Those eyes.

Soft, warm, gentle; yet intense at the same time.

December, 1977. The National Theater. James Earl Jones as Paul Robeson.

One icon portraying another.

How I got the tickets, I don’t remember; don’t even care. All I knew was that I was going to see the greatest African American actor of my time play the greatest African American actor of a generation before—live, in person; and I was not going to leave the theater until I got his autograph.

Mr. Jones’s bio took up one and a half columns of the two-column Who’s Who in the program notes. And why shouldn’t it. By then he had already won the Tony and the Golden Globe Award for his performance as Jack Jefferson in The Great White Hope, had received 3 Obie Awards and played 15 Shakespearean characters including King Claudius in Hamlet and the title role of King Lear. The performance couldn’t be anything else but phenomenal!

The thunderous applause over, I tried to calmly make my way to the room where he would greet people and sign programs. I remember willing myself to remain calm. Mr. Jones wouldn’t be the first acting luminary I had met; I only had to treat him with respect and professionalism like all the others.

But he wasn’t like the others. He was the greatest! He was my idol! I wanted to work with him someday, I wanted to further my own acting abilities by learning from him in person.

The line was long, of course, then it was finally my turn. Somehow, just before I got to him, he had turned away to get something. Then I remember him turning around and looking at me with those eyes. Those melting, light colored eyes. Even seeing color pictures of him hadn’t prepared me for the impact.

I froze.

I can only imagine how I must have looked to him with my frightened, schoolgirl gawk. Whatever he thought of the look on my face, he smiled.

I know he said something to me and I know I shook myself out of my stupor long enough to say something at least mildly sentient, but that brief verbal exchange is gone forever.

Now, he is gone, too.

But I was fortunate. Later, I did get to work with him as an extra in a Bell Atlantic commercial. I clearly remember walking from one location to the next with him and many other extras, but I never got close enough to say more than I did at our first meeting. It didn’t matter; I was in his presence for the second time.

Seeing Mr. Jones in person, twice, is more than the majority of the people in the world can claim. But in addition to that, I had the privilege of looking into those beautiful eyes with my very own.