Tommy Lee Jones won an Oscar for his supporting role in The Fugitive (1993), and got just as much attention as the movie's star, Harrison Ford. After that came leading roles in Oliver Stone's Heaven and Earth (1993), Cobb (1994), The Client (1994, with Susan Sarandon) and Men in Black (1997, with Will Smith). Jones grew up in Texas, studied English at Harvard (where he roomed with Al Gore) and started his career on the stage. He got into the movies, debuting in 1970's Love Story. He worked steadily in the movies in character roles, and in 1982 won an Emmy for the TV movie of Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song. In the '80s his roles got bigger and better, and his supporting role in JFK (1991) earned him an Oscar nomination. His turn as the worried dad of an American soldier in In the Valley of Elah (2007) brought him another Oscar nomination (his first for a leading role). Jones's other movies include Coal Miner's Daughter (1980, starring Sissy Spacek), Space Cowboys (2000, with Clint Eastwood), The Missing (2003, with Cate Blanchett) and the Coen brothers' 2007 film version of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men.
Career Highlights: The Executioner's Song, The Fugitive, JFK
First Major Screen Credit: Eliza's Horoscope (1975)
Biography
An eighth-generation Texan, actor Tommy Lee Jones attended Harvard University, where he roomed with future U.S. Vice President Al Gore. Though several of his less-knowledgeable fans have tended to dismiss Jones as a roughhewn redneck, the actor was equally at home on the polo fields (he's a champion player) as the oil fields, where he made his living for many years.
After graduating cum laude from Harvard in 1969, Jones made his stage debut that same year in A Patriot for Me; in 1970, he appeared in his first film, Love Story (listed way, way down the cast list as one of Ryan O'Neal's fraternity buddies). Interestingly enough, while Jones was at Harvard, he and roommate Gore provided the models for author Erich Segal while he was writing the character of Oliver, the book's (and film's) protagonist. After this supporting role, Jones got his first film lead in the obscure Canadian film Eliza's Horoscope (1975). Following a spell on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live, he gained national attention in 1977 when he was cast in the title role in the TV miniseries The Amazing Howard Hughes, his resemblance to the title character -- both vocally and visually -- positively uncanny. Five years later, Jones won further acclaim and an Emmy for his startling performance as murderer Gary Gilmore in The Executioner's Song.
Jones spent the rest of the '80s working in both television and film, doing his most notable work on such TV miniseries as Lonesome Dove (1989), for which he earned another Emmy nomination. It was not until the early '90s that the actor became a substantial figure in Hollywood, a position catalyzed by a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role in Oliver Stone's JFK. In 1993, Jones won both that award and a Golden Globe for his driven, starkly funny portrayal of U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard in The Fugitive. His subsequent work during the decade was prolific and enormously varied. In 1994 alone, he could be seen as an insane prison warden in Natural Born Killers; titular baseball hero Ty Cobb in Cobb; a troubled army captain in Blue Sky; a wily federal attorney in The Client; and a psychotic bomber in Blown Away.
Jones was also attached to a number of big-budget action movies, hamming it up as the crazed Two-Face in Batman Forever (1995); donning sunglasses and an attitude to play a special agent in Men in Black (1997); and reprising his Fugitive role for the film's 1998 sequel, U.S. Marshals. The following year, he continued this trend, playing Ashley Judd's parole officer in the psychological thriller Double Jeopardy. The late '90s and millennial turnover found Jones' popularity soaring, and the distinguished actor continued to develop a successful comic screen persona (Space Cowboys [2000] and Men in Black II [2002]), in addition to maintaining his dramatic clout with roles in such thrillers as The Rules of Engagement (2000) and The Hunted (2003).
2005 brought a comedic turn for the actor, who starred in the madcap comedy Man of the House as a grizzled police officer in tasked to protect a house full of cheerleaders who witnessed a murder. Jones also took a stab at directing that year, helming and starring in the western crime drama The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. In 2006, Jones appeared in Robert Altman's film adaptation of A Prairie Home Companion, based on Garrison Keillor's long running radio show. The movie's legendary director, much loved source material and all-star cast made the film a safe bet for the actor, who hadn't done much in the way of musical comedy. Jones played the consumate corporate bad guy with his trademark grit.
