Photograph of Jennifer Jones.
Jennifer Jones

Overview

:for others with this name see Jennifer Jones (disambiguation)

Phylis Lee Isley - a.k.a Jennifer Jones - (born March 2, 1919 in Tulsa, Oklahoma) is an Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning American actress.

Biography

Early life
Jones was born to Phillip R. Isley and Flora Mae Suber, who toured the Midwest in a traveling tent show they owned and operated. Jones attended Monte Cassino Junior College in Tulsa and Northwestern University, where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, before transferring to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in 1938. It was here she met and fell in love with fellow acting student Robert Walker. The two were married on January 2, 1939, when Jones was just 19 years old.

They returned to Tulsa for a 13-week radio programme arranged by her father, and then headed for Hollywood. Isley landed two small roles, first in a 1939 John Wayne western titled New Frontier, followed by a serial entitled, Dick Tracy's G-Men. In these two films, she was billed as "Phyllis Isley" (Phyllis now spelled with two L's). However, when she and Walker failed a screen test for Paramount Pictures, they decided to return to New York City.
Career
While Walker found steady work in radio programs, Isley worked part-time modeling hats for the Powers Agency while looking for possible acting jobs. When she learned of auditions for the lead role of Claudia in Rose Franken’s hit play of the same name, she presented herself to David O. Selznick’s New York office, but fled in tears after what she thought was a bad reading. Selznick, however, overheard her audition and was impressed enough to have his secretary call her back. Following an interview, she was signed to a seven-year contract.

She was carefully groomed for stardom and given a new name: Jennifer Jones. Director Henry King was impressed by her screen test as Bernadette Soubirous for The Song of Bernadette, and she won the coveted role over hundreds of applicants. In 1944, Jones won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as St. Bernadette. That year, Jones' friend, Ingrid Bergman, was also a Best Actress nominee for her work in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Jones apologized to Bergman, who replied, "No, Jennifer, your Bernadette was better than my Maria." Jones presented the Best Actress Oscar the following year to Bergman for Gaslight.

Over the next two decades, Jones appeared in a wide range of roles selected by Selznick. Her dark beauty and sensitive nature appealed to audiences and she projected a variable range. Her initial saintly image - as shown in her first starring role - was a stark contrast three years later when she was cast as a provocative biracial woman in Selznick’s controversial film Duel in the Sun. Other notable films included Since You Went Away, Love Letters, Cluny Brown, Portrait of Jennie, Madame Bovary, We Were Strangers, Carrie, Ruby Gentry, Indiscretion of an American Wife, Beat the Devil, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, Good Morning Miss Dove, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and A Farewell to Arms. Her leading men during this period included Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, Gregory Peck, John Garfield, Charlton Heston, Lord Laurence Olivier, Montgomery Clift, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Robert Stack, Sir John Gielgud, Rock Hudson and Jason Robards.

The portrait of Jones for the film Portrait of Jennie, was painted by Robert Brackman.
Private life
Jones' first marriage to Robert Walker produced two sons, Robert Walker Jr. (born April 15, 1940), and Michael Walker (born March 13, 1941). Both later became actors. Jones later left Walker for producer David O. Selznick.

Jones married Selznick on July 13, 1949, a marriage which lasted until his death on June 22, 1965. After his death, she semi-retired from acting; her last appearance was a strong supporting role in the 1974 film The Towering Inferno, playing the ill-fated Lisolette Mueller.

Jones' only child with Selznick, Mary Jennifer Selznick (born August 12, 1954), committed suicide in 1976 by jumping from a 20th floor window. This led to Jones' interest in mental health issues.

Jones married multi-millionaire industrialist, art collector and philanthropist Norton Simon on May 29, 1971. The couple remained married until Simon's death in June 1993. She is currently on the board of directors of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena.

Jennifer Jones is a breast cancer survivor. The late actress Susan Strasberg, who died of breast cancer, was married to actor Christopher Jones, and named her only child Jennifer Robin Jones, in the actress' honor.

Awards and Nominations

Academy Awards
* Won: Best Actress, ''The Song of Bernadette'' (1943) * Nominated: Best Supporting Actress, Since You Went Away (1944) * Nominated: Best Actress, Love Letters (1945) * Nominated: Best Actress, Duel in the Sun (1946) * Nominated: Best Actress, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)
Golden Globe Awards
* Won: Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama, ''The Song of Bernadette'' (1944) * Nominated: Best Supporting Actress, The Towering Inferno (1975)

Filmography

Notes

Further reading

*

External links

*
Who is Jennifer Jones connected to?
Add a Connection

This biography says:

...Her leading men during this period included Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, Gregory Peck, John Garfield, Charlton Heston, Lord Laurence Olivier, Montgomery Clift, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Robert Stack, Sir John Gielgud, Rock Hudson and Jason Robards....

