, and landed his first stage role in a 1957 off-Broadway production Ted Pollack’s drama of interracial romance, Wedding in Japan. To supplement his paltry salary, he scraped and polished floors, and worked as a sandwich maker in Little Italy.
The turning point came in 1961, when Jones astonished New York critics and audiences with his brutally mesmerizing lead performance in Jean Genet’s The Blacks. Then came additional triumphs, in classical and contemporary plays, and a star-making role as fighter Jack Jefferson in the Broadway smash, The Great White Hope (1968). Jones received a Tony Award for his work in the play, and an Oscar nomination when he repeated his performance in the 1970 film adaptation.
More recently, Jones received another Tony for his poignant portrayal as a garbage collector who once yearned to be a baseball star in August Wilson’s Fences. A movie version, starring Jones and produced by Eddie Murphy, is upcoming.
Jones laughed when he recalled how he landed one of his first movie jobs, as a bomber pilot in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove (1964). “I was on stage with George C. Scott, in The Merchant of Venice,” Jones said. “And Kubrick came to see George, because he thought he wanted to use George as a general. And he said, ‘Yes, and while I’m here, I’ll take the black one, too.’”
Since Dr. Strangelove, moviegoers have seen Jones in The Man, Claudine, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings, Conan the Barbarian, Soul Man, Gardens of Stone and Matewan, among others. And, of course, they have heard him as Darth Vader in the Star Wars trilogy.
At 58, Jones says he has little to complain about, as far as credits go. He admits, however, that, sometimes, the color line has been difficult to cross.
“But I’m not bitter,” Jones said. “I can’t afford bitterness. And I can’t afford not to be a realist, either. I accept a reality: I’m a member of a minority race. And I have to deal with all that that entails.
“It’s like, when you’re in Africa, the songs that are sung are for the most part about the majority race. So a white person in Zimbabwe, unless you have your own private club or you do your own plays, you tend not to hear the songs about who you are. That’s a reality. Pleasant or unpleasant — that’s irrelevant.
“Myself, I grew up seeing John Wayne movies. And when I walked out of the theater, I wanted to walk like John Wayne, and talk like John Wayne. And he certainly wasn’t black. So I would like there to be enough good movies about black people made, so that the white audience could identify with those characters, as I’ve identified with white characters.”
Fortunately, James Earl Jones doesn’t have to wait until some racially enlightened tomorrow to prosper in his art. Long ago, he established himself as an actor whose talent transcends racial barriers. So when there are periods when the work isn’t as plentiful, or as satisfying, as he might like — well, he chalks it up to luck of the draw, looks for the best role he can find, and takes his paycheck to the bank.
“It is not always something to do with color,” he said. “It is the nature of the business. Very few people have it happen to them where everything starts rolling in, where success generates success.
“I was fortunate enough to come from an impoverished family, where everything was gravy. Everything we didn’t raise, everything that fell into our laps that we didn’t milk or churn or harvest, was gravy. And now, the fact that I make a living as an actor, do some commercials, some TV, some movies — it’s all good stuff.”
