Tommy Lee Jones
| Tommy Lee Jones | |
|---|---|
|
Jones at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival | |
| Born |
September 15, 1946 San Saba, Texas, U.S. |
| Residence | Terrell Hills, Texas |
| Alma mater | Harvard University (BA) |
| Occupation | Actor, director, producer, screenwriter |
| Years active | 1970–present |
| Spouse(s) |
|
| Children | 2 |
| Awards |
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (1993) Golden Globe Award (1993) Emmy Award (1983) |
Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received four Academy Award nominations, winning one as Best Supporting Actor for his performance as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in the 1993 thriller film The Fugitive.
His other notable starring roles include former Texas Ranger Woodrow F. Call in the TV mini-series Lonesome Dove, Agent K in the Men in Black film series, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell in No Country for Old Men, the villain Two-Face in Batman Forever, terrorist William Strannix in Under Siege, a Texas Ranger in Man of the House, rancher Pete Perkins in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which he directed, Colonel Chester Phillips in Captain America: The First Avenger and Warden Dwight McClusky in Natural Born Killers. Jones has also portrayed real-life figures such as businessman Howard Hughes, Radical Republican Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, executed murderer Gary Gilmore, U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur, Oliver Lynn, husband of Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter, and baseball great Ty Cobb.
Early life
Jones was born on September 15, 1946, in San Saba, Texas.[1][2] His mother, Lucille Marie (née Scott), was a police officer, school teacher, and beauty shop owner, and his father, Clyde C. Jones, was an oil field worker.[1] The two were married and divorced twice. He was raised in Midland, Texas[3] and attended Robert E. Lee High School.
Jones soon moved to Dallas and graduated from the St. Mark's School of Texas,[4] which he attended on scholarship; he now serves on the board of directors. He attended Harvard College on a need-based scholarship. He stayed in Mower B-12 as a freshman, across the hall from future Vice President Al Gore, the son of Senator Albert Gore, Sr. of Tennessee. As an upperclassman, he stayed in Dunster House with roommates Gore and Bob Somerby, who later became editor of the media criticism site the Daily Howler. Jones played offensive guard[5] on Harvard's undefeated 1968 varsity football team, was nominated as a first-team All-Ivy League selection, and played in the 1968 Game, which featured a memorable and literally last-minute Harvard 16-point comeback to tie Yale. He recounts his memory of "the most famous football game in Ivy League history" in the documentary Harvard Beats Yale 29-29. Jones graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1969; his senior thesis was on "the mechanics of Catholicism" in the works of Flannery O'Connor.[6][7]
Career
Jones moved to New York to become an actor, making his Broadway debut in 1969's A Patriot for Me in a number of supporting roles. In 1970 he landed his first film role, coincidentally playing a Harvard student in Love Story (Erich Segal, the author of Love Story, said that he based the lead character of Oliver on the two undergraduate roommates he knew while attending Harvard, Jones and Gore).[8]
In early 1971, he returned to Broadway in Abe Burrows' Four on a Garden where he shared the stage with Carol Channing and Sid Caesar. Between 1971 and 1975 he portrayed Dr. Mark Toland on the ABC soap opera, One Life to Live. He returned to the stage for a 1974 production of Ulysses in Nighttown with Zero Mostel. It was followed by the acclaimed TV movie The Amazing Howard Hughes, where he played the lead role.
In films, he played an escaped convict hunted in Jackson County Jail (1976), a Vietnam veteran in Rolling Thunder (1977) and an automobile mogul, co-starring with Laurence Olivier, in the Harold Robbins drama The Betsy.
In 1980, Jones earned his first Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of country singer Loretta Lynn's husband, Doolittle "Mooney" Lynn, in the popular Coal Miner's Daughter. In 1981 he played a drifter opposite Sally Field in Back Roads, a comedy that received middling reviews.[9]
In 1983, he received an Emmy[10] for Best Actor for his performance as murderer Gary Gilmore in a TV adaptation of Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song. That same year he starred in a pirate adventure, Nate and Hayes, playing the heavily-bearded pirate Captain Bully Hayes.
In 1989, he earned another Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Texas Ranger lawman Woodrow F. Call in the acclaimed television mini-series Lonesome Dove, based on the best-seller by Larry McMurtry.