That biography says:

...She lost the leading role of "Pearl Chavez" in the 1945 film Duel in the Sun, although it was written with her in mind, to Jennifer Jones, reportedly due to work commitments in Europe. As a result, she never achieved the fame in the USA that she achieved in Latin America and Europe.

That biography says:

...Her alumni included many future celebrities, such as Eartha Kitt, who, as a teenager, won a scholarship to her school and later became one of her dancers before moving on to a successful singing career. Others who attended her school included James Dean, Jose Ferrer, Jennifer Jones, Shelley Winters, Doris Duke and Warren Beatty. Marlon Brando frequently dropped in to play the bongo drums, and jazz musician Charles Mingus held regular jam sessions with the drummers...

This biography says:

...Her leading men during this period included Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, Gregory Peck, John Garfield, Charlton Heston, Lord Laurence Olivier, Montgomery Clift, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Robert Stack, Sir John Gielgud, Rock Hudson and Jason Robards....

That biography says:

...It was at the academy that Walker met fellow aspiring actress Phyllis Isley (better known as Jennifer Jones). After a brief courtship the two were married on January 2 1939 and moved to Hollywood to find work in films...

This biography says:

...She was carefully groomed for stardom and given a new name: Jennifer Jones. Director Henry King was impressed by her screen test as Bernadette Soubirous for The Song of Bernadette, and she won the coveted role over hundreds of applicants. In 1944, Jones won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as St...

That biography says:

Her life was given a fictionalised treatment in Franz Werfel's novel The Song of Bernadette, which was later adapted into a 1943 film of the same name starring Jennifer Jones as Bernadette (and the uncredited Linda Darnell as the Immaculate Conception). Jones won her only Best Actress Oscar for this portrayal...

This biography says:

...Jennifer Jones is a breast cancer survivor. The late actress Susan Strasberg, who died of breast cancer, was married to actor Christopher Jones, and named her only child Jennifer Robin Jones, in the actress' honor.

That biography says:

...She had a daughter, Jennifer Robin Jones (born March 14 1966 in Los Angeles, by actor Christopher Jones) and joked in her autobiography "Bittersweet" that her daughter would be the "real Jennifer Jones" as the actress Jennifer Jones had taken it as a stage name.

This biography says:

...Other notable films included Since You Went Away, Love Letters, Cluny Brown, Portrait of Jennie, Madame Bovary, We Were Strangers, Carrie, Ruby Gentry, Indiscretion of an American Wife, Beat the Devil, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, Good Morning Miss Dove, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and A Farewell to Arms. Her leading men during this period included Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, Gregory Peck, John Garfield, Charlton Heston, Lord Laurence Olivier, Montgomery Clift, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Robert Stack, Sir John Gielgud, Rock Hudson and Jason Robards...

This biography says:

...Her leading men during this period included Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, Gregory Peck, John Garfield, Charlton Heston, Lord Laurence Olivier, Montgomery Clift, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Robert Stack, Sir John Gielgud, Rock Hudson and Jason Robards....

This biography says:

...When she learned of auditions for the lead role of Claudia in Rose Franken’s hit play of the same name, she presented herself to David O. Selznick’s New York office, but fled in tears after what she thought was a bad reading. Selznick, however, overheard her audition and was impressed enough to have his secretary call her back...

That biography says:

...Certainly I had no intention of staying away from production for nine years." Selznick spent most of the 1950s obsessing about nurturing the career of his second wife Jennifer Jones. His last film, the big budget production, A Farewell to Arms (1957) starring Jones and Rock Hudson, was ill received...

That biography says:

...* 1941 - Remember the Day with Claudette Colbert * 1942 - The Black Swan with Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara * 1943 - The Song of Bernadette with Jennifer Jones * 1944 - Wilson * 1945 - A Bell for Adano with John Hodiak, Gene Tierney * 1946 - Margie * 1947 - Captain from Castile with Tyrone Power * 1948 - Deep Waters * 1949 - Prince of Foxes with Tyrone Power * 1949 - 12 O'Clock High with Gregory Peck * 1950 - The Gunfighter with Gregory Peck * 1951 - I'd Climb the Highest Mountain * 1951 - David and Bathsheba with Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward * 1952 - The Snows of Kilimanjaro with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner * 1953 - King of the Khyber Rifles with Tyrone Power * 1955 - Untamed with Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward * 1955 - Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing with William Holden and Jennifer Jones * 1956 - Carousel with Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones * 1957 - The Sun Also Rises with Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner, and Errol Flynn * 1958 - The Bravados with Gregory Peck * 1959 - This Earth is Mine with Rock Hudson and Jean Simmons * 1959 - Beloved Infidel with Deborah Kerr and Gregory Peck * 1962 - Tender Is the Night with Jason Robards Jr...

