Broadway theater to be named after legendary James Earl Jones
NEW YORK -- Broadway will soon look a little different. One of the theaters is being renamed after a legendary actor.
As CBS2's Cindy Hsu reported Wednesday, it's just the second theater to be named after a person of color.
James Earl Jones is well known as Darth Vader in "Star Wars," but his career spans more than seven decades, on screen and on stage. He's an EGOT winner, earning Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards.
He won his second Tony in 1987 for "Fences."
And now the Cort Theatre on West 48th Street will be renamed the James Earl Jones Theatre. At the start of the Black Lives Matters movement, The Shubert Organization pledged to name a theater after a person of color.
"We came up with James Earl Jones as being one of the icons of our business, somebody that played not only at the theatre we chose to change, but played 13 of our theaters over his career," said Robert E. Wankel, chairman and CEO of The Shubert Organization.
Jones appeared in 21 Broadway shows and took the stage at Cort Theatre back in 1958 in "Sunrise at Campobello."
In response to renaming the 110-year-old theater, Jones, now 91, said, "Let my journey from then to now be an inspiration for all aspiring actors."
In 2011, he received an honorary Academy Award and accepted it with humor.
"You cannot be a cinema actor and conduct your career like I've done and not appear in some of the worst movies ever committed to celluloid," Jones said. "I still cherish them, but I refuse to name them. You'll just have to Google, my friends, because tonight belongs to Oscar."
Right now, the theater is undergoing a $45 million restoration and expansion, and a rededication ceremony will be held later this year.
Hsu interviewed Jones back in 1996, a long time ago, and to this day he's one of the most gracious people she said she ever had the pleasure of interviewing, adding she looks forward to seeing a show at his theater.
The other Broadway house named after an African-American is the August Wilson Theatre, which took on the name in 2005.
