James Earl Jones may have the most famous voice in the English-speaking world. And despite appearing in dozens of movies, his baritone is likely his most recognizable feature -- something the actor calls "ironic."

"I stopped talking when I was four-and-a-half," Jones told Canada AM's Seamus O'Regan. "My grandfather always used to say, 'Oh, your voice was so pretty when you were little, it was like a bell. What happened to it?'"

"What happened to it was it went underground," says Jones, who says he was silent for that decade because of a stuttering problem. It's one that continues to plague the actor even today.

"I'm mute," he says. "I cannot talk, but I've learned to get around those things that make me mute. I am a stutterer still."

It's a flaw that remarkably hasn't prevented Jones from becoming one of the most famous voices in showbiz.

Audiences have been able to see him playing dozens of parts on the big and small screen, but Jones is probably most often recognized for two jobs -- the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars and the voice that proclaims "This is CNN," on the news network -- that gave audiences no face time at all with the actor. His other parts range from
Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan espionage franchise to an Oscar nominated role in The Great White Hope.

Jones credits education for enabling him to overcome what should be a career-killer for any actor.

"In my time, (stutterers) were on their own," he says. But a high school English teacher forced Jones, who loved the English language but was entirely unable to speak it aloud, to conquer his speech impediment.

"It's a shame you can't say those words out loud if you love them so much," the teacher told Jones, forcing him to read his own poetry aloud.

"I was terrified, but having the advantage of my own words, my own feelings, I could say them without any stress."

"He was my hero," Jones says of the teacher. But in addition to teaching him to overcome his stuttering, the teacher also inspired Jones to dedicate his personal time to promoting education and literacy among youth. It's work he was honoured for Wednesday at an ORT Golden Circle Gala in Toronto.

Jones says expanding his vocabulary has been one of his key strategies in dealing with his ongoing stuttering problem. But he says education is important for everyone -- especially actors (even the non-stuttering ones).

"You think an actor can just fall off a log and do what come naturally. You might be able to but I think the more you know about the world around you, the better you can relate to a great playwright's work and to his characters."

Jones will be among the honourees as the Kennedy Center pays its annual tribute to the world's top performers later this year, but the actor says he's still looking for his legacy.

"Cry, the Beloved Country came close," he says, referring to the 1995 film. But even if Jones believes he has yet to find that key part, most of the movie-going world would disagree.

"I accept it," Jones says at having been proclaimed an American institution, "but it's not what I would say about myself. I don't know what I would say about myself -- I'm still looking for the goal and I don't set goals that I can't reach. I'm looking for what it all means to me and I have not found that yet."