In the 1990s, blockbuster hits such as The Fugitive co-starring Harrison Ford, Batman Forever co-starring Val Kilmer, and Men in Black with Will Smith made Jones one of the best-paid and most in-demand actors in Hollywood. His performance as Deputy U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in The Fugitive received broad acclaim and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a sequel. When he accepted his Oscar, his head was shaved for his role in the film Cobb, which he made light of in his speech: "The only thing a man can say at a time like this is 'I am not really bald'. Actually I'm lucky to be working".
Among his other well-known performances during the 1990s were those of the accused conspirator Clay Shaw/Clay Bertrand in the 1991 film JFK (which earned him another Oscar nomination), as a terrorist who hijacks a U.S. Navy battleship in Under Siege and as a maximum-security prison warden who's in way over his head in Natural Born Killers.
Jones co-starred with director Clint Eastwood as astronauts in the 2000 film Space Cowboys, in which both played retired pilots and friends/rivals leading a space rescue mission together.
In 2005, the first theatrical feature film Jones directed, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, was presented at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. Jones's character speaks both English and Spanish in the film. His performance won him the Best Actor Award. His first film as a director had been The Good Old Boys in 1995, a made-for-television movie.
Two strong performances in 2007 marked a resurgence in Jones's career, one as a beleaguered father investigating the disappearance of his soldier son in In the Valley of Elah, the other as a Texas sheriff hunting an assassin in the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men. For the former, he was nominated for an Academy Award.
Jones has been a spokesperson for Japanese brewing company Suntory since 2006. He can be seen in various Japanese TV commercials of Suntory's Coffee brand Boss as a character called "Alien Jones," an extraterrestrial who takes the form of a human being to check on the world of humans. There are 34 such commercials, many of which can be seen on YouTube.[11] In 2011, Jones appeared in public service announcements on Japanese television, joining a number of other popular figures who sang two sentimental songs in remembrance of those lost in the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
In 2010, Jones appeared alongside Ben Affleck in the recession drama The Company Men. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where early reviews praised Jones's performance as "pitch-perfect."[12] Jones had a role in the Marvel Studios film, Captain America: The First Avenger.[13] He also directed, produced and co-starred with Samuel L. Jackson in an adaptation of The Sunset Limited.
In 2012 there was another turning point in Jones's career, starting in a reprisal of his role as Agent K in Men in Black 3, the romantic dramedy Hope Springs, and co-starring as Thaddeus Stevens in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln. Jones's performance in Lincoln received wide critical acclaim. For this performance, Jones received his fourth Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor.
Personal life
At the 2000 Democratic National Convention, he presented the nominating speech for his college roommate, Al Gore, as the Democratic Party's nominee for President of the United States.
Jones was married to Kate Lardner, the daughter of screenwriter and journalist Ring Lardner Jr., from 1971 to 1978. He has two children from his second marriage to Kimberlea Cloughley, the daughter of Phil Hardberger, former mayor of San Antonio: Austin Leonard (born 1982) and Victoria Kafka (born 1991). On March 19, 2001, he married his third wife, Dawn Laurel.
Jones resides in Terrell Hills, Texas, a suburb of San Antonio, and speaks fluent Spanish.[14] He owns a 3000-acre cattle ranch in San Saba County, Texas,[15] and a ranch near Van Horn, Texas, which served as the set for his film The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. He also owns a home and farm in polo mecca Wellington, Florida. Jones is a serious polo player and he has a house in a polo country club in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a supporter of the Polo Training Foundation.[16] He is an avid San Antonio Spurs fan; he is often seen court-side at Spurs games.
