This page uses content from the Tommy Lee Jones biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.

Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an Oscar-winning American actor and director.

Biography

Early life

Jones was born in San Saba, Texas to Clyde C. Jones, who worked in the oil fields of both Texas and Libya, and Lucille Marie Scott, who was a police officer and hairdresser who owned a beauty parlour; the two were married and divorced twice. Jones, an eighth-generation Texan, has a Cherokee Native American grandparent, and is mostly of Welsh ancestry. Jones was also a resident of Midland, Texas.

Jones graduated the St. Mark's School of Texas and attended Harvard on a scholarship, where he lived in Mower B-12 as a freshman, across the hall from former Vice President Al Gore. As an upperclassman, he was roommates with Gore and John Lithgow in Dunster House. Jones played offensive tackle on Harvard's undefeated 1968 varsity football team, was nominated as a first-team All-Ivy League selection, and played in the memorable and literal last-minute Harvard sixteen-point comeback blitz to tie Yale in the 1968 Game. Jones graduated cum laude with a degree in English in 1969.

Career

Jones then moved to New York City to become an actor. He started acting on Broadway and in television. He made his debut in movies in Love Story, in 1970 (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 Al Gore. Gore brought this up during the 2000 Presidential campaign). Between 1971 and 1975, he portrayed Dr. Mark Toland on the ABC soap opera, One Life to Live, and then he played the role of an escaped convict who was hunted down by the police in Jackson County Jail (1976). In 1981, he played a drifter opposite Sally Field in Back Roads, a comedy that received middling reviews and grossed $11 million at the box office.

In 1983, he received an Emmy for Best Actor for his performance as murderer Gary Gilmore in a TV adaptation of Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song.

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. His role in The Fugitive won him wide acclaim and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

In 2005, he released his first feature-film The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, that was presented at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. It won him the Best Actor Award. His first film as director was in 1995, a made-for-television movie.

Private life

At the 2000 Democratic National Convention he nominated his college roommate, Al Gore, as the Democratic party's nominee for President of the United States.

Jones has two children from his second marriage to Kimberlea Cloughey: Victoria Kafka (born 1991) and Austin Leonard (born 1982). On March 19, 2001, he married his third wife, Dawn Laurel.

Jones resides in Terrell Hills, Texas, a community in San Antonio.

Filmography

• American Dog (2008)
• No Country for Old Men (2007)
• A Prairie Home Companion (2006)
• The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) (director)
• Man of the House (2005)
• The Missing (2003)
• The Hunted (2003)
• Men in Black II (2002)
• Space Cowboys (2000)
• Rules of Engagement (2000)
• Double Jeopardy (1999)
• Small Soldiers (1998) (voice)
• U.S. Marshals (1998)
• Men in Black (1997)
• Volcano (1997)
• Batman Forever (1995)
• The Good Old Boys (1995) (TV) (director)
• Cobb (1994)
• Blue Sky (1994)
• Natural Born Killers (1994)
• The Client (1994)
• Blown Away (1994)
• The Fugitive (1993)
• House of Cards (1993)
• Heaven & Earth (1993)
• Under Siege (1992)
• JFK (1991)
• Fire Birds (1990)
• The Package (1989)
• Lonesome Dove (1989)
• Gotham (1988) (TV)
• Stormy Monday (1988)
• April Morning (1988) (TV)
• Stranger on My Land (1988) (TV)
• The Big Town (1987)
• Broken Vows (1987) (TV)
• Yuri Nosenko, KGB (1986) (TV)
• Black Moon Rising (1986)
• The Park Is Mine (1986) (TV)
• Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1985) (TV)
• The River Rat (1984)
• Nate and Hayes (1983) (aka Savage Islands)
• The Rainmaker (1982) (TV)
• The Executioner's Song (1982) (TV)
• Back Roads (1981)
• Barn Burning (1980) (TV)
• Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)
• Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)
• The Betsy (1978)
• Rolling Thunder (1977)
• The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977) (TV)
• Jackson County Jail (1976)
• Smash-Up on Interstate 5 (1976) (TV)
• Charlie's Angels (1976) (TV)
• Eliza's Horoscope (1975)
• Life Study (1973)
• Love Story (1970)
• One Life to Live (1968)

References

Footnotes

External links

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify the biographical information on this page under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.