Actor James Earl Jones, a commanding stage and screen presence whose commanding voice defined Star Wars villain Darth Vader, has died. He was 93.

Jones, who had been diabetic for years, died Monday at home, his agent Barry McPherson said. He was surrounded by family members.

The groundbreaking Jones, who in 1965 became one of the first African-American actors to have a continuing role on a daytime drama (As the World Turns) and continued to work well into his 80s, has won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts, and the Kennedy Center Honors. He has also received an honorary Oscar and a special lifetime achievement Tony. In 2022, a Broadway theater was named in his honor.

Jones’ deep, commanding voice has also defined his career. In addition to voicing Darth Vader, he voiced King Mufasa in both the 1994 and 2019 Disney versions of The Lion King and could be heard announcing “This is CNN” to introduce the network’s news shows.

Jones laughed when a BBC interviewer asked him if he felt bad about being so closely associated with Darth Vader, a role that starred David Prowse in costume.

“I love being part of that whole myth, that whole cult,” he said, adding that he was happy to oblige fans who requested a recital of his “I am your father” line to Luke Skywalker, played by Mark Hamill.

“#RIP dad,” Hamill wrote on X on Monday with a broken heart emoji above a story about Jones’ death.

Lucasfilm, the producer of Star Wars, said it was “deeply saddened” to learn of Jones’ death.

“The menacing baritone he brought to Darth Vader will be forever beloved by fans and considered one of the finest villain performances in cinema,” company president Kathleen Kennedy said in a statement. “His commanding on-screen presence and warm off-screen personality will be deeply missed.”

Jones said he never made much money on the Darth Vader part—just $9,000 for the first film—and that he considered it merely a special effects job. He didn’t even ask to appear in the credits of the first two Star Wars films.

‘A broken heart’

Born by the light of an oil lamp in a shack in segregated Mississippi on January 17, 1931, Earl Jones’ father had already left the family to pursue a life as a boxer and later as an actor. When the boy was six, his mother took him to live with her parents on their Michigan farm.

“A world ended for me, the safe world of my childhood,” Jones wrote in his autobiography. “The move from Mississippi to Michigan should have been a glorious event. For me it was a heartbreaking event, and not long afterward I began to stutter.”

Too embarrassed to speak, Jones remained virtually mute for years. He communicated with teachers and fellow students through handwritten notes, until a sympathetic teacher helped him regain his voice.

“I couldn’t get enough of speaking, debating, orating, and acting,” he recalled in his book.

Jones switched to drama in college after failing his medical exams, and after his military service in the 1950s, he moved in with his father in New York and joined the American Theater Wing program for young actors. The two men scrubbed floors to support themselves while they looked for acting jobs.

His breakthrough role on Broadway was The Great White Hope, in which he played a character based on black heavyweight champion Jack Johnson. The play examined racism through the lens of the boxing world, and critics raved about Jones’ performance.

He was a popular theatre draw for decades, playing leading roles in Shakespeare including Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear and Othello.

His film career began in 1964 with Stanley Kubrick’s classic satire Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Jones was a groundbreaking black actor who landed major roles in films and plays with racist undertones, which were groundbreaking for black actors who came after him.

Acclaimed film roles included novelist Terence Mann in 1989’s Field of Dreams and South African pastor Stephen Kumalo in 1995’s Cry, the Beloved Country. He also appeared in Coming to America and The Hunt for Red October.

Jones’ first wife was Julienne Marie Hendricks, a co-star in Othello. Earl and his second wife, actress Cecilia Hart, who died in 2016, had one child, Flynn Earl Jones.