Jennifer Jones facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Jennifer Jones
Jones in 1953
Born	Phylis Lee Isley (1919-03-02)March 2, 1919 Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.
Died	December 17, 2009(2009-12-17) (aged 90) Malibu, California, U.S.
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California, U.S.
Alma mater	Northwestern University American Academy of Dramatic Arts
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1939–1974
Spouse(s)	Robert Walker ​ ​ (m. 1939; div. 1945)​ David O. Selznick ​ ​ (m. 1949; died 1965)​ Norton Simon ​ ​ (m. 1971; died 1993)​
Children	3, including Robert Walker, Jr.

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 the Oscar five times, including one win for Best Actress, and a Golden Globe Award win for Best Actress in a Drama.

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.

Biography

Early life

Jones was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 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.

Jones with Ray Corrigan (left) and John Wayne (right) in New Frontier (1939)

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. 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.

Career beginnings

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.

Jones as Bernadette Soubirous in The Song of Bernadette (1943)

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 (1943), and she won the coveted role over hundreds of applicants. In 1944, on her 25th birthday, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Bernadette, her third screen role.

Simultaneous to her rise to prominence for The Song of Bernadette, Jones became romantically involved with producer Selznick. She separated from Walker in November 1943, co-starred with him in Since You Went Away (1944), and formally divorced him in June 1945. For her performance in Since You Went Away, she was nominated for her second Academy Award, this time for Best Supporting Actress. She earned a third successive Academy Award nomination for her performance with Joseph Cotten in Love Letters (1945).

Marriage to Selznick

Jones and second husband David O. Selznick in 1957

Jones married Selznick at sea on July 13, 1949 en route to Europe after a five-year relationship. Over the following two decades, she appeared in numerous films that he produced, and they established a working relationship.

Jones and Montgomery Clift in Terminal Station (1953)

Jones was cast as Chinese-born doctor Han Suyin in the drama Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), a role that brought her fifth Academy Award nomination. Next, she starred as a schoolteacher in Good Morning, Miss Dove (1955), followed by a lead role in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, a drama about a World War II veteran.

In 1957, she starred as the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning in the historical drama The Barretts of Wimpole Street, based on the 1930 play by Rudolf Besier. She next played the lead role in the Ernest Hemingway adaptation A Farewell to Arms (1957). The film received mixed reviews.Jones's next project came five years later with the F. Scott Fitzgerald adaptation Tender Is the Night (1962).

Later life and activities

Selznick died at age 63 on June 22, 1965, and after his death, Jones semiretired from acting.

Jones with husband Norton Simon after their marriage, May 1971

On May 29, 1971, Jones married her third husband Norton Simon, a multimillionaire industrialist, art collector and philanthropist from Portland, Oregon. The wedding took place aboard a tugboat five miles off the English coast. Jones' last film appearance came in the disaster film The Towering Inferno (1974). Her performance as a doomed guest in the building earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Jones spent the remainder of her life outside of the public eye. Four years before the death of her husband Simon in June 1993, he resigned as president of Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California and Jones was appointed chairman of the board of trustees, president and executive officer. In 1996, she began working with architect Frank Gehry and landscape designer Nancy Goslee Power to renovate the museum and gardens. She remained active as the director of the museum until 2003, when she was awarded emerita status.

Personal life

Jones suffered from shyness for much of her life and avoided discussing her past and personal life with journalists. She was also averse to discussing critical analysis of her work.

Death

Jones' star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6429 Hollywood Boulevard

Jones enjoyed a quiet retirement, living with her eldest child, son Robert Walker Jr., and his family in Malibu for the last six years of her life. Jones's younger son, actor Michael Ross Walker, died from cardiac arrest on December 23, 2007 at age 66.

Jones participated in Gregory Peck's AFI Life Achievement Award ceremony in 1989 and appeared at the 70th (1998) and 75th (2003) Academy Awards as part of the shows' tributes to past Oscar winners. In the last six years of her life, she granted no interviews and rarely appeared in public. She died of natural causes on December 17, 2009 at age 90. She was cremated and her ashes were interred with her second husband in the Selznick private room at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

Minor planet 6249 Jennifer is named in her honor.

Filmography

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

Golden Globe Awards

See also

In Spanish: Jennifer Jones para niños