James Earl Jones said he didn't speak for 8 years because his stutter was 'painful.' The Darth Vader actor went on to have one of Hollywood's most iconic voices.

• James Earl Jones died on Monday.
• The actor was known for iconic vocal performances including Darth Vader in 'Star Wars.'
• Jones had a stutter, and said he didn't speak for eight years as a child because it was 'painful.'

James Earl Jones , who died on Monday, said he didn't speak for eight years as a child because of his stutter. He would go on to voice some of Hollywood's most iconic characters, including Darth Vader in "Star Wars."

While Jones physically starred in movies including "Coming to America," "The Hunt for Red October," and "Conan the Barbarian," he was best known for his voice acting.

Roles such as Mufasa in Disney's " The Lion King cemented Jones as one of the best-known voices in cinema, and he was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2011 for lifetime achievement.

Over the years, the actor spoke at length about how learning to manage his stutter helped him land some of the biggest roles in the industry.

In 2010, Jones told the Daily Mail how difficult it was to stutter in front of his classmates: "Stuttering is painful. In Sunday school, I'd try to read my lessons, and the children behind me were falling on the floor with laughter."

He first developed the stutter as a child when he moved from Mississippi to Michigan in 1936 at the age of five, to live with his grandparents.

He told the Academy of Achievement in 1996 that the stutter got worse and he stopped speaking for almost a decade.

"So by the time I got to Michigan I was a stutterer. I couldn't talk. So my first year of school was my first mute year and then those mute years continued until I got to high school," Jones said.

He added: "I'm still a stutterer. But we all find a way to mask it. And sometimes, I guess, our vocabulary might be a little larger than it would have ordinarily been because we have to find a word we won't trip on. A word that begins with the right consonant. I resigned to it as a kid."

The actor made progress in high school thanks to his English teacher, Donald Crouch, who questioned whether Jones had plagiarized a poem or written it himself.

"He says, 'This is a good poem. It's so good; I don't think you wrote it. To prove you wrote it, get up in front of the class and say it out loud.' And that was the time," Jones recalled.

"I don't know whether he concocted that challenge or not, but he really meant it. And I got up and I said it and didn't stutter. Nice surprise."