Simon Jones (actor)

Simon Jones (born 27 July 1950) is an English actor. He is best known for originating the role of Arthur Dent, protagonist of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He also played the role of Donald Shellhammer in Miracle on 34th Street (1994), appeared in Brideshead Revisited (1981) as Lord Brideshead, and as King George V in the film Downton Abbey (2019), and as Bannister in The Gilded Age.

Jones was born 27 July 1950, in Charlton Park, Wiltshire, England. When young, his family moved to Broad Town near Wootton Bassett, travelling often to visit elderly aunts in Salisbury. Jones studied at King's College, Taunton, before going up to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, at age 25.

Jones appeared in various television series, including Brideshead Revisited, in which he played the Earl of Brideshead, or 'Bridey', heir to the Marquess of Marchmain, and the second series of Blackadder (1986), playing Sir Walter Raleigh in the episode "Potato". His films have included Club Paradise (1986), Privates on Parade (1982), Miracle on 34th Street and The Devil's Own (1997).

Jones was studying at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he was a member of the Footlights and met Douglas Adams. This led to him being cast in Out of the Trees and later The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The latter project, a radio broadcast from 1978, would be the first of Jones's several portrayals of Arthur Dent; Adams claimed to Jones that he wrote the part of Dent with him in mind. In Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, Jones had a minor role as one of the guests at the dinner party which is interrupted by the Grim Reaper. He has also appeared in some of the solo film projects of the members of Monty Python: Privates on Parade (with John Cleese), American Friends (1991) with Michael Palin. He appeared in the Terry Gilliam film Brazil (1985) alongside Jonathan Pryce and Robert De Niro, also worked alongside Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys (1995).

Jones has appeared in many Broadway plays, including The Real Thing (1985), as Max, Benefactors (1985), as Colin, Getting Married (1991), as Reginald Bridgenorth, Private Lives (1992), as Elyot Chase, The Real Inspector Hound, (as Moon) and The Fifteen Minute Hamlet (as Hamlet - which played together in 1992), The School for Scandal (1995), as Joseph Surface, Ring Round the Moon (1999), as Romainville and as Perry Lascoe in Waiting in the Wings (1999).

In 2009, Jones appeared in Blithe Spirit, as Dr. Bradman, supported by Angela Lansbury and Rupert Everett; and in 2018 he portrayed John Rich, in Farinelli and the King co-starring Mark Rylance. Off-Broadway he has a long list of credits, and was nominated for the 1990 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play for his role in Privates on Parade.

Jones is also a voice actor and audiobook narrator, with more than 70 titles to his credit. Among them are:

In 2003, Jones reprised his role as Arthur Dent in a new radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In the same year he was involved in the filming of the film version of the first novel, making a brief cameo appearance in the role of the holographic Magrathean answering machine/automated defence system.