Talk:Robert Earl Jones

Untitled
The page introduction says that REJ was best known for his appearances in The Sting and The Cotton Club, but he is not listed on the Wikipedia page for The Cotton Club. Someone who knows more about this might want to look into it. Sbabones (talk) 09:32, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Death rumours
More semi-reliable internet sources are still claiming that Jones died September 7th. Wencer 15:46, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Age dispute
AP is saying that he was 96, which would put his birth year at 1910 or 1909. BGyss 23:58, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I think someone needs to take a closer look at all these dates, confirm them and make sure they match up, or state in the article that his age is disputed. As it stands, it appears that whoever wrote this has a serious problem with simple math.

96 seems to be the age (and thus the year 1910, assuming the date February 3 correct) favored by the vast majority of news media, as suggested by this simple Google search – feel free to pick the one you find reliable. Of course, if this is erroneus, repeating it a million times doesn't make it right. But usually in the case of people with obscure birth dates, the one reported at death is likely right (Lee Falk and John Lee Hooker come to mind). Note, however, that if you include "1910" in your search, you're likely to find him only a year of birth, or "January 1" as his birthday – suggesting it to be an approximation of his age. Now, if 1904 is correct, it could prove out to be useful to find out if his 100th birthday made the news. --Anshelm &#39;77 11:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

As long as the age at death is stated to be 96, we should remove the category "American centenarians," especially since he is also under a category for people who died in their 90's. This is clearly absurd. -Dave 00:10, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Considering a number of online sources have years of birth ranging from 1911 to 1904 (and not just allegedly unreliable sources like the IMDb either), there should be something added to this article discussing the discrepency, as well a citation for the date of birth that is listed here. 23skidoo 21:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. I think it is impossible for him to be born in 1904 when his obituary said he was 96 and public records say 1910. Marcus2 18:44, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I work for Matthew Earl Jones, REJ's son, and I assure you, the 1904 date is correct - Matthew told me they have a family bible that reports his birthdate as 1904. REJ himself supplied the 1910 date because he wanted to appear younger, as actors often do, and because he wanted to appear younger for his boxing career. If you're going to change it back to 1910 at least include a section saying that his birthdate is controversial. 63.228.151.114 23:25, 29 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, the obituaries say he was 96 when he died, and the Social Security Death Index says he was born in 1910. People may lie about their relatives ages to make them appear over 100.  If he was born in 1904, we could also say that singer Frankie Valli may have been born in 1929.  Who knows what his birth records say?  Could both REJ and Frankie have legally changed their birthyears?  Who knows?  But the most authoritative sources say 1910 for REJ.  That's why it should stay. 74.36.25.237 14:42, 22 May 2007 (UTC)He was Exactly he was born in 1910 those people who think he was born in 1911 thats wrong and if he ran a marothan in 1996 he did it at the age of 86 he also was not born in 1904 either.If he was born in 1911 he would have been 95 when he died.


 * Exactly. His age at death was reported as 96, not 102.  Someone has said that 96 popped up because the family or whoever didn't report an age at the time of his death.  Do you think that can happen?  No, because they can't do that.  The age at a person's death must be reported by a family member.  And REJ said in the past he was born in 1911, not 1910.  How do we know that this user who claims the 1904 family bible birthdate isn't lying, unless REJ legally changed his age?  If I can be proven wrong, it is possible that Frankie Valli was born in 1929, and his birth certificate may say that, because it has been suggested that his band mates Nick Massi and Tommy DeVito of the Four Seasons were born in the 1920s as well. 70.101.182.149 (talk) 18:24, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Editing out cast information
I had added brief cast information for some of Jones' films that someone almost immediately deleted, saying that it was totally unnecessary since anyone wanting to know the cast could look it up. This misses the nuanced point of what I had in mind: I wanted to indicate to the casual reader, who'd be less likely to look up the films individually, that Jones was appearing in major mainstream films featuring top actors of the day in the latter stages of his career. So that you can see what I mean, here are my earlier contributions:
 * Jones was best known for his leading roles in films such as Lying Lips (1939) and later in his career for supporting roles in films such as The Sting (1973) with Paul Newman and Robert Redford, Trading Places (1983) with Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy, The Cotton Club (1984) with Richard Gere and Gregory Hines, and Witness (1985) with Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis.
 * I had initially intended to discuss this with the editor who made the changes but his site directs contributors to post comments on the original site's Talk page instead. Racing Forward (talk) 18:11, 4 May 2023 (UTC)