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Distinguished stage and film actor James Earl Jones plays Jack Johnson (called Jack Jefferson) in "The Great White Hope," a recreation of Reno, Nevada on July 4, 1910.

@2009 David Lee Guss Film homage, James Earl Jones, Panavision camera, "The Great White Hope" set, Globe, Arizona, 1969-2009

I first became obsessed with photography and motion pictures while growing up in post WW2 Manila in the Philippine Islands in the late 1940's/early 1950's. Film noirs were a particular influence. But my first love remains the theater. I acted in numerous amateur productions from 1958 to 1978. In 1979 I earned a MA in drama from the University of Arizona; earlier getting a BA in English from the University of Minnesota, where I co-founded the first film society on campus and ran it for four years. While at the U of A, I studied with the master black and white photo essayist W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) the last year of his life. I am the last person cited in Jim Hughes' definitive biography of Gene, as I wrote about attending his final...