That biography says:

...She continued to star in films such as Howard Hawks' Only Angels Have Wings in 1939, with love interest Cary Grant, 1942's The Talk of the Town, directed by George Stevens (also with Grant), and again for Stevens as a government clerk in 1943's The More the Merrier, for which Jean Arthur was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress (losing to Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette). As a result of being in the doghouse with studio boss Harry Cohn, her fee for The Talk of the Town (1942) was only $50,000 while her male co-stars Grant and Ronald Colman received upwards of $100,000 each...

This biography says:

...In 1944, Jones won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as St. Bernadette. That year, Jones' friend, Ingrid Bergman, was also a Best Actress nominee for her work in For Whom the Bell Tolls. Jones apologized to Bergman, who replied, "No, Jennifer, your Bernadette was better than my Maria." Jones presented the Best Actress Oscar the following year to Bergman for Gaslight...

That biography says:

*In 1944, Bergman's best friend Jennifer Jones won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in The Song of Bernadette. That year, Bergman was also a Best Actress nominee for For Whom the Bell Tolls...

That biography says:

...She was awarded the role of Bing Crosby's long-suffering wife in The Country Girl, after a pregnant Jennifer Jones bowed out. Already familiar with the play, Kelly was desperate for the part. This meant that, to MGM's dismay, she would have to be loaned out to Paramount...

This biography says:

...Other notable films included Since You Went Away, Love Letters, Cluny Brown, Portrait of Jennie, Madame Bovary, We Were Strangers, Carrie, Ruby Gentry, Indiscretion of an American Wife, Beat the Devil, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, Good Morning Miss Dove, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and A Farewell to Arms. Her leading men during this period included Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, Gregory Peck, John Garfield, Charlton Heston, Lord Laurence Olivier, Montgomery Clift, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Robert Stack, Sir John Gielgud, Rock Hudson and Jason Robards...

That biography says:

...The characters he played onscreen during this period ranged from a serial killer in Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (opposite Teresa Wright) to an eager police detective in 1944's Gaslight (opposite Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer and in her film debut, Angela Lansbury). Cotten starred with Jennifer Jones in four films: the wartime domestic drama Since You Went Away (1944), the romantic drama Love Letters (1945), the western Duel in the Sun (1946) and later in the critically acclaimed Portrait of Jennie (1948), in which he played a melancholy artist who becomes obsessed with a girl who may have died long ago...

That biography says:

...Of the seventeen names listed in the credits, Jackie was seventeenth, but his last-place position did not prevent the character (a grocer's son) from exchanging bashful glances with the female third-lead (after Claudette Colbert and Jennifer Jones), fifteen-year-old Shirley Temple. Jackie, at twenty, was five years older, but appeared to be no more than sixteen or seventeen.

This biography says:

...Her leading men during this period included Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, Gregory Peck, John Garfield, Charlton Heston, Lord Laurence Olivier, Montgomery Clift, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Robert Stack, Sir John Gielgud, Rock Hudson and Jason Robards....

That biography says:

...Among the movies Cromwell directed are Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936) starring Freddie Bartholomew and Dolores Costello; The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) starring Ronald Colman and Madeleine Carroll, with Raymond Massey, Mary Astor, David Niven, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.; Algiers (1938) starring Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr; Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940) starring Raymond Massey, Gene Lockhart, and Ruth Gordon; Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake (1942) starring Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney; Since You Went Away (1944) starring Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple, and Lionel Barrymore, with Hattie McDaniel, Agnes Moorehead, Alla Nazimova, and Keenan Wynn; Anna and the King of Siam (1946) starring Irene Dunne, Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Lee J...

That biography says:

...Southern's work and his tireless networking and socializing brought him into contact with many Hollywood stars including Ben Gazzara, Jennifer Jones, Janice Rule, George Segal, Richard Benjamin, James Coburn, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper and his wife Brooke Hayward...

That biography says:

...He was given a screen-test, and landed a role in the film The Ox-Bow Incident, which co-starred Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews. In 1943 he starred opposite Jennifer Jones in the Academy Award-winning film The Song of Bernadette. Eythe's star was rising fast in Hollywood, and he acted in films with such stars as Anne Baxter, Vincent Price, and Tallulah Bankhead...

That biography says:

...She casts herself down a mineshaft to escape, clutching her beloved fox. Gone to Earth was filmed in 1950 by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, starring Jennifer Jones as Hazel Woodus. However, it was later re-edited, shortened and retitled for its American release, and fell into relative obscurity...