Filmography
Film
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1971–77 | One Life to Live | Dr. Mark Toland | Unknown episodes |
| 1975 | Barnaby Jones | Dr. Jim Melford | Episode: "Fatal Witness" |
| 1976 | Smash-Up on Interstate 5 | Officer Hutton | Movie |
| 1976 | Baretta | Sharky | Episode: "Dead Man Out" |
| 1976 | Charlie's Angels | Aram Kolegian | Episode: "Charlie's Angels" |
| 1976 | Family | David Needham | Episode: "Coming of Age" |
| 1977 | The Amazing Howard Hughes | Howard Hughes | |
| 1982 | The Executioner's Song | Gary Gilmore | Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie |
| 1982 | The Rainmaker | Starbuck | Movie |
| 1985 | Cat on a Hot Tin Roof | Brick Pollitt | Movie |
| 1985 | The Park is Mine | Mitch | Movie |
| 1986 | Yuri Nosenko: Double Agent | Steve Daley | Movie |
| 1987 | Broken Vows | Pater Joseph McMahon | Television movie |
| 1988 | Stranger on My Land | Bud Whitman | Movie |
| 1988 | April Morning | Moses Cooper | Movie |
| 1989 | Lonesome Dove | Woodrow F. Call | Miniseries; 4 episodes |
| 1995 | The Good Old Boys | Hewey Calloway | Also director |
Awards and nominations
Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)
The Executioner's Song (1982)
Lonesome Dove (1989)
- Nominated
JFK (1991)
The Fugitive (1993)
- Won
- Nominated
Blown Away (1994)
- Nominated
- MTV Movie Awards for Best Villain
The Good Old Boys (1995)
Batman Forever (1995)
- Nominated
- MTV Movie Awards for Best Villain
Men in Black (1997)
- Nominated
- Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
- MTV Movie Awards Best On-Screen Duo (shared with Will Smith)
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)
A Prairie Home Companion (2006)
- Won
- Gotham Awards for Best Ensemble Cast
No Country for Old Men (2007)
- Won
- Nominated
In the Valley of Elah (2007)
The Company Men (2010)
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
- Nominated
- Scream Award for Best Supporting Actor
Lincoln (2012)
- Won
- Nominated
References
- 1 2 "Tommy Lee Jones Biography (1946–)". Filmreference.com. Retrieved 2012-05-16.
- ↑ Weinraub, Bernard (August 1, 1993). "FILM; Tommy Lee Jones Snarls His Way to the Pinnacle". The New York Times. Retrieved March 28, 2010.
- ↑ Waycross Journal-Herald, November 6, 1982, page 4, Google News.
- ↑ Hollandsworth, Skip (2006-02-01). "Tommy Lee Jones Is Not Acting". Texas Monthly., online at Byliner.com. Retrieved 2012-02-02.
- ↑ Charles McGrath (2008-11-20). "Harvard Beats Yale 29–29". Yale Alumni Magazine. Retrieved 2012-05-16.
- ↑ Scott, A. O. (February 7, 2005). "Big Questions, Smart Women, Mann’s Movies". The New York Times. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
- ↑ Laporte, Nicole (2011-02-06). "True Gruff". The Daily Beast. Newsweek. Retrieved 2012-05-16.
- ↑ Fox, Margalit (January 20, 2010). "Erich Segal, ‘Love Story' Author, Dies at 72". The New York Times. Retrieved March 28, 2010.
- ↑ "Back Roads". Business Date for Back Roads. imdb.com/. Retrieved March 12, 2006.
- ↑ "Tommy Lee Jones Emmy Nominated". Emmys.com. Retrieved 2012-05-16.
- ↑ "いいなCM サントリー BOSS 宇宙人ジョーンズシリーズ (Suntory Boss - Space Alien Jones Series)". Retrieved September 21, 2013.
- ↑ Review: The Company Men – Sundance Film Festival – Film.com Archived January 31, 2010, at the Wayback Machine.
- ↑ "Tommy Lee Jones Officially Comes Aboard Captain America: The First Avenger". MovieWeb.com.
- ↑ "BBC – Movies – interview – Tommy Lee Jones". Bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2012-05-16.
- ↑ "Why lee jones loves black comedy - News". Scotsman.com. 2002-08-01. Retrieved 2012-05-16.
- ↑ "Palm Beach Today Magazine: Polo Training Foundation". Palmbeachtoday.net. 2009-02-27. Retrieved 2015-03-11.
- ↑ Vlessing, Etan (2012-08-14). "Toronto 2012: Paul Andrew Williams’ 'Song for Marion' to Close 37th Edition". Hollywoodreporter.com. Retrieved 2015-03-11.
- ↑ "2014 Official Selection". Cannes. Retrieved April 17, 2014.
Further reading
- Grunert, Andrea, "Les bons et les méchants selon Tommy Lee Jones", in: Francis Bordat et Serge Chauvin (eds.) Les bons et les méchants Université Paris X, 2005, p. 339–352, ISBN 2-907335-30-8
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tommy Lee Jones. |
- Tommy Lee Jones at the Internet Movie Database
- Tommy Lee Jones at the Internet Broadway Database
- Tommy Lee Jones at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
- Tommy Lee Jones at the TCM Movie Database
- Tommy Lee Jones at Box Office Mojo
- Tommy Lee Jones at AllMovie
| Preceded by Billy Dee Williams |
Two-Face Actor 1995 |
Succeeded by Aaron Eckhart |
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