Yes.
Award-winning actor James Earl Jones, who died Sept. 9, 2024, at the age of 93, spent his first assignment after joining the Army at Camp Hale near Leadville in the 1950s.
Jones, at the time, was a second lieutenant in the 38th Regimental Combat Team. He had recently graduated from the Reserve Officer Training Corps at the University of Michigan. Assigned to Camp Hale in Leadville in the early 1950s, Jones established a cold weather training command.
He received an honorable discharge as a first lieutenant and moved to New York City to study acting. He worked as a janitor to support himself.
He debuted on Broadway in 1957, performing in Shakespeare plays including “Othello,” “Hamlet” and “King Lear.”
Jones went on to star in several movies and is famously known as the voice of Darth Vader in the original “Star Wars” trilogy and of Mufasa in Disney’s “Lion King.”
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