2007 brought two major roles for the actor. He headlined the Iraq war drama In the Valley of Elah for director Paul Haggis. His work as the veteran father of a son who died in the war earned him strong reviews and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. However more people saw Jones' other film from that year, the Coen brothers adaptation of No Country for Old Men. His work as a middle-aged Texas sheriff haunted by the acts of the evil man he hunts earned him a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Best Supporting Actor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
"Damn right, it's fun. There's good company. It's creative. It's adventurous. Combines high adventure and art with intellection. It's more fun than polo. It's like going undefeated in football. [When asked if making movies is fun]"
Jones was born in San Saba, Texas,[2] the son of Lucille Marie (née Scott), a police officer, school teacher, and beauty shop owner, and Clyde C. Jones, an oil field worker;[3] the two were married and divorced twice. Jones, an eighth-generation Texan of Welsh descent, has a Cherokee grandparent.[4] He was a resident of Midland, Texas and attended Robert E. Lee High School.
Jones graduated from the St. Mark's School of Texas, where he is now on the board of directors, and attended Harvard on a need-based scholarship, staying in Mower B-12 as a freshman, across the hall from future Vice PresidentAl Gore. As an upperclassman, he was roommates with Gore and Bob Somerby, who later became editor of the media criticism site the Daily Howler. Another actor who rose to prominence, John Lithgow, also lived in Dunster House. Jones played offensive tackle on Harvard's undefeated 1968 varsityfootball team, was nominated as a first-team All-Ivy League selection, and played in the memorable and literal last-minute Harvard sixteen-point comeback to tie Yale in the 1968 Game. Jones graduated cum laude with a degree in English in 1969.[5]
Career
Jones moved to New York City to become an actor, making his Broadway debut in the 1969 play A Patriot for Me where he portrayed a number of supporting roles. In 1970, he landed his first film role, playing a Harvard student in Love Story (Erich Segal, the author of "Love Story" has said that he based the lead character of Oliver on the two undergrad roommates he knew while teaching at Harvard, Jones and Gore).[citation needed] 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 ABCsoap opera, One Life to Live. He returned to the stage again in the 1974 Broadway production of Ulysses in Nighttown with Zero Mostel. He then played the role of an escaped convict who was hunted down by the police in Jackson County Jail (1976). In 1977 he co-starred in Rolling Thunder and in 1978 he starred with Sir Laurence Olivier in The Betsy.
In the 1990s, movies such as The Fugitive co-starring Harrison Ford, Batman Forever co-starring Val Kilmer, and Men in Black with Will Smith brought him tens of millions of dollars and made him one of the top actors of Hollywood. 1991 brought him his first Academy Award nomination for JFK. His role in The Fugitive won him wide acclaim and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. When he accepted his Oscar, his head was shaved for his role in the film Cobb, a situation he made light of in his speech by saying "All a man can say at a time like this is 'I am not really bald.'"
In 2005, he released the first theatrical feature film he directed, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which was presented at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. In it, Jones regularly speaks Spanish. It won him the Best Actor Award. His first film as director was in 1995, a made-for-television movie. Two strong performances in 2007 have marked a resurgence in Jones' career, with his portrayal of a beleaguered father looking for his son in In the Valley of Elah and as a sheriff hunting an assassin in the critically acclaimed No Country for Old Men. For the former, he was nominated for an Academy Award.
Jones has also become a spokesperson for popular Japanese brewing company Suntory since April 2006. He can be seen in various Japanese TV commercials of Suntory's Coffee brand BOSS as a character "Alien Jones", an extraterrestrial who takes the form of a human being to check on the world of humans. There are 18 such commercials that can be seen on Youtube.
Jones was married to Kate Lardner, the daughter of Ring Lardner Jr. from 1971 to 1978. Jones has two children from his second marriage to Kimberlea Cloughley, the daughter of Phil Hardberger, the mayor of San Antonio: Austin Leonard (born 1982) and Victoria Kafka (born 1991). On March 19, 2001, he married his third wife, Dawn Laurel.
