James Earl Jones has just about the best voice an actor out there can have. He is known for his booming bass. He voiced Mufasa in The Lion King and Darth Vader in the Star Wars films. He's won Tony Awards and Golden Globes Awards.
He was born in Mississippi in the 1930s to Robert Earl Jones, a boxer, actor, and chauffeur and Ruth Jones, a teacher and maid. His dad left the family soon after James' birth. His grandma raised him and is of Native American, Irish, and African descent. It is pretty surprising to find out that as a child he had a stutter and was even mute.
When he was 5 he moved to his grandparents' farm in Michigan and the transition was traumatic for him. He developed a stutter and was effectively mute for 8 years until he reached high school where a teacher took interest in him and helped him overcome the stutter. He began speaking again after the teacher exposed James to poetry and saw that James was quite good at writing poetry.