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Jennifer Jones
Jennifer Jones (born Phylis Lee Isley; March 2, 1919 – December 17, 2009), also known as Jennifer Jones Simon, was an American actress and mental-health advocate. Over the course of her career that spanned more than five decades, she was nominated for an Academy Award five times, including one win for Best Actress, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.
A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Jones worked as a model in her youth before transitioning to acting, appearing in two serial films in 1939. Her third role was a lead part as Bernadette Soubirous in The Song of Bernadette (1943), which earned her the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Actress. She went on to star in several films that garnered her significant critical acclaim and a further three Academy Award nominations in the mid-1940s, including Since You Went Away (1944), Love Letters (1945) and Duel in the Sun (1946).
In 1949, Jones married film producer David O. Selznick and appeared as the eponymous Madame Bovary in Vincente Minnelli's 1949 adaptation. She appeared in several films throughout the 1950s, including Ruby Gentry (1952), John Huston's adventure comedy Beat the Devil (1953) and Vittorio De Sica's drama Terminal Station (1953). Jones earned her fifth Academy Award nomination for her performance as a Eurasian doctor in Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). After Selznick's death in 1965, Jones married industrialist Norton Simon and entered semi-retirement. She made her final film appearance in The Towering Inferno (1974), a performance which earned her a nomination for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture.
Jones suffered from mental-health problems during her life. After her 22 year-old daughter, Mary Jennifer Selznick, took her own life in 1976, Jones became deeply involved in mental health education. In 1980, she founded the Jennifer Jones Simon Foundation for Mental Health and Education. Jones enjoyed a quiet retirement, living the last six years of her life in Malibu, California, where she died of natural causes in 2009 at the age of 90.
Jones was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on March 2, 1919, the daughter of Flora Mae (née Suber) and Phillip Ross Isley. Her father was originally from Georgia, and her mother was a native of Sacramento, California. She was an only child, and she was raised Catholic. Her parents, both aspiring stage actors, toured the Midwest in a traveling tent show that they owned and operated. Jones accompanied them, performing on occasion as part of the Isley Stock Company.
In 1925, Jones enrolled at Edgemere Public School in Oklahoma City, then attended Monte Cassino, a Catholic girls school and junior college in Tulsa. After graduating, she enrolled as a drama major at Northwestern University in Illinois, where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority before transferring to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in September 1937. It was there that she met and fell in love with fellow acting student Robert Walker, a native of Ogden, Utah, and left school. They married on January 2, 1939.
Jones and Walker returned to Tulsa for a 13-week radio program arranged by her father and then moved to Hollywood. She landed two small roles, first in the 1939 John Wayne Western New Frontier, which she filmed in the summer of 1939 for Republic Pictures. Her second project was the serial titled Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939), also for Republic. In both films, she was credited as Phylis Isley. After failing a screen test for Paramount Pictures, she became disenchanted with Hollywood and returned to New York City.
Shortly after Jones married Walker, she gave birth to two sons: Robert Walker Jr. (1940–2019), and Michael Walker (1941–2007). While Walker found steady work in radio programs, Jones worked part-time modeling hats for the Powers Agency, and posing for Harper's Bazaar while looking for acting jobs. When she learned of auditions for the lead role in Rose Franken's hit play Claudia in the summer of 1941, she presented herself to David O. Selznick's New York office but fled in tears after what she thought was a bad reading. However, Selznick had 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.
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Jennifer Jones
Jennifer Jones (born Phylis Lee Isley; March 2, 1919 – December 17, 2009), also known as Jennifer Jones Simon, was an American actress and mental-health advocate. Over the course of her career that spanned more than five decades, she was nominated for an Academy Award five times, including one win for Best Actress, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.
A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Jones worked as a model in her youth before transitioning to acting, appearing in two serial films in 1939. Her third role was a lead part as Bernadette Soubirous in The Song of Bernadette (1943), which earned her the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Actress. She went on to star in several films that garnered her significant critical acclaim and a further three Academy Award nominations in the mid-1940s, including Since You Went Away (1944), Love Letters (1945) and Duel in the Sun (1946).
In 1949, Jones married film producer David O. Selznick and appeared as the eponymous Madame Bovary in Vincente Minnelli's 1949 adaptation. She appeared in several films throughout the 1950s, including Ruby Gentry (1952), John Huston's adventure comedy Beat the Devil (1953) and Vittorio De Sica's drama Terminal Station (1953). Jones earned her fifth Academy Award nomination for her performance as a Eurasian doctor in Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955). After Selznick's death in 1965, Jones married industrialist Norton Simon and entered semi-retirement. She made her final film appearance in The Towering Inferno (1974), a performance which earned her a nomination for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture.
Jones suffered from mental-health problems during her life. After her 22 year-old daughter, Mary Jennifer Selznick, took her own life in 1976, Jones became deeply involved in mental health education. In 1980, she founded the Jennifer Jones Simon Foundation for Mental Health and Education. Jones enjoyed a quiet retirement, living the last six years of her life in Malibu, California, where she died of natural causes in 2009 at the age of 90.
Jones was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on March 2, 1919, the daughter of Flora Mae (née Suber) and Phillip Ross Isley. Her father was originally from Georgia, and her mother was a native of Sacramento, California. She was an only child, and she was raised Catholic. Her parents, both aspiring stage actors, toured the Midwest in a traveling tent show that they owned and operated. Jones accompanied them, performing on occasion as part of the Isley Stock Company.
In 1925, Jones enrolled at Edgemere Public School in Oklahoma City, then attended Monte Cassino, a Catholic girls school and junior college in Tulsa. After graduating, she enrolled as a drama major at Northwestern University in Illinois, where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority before transferring to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in September 1937. It was there that she met and fell in love with fellow acting student Robert Walker, a native of Ogden, Utah, and left school. They married on January 2, 1939.
Jones and Walker returned to Tulsa for a 13-week radio program arranged by her father and then moved to Hollywood. She landed two small roles, first in the 1939 John Wayne Western New Frontier, which she filmed in the summer of 1939 for Republic Pictures. Her second project was the serial titled Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939), also for Republic. In both films, she was credited as Phylis Isley. After failing a screen test for Paramount Pictures, she became disenchanted with Hollywood and returned to New York City.
Shortly after Jones married Walker, she gave birth to two sons: Robert Walker Jr. (1940–2019), and Michael Walker (1941–2007). While Walker found steady work in radio programs, Jones worked part-time modeling hats for the Powers Agency, and posing for Harper's Bazaar while looking for acting jobs. When she learned of auditions for the lead role in Rose Franken's hit play Claudia in the summer of 1941, she presented herself to David O. Selznick's New York office but fled in tears after what she thought was a bad reading. However, Selznick had 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.