James Earl Jones’ Net Worth and How Much He Made with His Iconic Voice

James Earl Jones’ net worth, no matter how high, would be low compared to how legendary and recognizable his voice is.

The iconic stage and screen actor died on Sept. 9, 2024, after nearly seven decades of entertaining the world with his famous booming baritone, which became the voice of iconic characters like Darth Vader in Star Wars, Mufasa in The Lion King and even the voice of the “This is CNN” tagline.

His influence far surpassed his wealth, however, and he doesn’t mind that.

In 2011, he told The Hollywood Reporter the best advice his father—an actor who was blacklisted in the McCarthy era—gave him: “‘If you want to do this business, you gotta do it because you love it, not because it’s gonna make you rich or famous.’ That was the best advice he could give me.”

Find out James Earl Jones’ net worth in 2024 and how he became such an icon.

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How did James Earl Jones become famous?

Jones was born in Mississippi on Jan. 17, 1931, and his father Robert Earl Jones left the family when Jones was 5 years old to pursue acting and boxing. Not long afterward, his mother remarried and left him in the care of his grandparents on a farm in Michigan, according to The New York Times.

The trauma of his parents’ abandonment, as well as his grandmother’s racism, left Jones with a stutter. He refused to speak for years and communicated almost solely in writing until high school, when an English teacher encouraged him to write and recite poetry to the class. When Jones did so, his stammer was gone—and he once said that once he began to talk again, he “never stopped.” He began competing in orating contests and joined the debate team at his school.

“Just discovering the joy of communicating set it up for me, I think,” he told The New York Times. “In a very personal way, once I found out I could communicate verbally again, it became a very important thing for me, like making up for lost time, making up for the years that I didn’t speak.”

After high school, he initially studied pre-med on a scholarship at the University of Michigan, but fell in love with acting when he joined a drama group. He changed his major to drama before dropping out in 1953, later completing his degree in 1955.

Jones briefly served in the Army before he moved to New York City to focus on his acting career, working odd jobs to make ends meet. He performed in several plays with his own father, as well as in the New York Shakespeare Festival. His breakout came in 1969 for The Great White Hope, for which he won his first Tony Award and reprised the role in the 1970 film adaptation, nabbing him his first and only Academy Award nomination.

By the 1970s he was a staple in the Big Apple arts community and a bona fide star of stage and screen.

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What was James Earl Jones’ net worth?

James Earl Jones’ net worth was estimated at $40 million at the time of his passing in September 2024.

He previously told The Guardian that while he loves his work, he also is happy to do jobs for the money, too.

“Denzel Washington, Sidney Poitier, Robert Redford, Tom Cruise: those guys have well-planned careers. I’m just on a journey.” he said. “Wherever I run across a job, I say, ‘OK, I’ll do that.'”

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How much did James Earl Jones sell his voice for?

Jones was most famous for his voice, which gave life to iconic characters like Star Wars‘ Darth Vader and Mufasa of The Lion King. He was only paid $7,000 for voicing Darth Vader in Star Wars: Episode 4 – A New Hope, and he eschewed an actual credit to let David Prowse, who played the physical character, shine.