James Earl Jones’ Field Of Dreams character Terence Mann is based on a real person

Even in death, the late, great James Earl Jones remains a Star Wars legend, a Broadway icon, one of the most gifted orators in modern history and a true titan of Hollywood. But if you’re a baseball fan – especially a baseball fan film Fan – he will always be Terence Mann from Field of Dreams. Jones’ performance as a reclusive writer turned ghost baseball observer is a key anchor for the classic film and underpins the higher emotional beats. The film might have felt even more grounded if the character hadn’t been changed from the version of the character in the novel “Shoeless Joe,” on which “Field of Dreams” is based.

In WP Kinsella’s 1982 book, the author sought by protagonist Ray Kinsella is not a fictional character, but JD Salinger, best known as the author of The Catcher in the Rye. Although Salinger had already retired from public life when Kinsella’s novel was published, he was still very much alive and lived until 2010. However, while Kinsella got away with using the actual author in his book, the 1989 film adaptation chose to Playing things a little safe for fear of legal consequences.

“We didn’t even think about keeping Salinger as a character in the film,” writer-director Phil Alden Robinson told Joe Leydon on “The Moving Picture Show” in 1989. “Field of Dreams” retained the real baseball players used in the novel, including, of course, Shoeless Joe Jackson himself, but it’s probably for the best that Robinson created a character all his own to take Salinger’s place.

The decision to remove JD Salinger from Field of Dreams was not made based on mere speculation that the author might be upset. According to WP Kinsella, he almost ended up in court over Salinger’s portrayal in the original novel and was strongly warned against later adaptations.

“His lawyers have written to my publisher’s lawyers saying that he was outraged and offended at being portrayed in the novel and that they would be very unhappy if it was transferred to other media,” Kinsella said in an interview with Maclean’s. “That was legal language for, ‘We really don’t have enough to sue you, but we will try to hinder your parade if you try to put it on TV or in the movies.'” Clearly: Phil Alden Robinson and Universal Pictures took the threat seriously, although Kinsella didn’t seem to like the fact that the character was being changed. “The film people were too cowards,” the author told Maclean’s. “So they created Terence Mann.”

It makes sense that Kinsella would prefer his own version, especially as a self-professed big fan of Salinger’s work. However, legal repercussions could have cost us a Ghost Baseball classic as well as a standout movie character in Terence Mann, so everything seems to have worked out for the best.

If Phil Alden Robinson had stuck with the JD Salinger idea of ​​”Shoeless Joe,” Salinger could have taken legal action, but audiences also could have missed out on a great performance by James Earl Jones. As a black man, Jones would never have been cast in the role if the studio had been looking for an actor who could pass for Salinger.

Jones makes Mann’s disappearance into the cornfield at the end of “Field of Dreams” a deeply powerful moment, and without his special delivery of Mann’s sharp, reassuring commentary, the film simply wouldn’t be the same. Luckily, attempts to remake Field of Dreams have failed in recent years, so we won’t have to watch a new actor struggle to fill Jones’ impossibly large shoes. When it comes to rebooting a classic like this, the saying “If you build it, they will come” doesn’t really apply. Ultimately, the film’s success is more about the emotions than how it anchors itself in the world.

As Jones told Joe Leydon in 1989, “The film insists that you participate more with your heart than with your head, more than with your critical faculties.”