GREAT KNOWS GREAT
fighter enjoyed such a resurgence? Jake LaMotta experienced something similar when Robert De Niro played him in Raging Bull , but LaMotta was a cult figure of little cultural importance. And Ali, with his global fame, needed no help from Will Smith. What Jones did for Johnson was something like a religious ritual, a passion play evoking old spirits. Thanks to Jones, Jack Johnson rose from the dead and walked again, up and down Broadway and to places where he once hadn’t been allowed entry. In 2018, nearly a century after his conviction, Johnson was pardoned by President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the success of The Great White Hope launched Jones into decades of stardom on stage, screen and television. Though most may know him as the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars , Jones’ list of credits is long and impressive. In a way, he owed his career to Johnson. And Johnson, who has grown in stature like no other fighter from his era, would have to say he owed a lot to Jones. Then again, as arrogant as Johnson was, he might’ve hated Jones’ performance. When Ali was making his comeback in October of 1970 to face Jerry Quarry in Atlanta, he acquired some old films of Johnson. Since Johnson was hot after The Great White Hope , Ali wanted to absorb some of that vintage energy. “Ghost in the house” became the battle cry of Ali and his handlers. But Ali knew it was Jones who had revived Johnson’s ghost. The two became friendly, and when they appeared together for a promotional stunt, Ali goaded the actor into sparring with him for a photo op. Jones took a swing. Ali blocked it and accidentally broke Jones’ thumb. Jones had never been much for fighting. But what an actor he was. His portrayal of Johnson was not entirely accurate, nor was it meant to be. But in the eyes of the public – and for a generation searching for Black icons – he showed Johnson as America needed to see him: angry, proud, and capable of a belly laugh.
to copy Jones’ bassy voice and delivery. Ironically, Jones played Johnson/ Jefferson with a southern drawl, what some critics described as “southern slop.” Yet on the rare recordings of Johnson that are available, he speaks with a clipped, almost British accent, an affectation by a man who’d grown up poor in Texas and wanted to sound posh. Moreover, Johnson used proper English, not the “Here I is!” nonsense of Sackler’s script. Equally grating was Jones’ choice to belly-laugh throughout his performance, producing a deep, rumbling sound that would’ve seemed gauche to Johnson, a pretentious man who sipped beer through a straw. Yet for the time being and for years to come, when people thought of Jack Johnson, they were probably thinking of James Earl Jones. The Great White Hope won the Pulitzer Prize, the Tony Award and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle award for the 1968-69 Broadway season. Jones won a Tony for Best Actor in a Play, while the eventual film earned him Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. Jones was 38, had been acting for 14 years, and was on top of the world. Or so it seemed. Being part of a show business phenomenon brought Jones in touch with “a lot of crazies,” he said. “They thought I was the solution to their problem.” Uncomfortable with his newfound popularity, Jones went into therapy and seclusion for a year. If playing Johnson on stage and film was so traumatic, we can only wonder what Johnson experienced while living the part. In his memoir, Jones refers to The Great White Hope as Johnson’s “comeback.” And it was. Has any other
Johnson joined them posthumously. He’d never been especially outspoken about Black rights and preferred to surround himself with a white entourage, yet he was newly perceived as retro Black Power. Muhammad Ali, in the middle of his exile after refusing the military draft, praised Johnson as “an inspiration.” Not everyone fell in line. Fleischer told a syndicated columnist, “I’m no drama critic, but I know that if Jack Johnson could see the way he’s pictured in The Great White Hope , he’d burst out laughing.” Barney Nagler of the New York Morning Telegraph was amused that Johnson was “drawn as such a sympathetic character. He was anything but that.” Nagler, who had known Johnson in the 1930s, suggested the play was too broad. “A dramatist is allowed literary license,” he said, “and in this case, Johnson comes out as something that he wasn’t.” Nagler’s main beef was that Johnson was hardly a good or noble person. “He was more colorful than good,” Nagler said. Indeed, Johnson’s less attractive traits were airbrushed from the play. But in 1968, he was the Black man of the moment. And that newfound interest spilled over into the next several decades. The Great White Hope was made into a movie, while Johnson was the subject of books, documentaries, and even an album by Miles Davis called simply, “Jack Johnson.” Davis’ scorching music served as the soundtrack for a movie project from Bill Cayton, the fight film collector and future co-manager of Mike Tyson. Cayton’s film featured a narrator pretending to be Johnson, but it was actually an actor (Brock Peters) seeming
“... I was completely unprepared for the critical praise, the later fame, and the thunderous response of our audiences.” - JAMES EARL JONES
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