James Earl Jones, who died at age 93 on Monday, Sept. 9, left behind a strong physique of labor on each display screen and stage. However one other a part of his legacy was his 34-year marriage with Cecilia Hart.
“She made me giggle. She was stimulating,” the late actor wrote in his 1993 memoir Voices and Silences. “And he or she didn’t appear to take me critically in any respect, which meant I might calm down and be myself along with her.”
Jones, who was beforehand married to Julienne Marie Hendricks from 1968 to 1972, met Hart on a tv collection that ended up being short-lived: Paris, a police procedural from Steven Bochco that ran for 13 episodes between 1979 and 1980. The Lion King actor starred as Detective Captain “Woody” Paris, whereas Hart, who had additionally beforehand been married to actor Bruce Weitz, performed Sergeant Stacey Erickson.
The undertaking marked the primary collaboration for the couple, who went on to star collectively in a manufacturing of Othello in 1982. That very same yr, they tied the knot on the United Nations chapel in New York Metropolis and welcomed their son Flynn (who later labored as Jones’ assistant). “He was conceived on our marriage ceremony night time,” Jones informed The New York Times in 2012.
Though Hart and Jones saved their private life in Dutchess County, New York out of the highlight, the 2 had been typically one another’s dates for pink carpet occasions within the metropolis. As they every labored on varied performing initiatives, the Star Wars star typically praised his spouse in interviews. “She’s how I keep grounded,” he informed The New York Instances, amid the “glitter” of present enterprise.
In a PEOPLE interview in 2009, Jones indicated it was Hart who instructed to him he ought to settle for the a part of the reclusive Terence Mann in Kevin Costner‘s 1989 film Subject of Desires.
“That is on my cherished listing,” he mentioned of the hit undertaking. “My spouse learn the script earlier than I obtained residence. She mentioned, ‘This is slightly film you have to do.’ It was a household… That was particular.”
Talking to the Washington Post in 2014, Jones make clear a few of his circle of relatives’s each day routines.
“Relaxation is essential, and it’s onerous to get on this schedule,” he mentioned on the time. “However I attempt to get eight hours each night time. Which isn’t one thing I’m used to. I’m used to staying up till 1 o’clock, 2 o’clock. However my spouse feeds me properly, [and] I do reasonable train on the treadmill or the step-up, simply to get the center going.”
He additionally recalled assembly Hart’s mother and father and asking them to approve the wedding. Jones joked that the one drawback in marrying Hart was that he “needed to cease flirting along with her mom.”
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Tragically, Hart died in 2016 at age 68 of ovarian most cancers. Jones gave his spouse of 34 years a touching tribute when, on the 2017 Tony Awards, he accepted a Particular Tony for Lifetime Achievement.
“I wish to thank my spouse Ceci for being such a beautiful companion in my life and in my work,” he mentioned onstage. “And for being the good co-producer of our son Flynn and for being so dazzling on the pink carpet.”