'This is P-E-N-N': James Earl Jones comes to campus

Connaissance will bring Jones' famous voice to campus in October. Refraining -- presumably -- from any mention of the Bell Atlantic yellow pages or the Dark Side, actor and "voice" James Earl Jones plans to make "Protecting the Future Through Education" the platform of a speech at the University in October. The 66-year-old Jones -- who began his acting career in 1954 on the soap opera Guiding Light -- was a 1977 Academy Award nominee and has starred in dozens of plays and movies, ranging from The Exorcist 2 to Star Wars and Field of Dreams. Only about 975 students, including 25 local middle schoolers, will be able to hear Jones speak. With Irvine Auditorium -- which often hosts major speakers -- under renovation this semester, the Annenberg Center's smaller Zellerbach Theater will be used. At about half the capacity of Irvine, Zellerbach cannot seat most of the students who will demand admission. But Connaissance -- the self-titled undergraduate "speaker people" group that organizes visiting speakersE-- has yet to decide how tickets will be distributed. "We haven't really come up with a way to make it simple," said Connaissance Co-Chairperson and College senior Elie Haller, adding that the organization usually likes to put its own bizarre "twist" into ticket sales. When singer Billy Joel spoke in spring 1996, for example, Connaissance filled the first two rows with the best respondents to the question, "Why do you deserve to be in the front row?" That wasn't the first hurdle to see the popular Long Island-based musician, though. Just to be eligible for tickets --Ein any row --Estudents had to vote in Undergraduate Assembly elections. As in past years, tickets to Jones' speech will be sold on Locust Walk -- another tradition Connaissance members seem to relish. "Billy Joel was our biggest problem," recalled Connaissance Co-Chairperson and College junior Carter Caldwell. "We basically had 60,000 people wanting to come to a venue that housed 1,800 -- the line was just tremendous." In addition to Jones and Joel, Connaissance has brought a well-known speaker to campus every semester and has subsidized speakers for other University clubs. Members discuss possible speakers, usually about 25, at monthly meetings -- the first of which takes place next Tuesday at Chats. The group then compares its list with glossy catalogs profiling available celebrities and weighing their costs and benefits. But Caldwell said Connaissance is not limited to what the catalogs offer. "If we wanted Eddie Murphy, our bureau has contacts with various other speaker bureaus," he said. "It could be arranged." But Connaissance's work is not over after they've landed their speaker. After selling tickets and making arrangements with technicians and caterers, members must cater to their honored guest. Sometimes the visits -- those of Danny Glover and Dick Vitale, for instance -- run smoothly. Other visits are not as successful. "[Film director Oliver Stone's trip] was horrible," Haller recalled. "He was sick, he was grumpy, he walked in and demanded a new hotel room? and I don't know what he was on."