James Earl Jones was married to fellow actor Cecilia Hart. What he said about his late wife

James Earl Jones, known for his commanding presence and resonant voice, gave credit to his late wife, fellow actor Cecilia Hart, for keeping him grounded.

Jones, who died Sept. 9 at the age of 93, was married to Hart from 1982 until she died in 2016. He previously was married to Julienne Marie Hendricks.

Hart died at the age of 68 due to ovarian cancer.

The couple, who shared a son, Flynn Earl Jones, met while on the set of the 1979-1980 police procedural series “Paris,” according to her 2016 obituary.

The couple would appear alongside each other again in William Shakespeare’s “Othello” on Broadway.

“She’s how I stay grounded,” Jones said of his wife in a 2012 interview with The New York Times.

In 2020, a story by The Athletic about Jones’ role in the 1989 sports drama “Field of Dreams” highlighted how Hart urged him to appear in the film after she read the now-iconic monologue about baseball delivered by the character Terence Mann. In the scene, Jones delivers a stirring monologue about baseball’s ability to connect one generation of Americans to the next.

“I know it’s not going to be in the film,” Jones is said to have told his wife. “They always cut this stuff out.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com