Jones, Cherry (b. 1956), actress. One of the brightest new acting talents to come out of the last decade of the 20th century, Jones is a striking leading lady with a wide smile that camouflages complex and fascinating characters. She was born in Paris, Tennessee, and was educated at Carnegie Mellon University before getting experience in regional theatre. Although praised for some of her early Off‐Broadway efforts, she gained wide attention with her 1991 Broadway debut as the condemned prisoner‐actress Liz in Our Country's Good (1991) and gave a luminous portrayal of the reclusive Catherine Sloper in The Heiress (1995). Jones's other exceptional performances include the spinster artist Hannah Jelkes in The Night of the Iguana (1996), the champion swimmer Mabel seen at different ages in Pride's Crossing (1997), a small but hardened Josie Hogan in A Moon for the Misbegotten (2000), the idealistic Major Barbara (2001), and the bitchy writer Mary McCarthy in Imaginary Friends (2002). Clive Barnes in the New York Post described Jones's Catherine Sloper as “radiant in hope, tragic in despair, chilling in conviction, [she] resonates with passions that seem all the more vibrant for being suppressed.”

The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.