Tommy Lee Jones is an American actor and film director. He has received four Academy Award
nominations, winning one as Best Supporting Actor for his performance as U.S. Marshal
Samuel Gerard in the 1993 thriller film The Fugitive.
His other notable starring roles include former Texas Ranger Woodrow F. Call in the award-winning
TV mini-series Lonesome Dove, Agent K in the Men in Black film series, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell
in No Country for Old Men, the villain Two-Face in Batman Forever, terrorist William Strannix
in Under Siege, a Texas Ranger in Man of the House, rancher Pete Perkins in The Three Burials
of Melquiades Estrada, which also served as his directorial debut, Colonel Chester Phillips
in Captain America: The First Avenger and Warden Dwight McClusky in Natural Born Killers.
Jones has also portrayed real-life figures such as businessman Howard Hughes, Radical
Republican Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, executed murderer Gary Gilmore, U.S. Army General Douglas
MacArthur, Oliver Lynn, husband of Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter, and baseball
great Ty Cobb.
Early life
Jones was born on September 15, 1946 in San Saba, Texas. His mother, Lucille Marie, was
a police officer, school teacher, and beauty shop owner, and his father, Clyde C. Jones,
was an oil field worker. The two were married and divorced twice. Jones has stated that
his grandmother was of Cherokee ancestry. He was raised in Midland, Texas and attended
Robert E. Lee High School. Jones graduated from the St. Mark's School
of Texas, which he attended on scholarship; he now serves on the board of directors. He
attended Harvard College on a need-based scholarship. He stayed in Mower B-12 as a freshman, across
the hall from future Vice President Al Gore, the son of Senator Albert Gore, Sr. of Tennessee.
As an upperclassman, he stayed in Dunster House with roommates Gore and Bob Somerby,
who later became editor of the media criticism site the Daily Howler. Jones played offensive
guard on Harvard's undefeated 1968 varsity football team, was nominated as a first-team
All-Ivy League selection, and played in the 1968 Game, which featured a memorable and
literally last-minute Harvard 16-point comeback to tie Yale. He recounts his memory of "the
most famous football game in Ivy League history" in the documentary Harvard Beats Yale 29-29.
Jones graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1969; his senior thesis
was on "the mechanics of Catholicism" in the works of Flannery O'Connor.
Career
Jones moved to New York to become an actor, making his Broadway debut in 1969's A Patriot
for Me in a number of supporting roles. In 1970 he landed his first film role, coincidentally
playing a Harvard student in Love Story. 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 ABC soap opera, One Life to
Live. He returned to the stage for a 1974 production of Ulysses in Nighttown with Zero
Mostel. It was followed by the acclaimed TV movie The Amazing Howard Hughes, where he
played the lead role. In films, he played an escaped convict hunted
in Jackson County Jail, a Vietnam veteran in Rolling Thunder and an automobile mogul,
co-starring with Laurence Olivier, in the Harold Robbins drama The Betsy.
In 1980, Jones earned his first Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of country singer
Loretta Lynn's husband, Doolittle "Mooney" Lynn, in the popular Coal Miner's Daughter.
In 1981 he played a drifter opposite Sally Field in Back Roads, a comedy that received
middling reviews. 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. That same year he starred in a pirate adventure, Nate and Hayes, playing
the heavily-bearded pirate Captain Bully Hayes. In 1989, he earned another Emmy nomination
for his portrayal of Texas Ranger lawman Woodrow F. Call in the acclaimed television mini-series
Lonesome Dove, based on the best-seller by Larry McMurtry.
In the 1990s, blockbuster hits such as The Fugitive co-starring Harrison Ford, Batman
Forever co-starring Val Kilmer, and Men in Black with Will Smith made Jones one of the
best-paid and most in-demand actors in Hollywood. His performance in The Fugitive received broad
acclaim and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a sequel. When he accepted his Oscar,
his head was shaved for his role in the film Cobb, which he made light of in his speech:
"The only thing a man can say at a time like this is 'I am not really bald'. Actually I'm
lucky to be working". Among his other well-known performances during
the 1990s were those of the accused conspirator Clay Shaw/Clay Bertrand in the 1991 film JFK,
as a terrorist who hijacks a U.S. Navy battleship in Under Siege and as a maximum-security prison
warden who's in way over his head in Natural Born Killers.
Jones co-starred with director Clint Eastwood as astronauts in the 2000 film Space Cowboys,
in which both played retired pilots and friends/rivals leading a space rescue mission together.
In 2005, the first theatrical feature film Jones directed, The Three Burials of Melquiades
Estrada, was presented at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. Jones's character speaks both
English and Spanish in the film. His performance won him the Best Actor Award. His first film
as a director had been The Good Old Boys in 1995, a made-for-television movie.
Two strong performances in 2007 marked a resurgence in Jones's career, one as a beleaguered father
investigating the disappearance of his soldier son in In the Valley of Elah, the other as
a Texas sheriff hunting an assassin in the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men. For
the former, he was nominated for an Academy Award.
Jones has been a spokesperson for Japanese brewing company Suntory since 2006. He can
be seen in various Japanese TV commercials of Suntory's Coffee brand Boss as a character
called "Alien Jones," an extraterrestrial who takes the form of a human being to check
on the world of humans. There are 34 such commercials, many of which can be seen on
YouTube. In 2010, Jones appeared alongside Ben Affleck
in the recession drama The Company Men. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival,
where early reviews praised Jones's performance as "pitch-perfect." Jones had a role in the
Marvel Studios film, Captain America: The First Avenger. He also directed, produced
and co-starred with Samuel L. Jackson in an adaptation of The Sunset Limited.
2012 saw yet another turning point in Jones's career, starting in a reprisal of his role
as Agent K in Men in Black 3, the romantic dramedy Hope Springs, and co-starring as Thaddeus
Stevens in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln. Jones's performance in Lincoln received wide critical
acclaim, with many reviewers claiming that he stole the film from star Daniel Day-Lewis.
For this performance, Jones received his fourth Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor.
Personal life At the 2000 Democratic National Convention,
he presented the nominating speech for his college roommate, Al Gore, as the Democratic
Party's nominee for President of the United States.
Jones was married to Kate Lardner, the daughter of screenwriter and journalist Ring Lardner
Jr., from 1971 to 1978. He has two children from his second marriage to Kimberlea Cloughley,
the daughter of Phil Hardberger, former mayor of San Antonio: Austin Leonard and Victoria
Kafka. On March 19, 2001, he married his third wife, Dawn Laurel.
Jones resides in Terrell Hills, Texas, a suburb of San Antonio, and speaks fluent Spanish.
He owns a 3000 acre cattle ranch in San Saba County, Texas and a ranch near Van Horn, Texas,
which served as the set for his film The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. He also owns
a home and farm in polo mecca Wellington, Florida. Jones is a serious polo player and
he has a house in a polo country club in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a supporter
of the Polo Training Foundation. He is an avid San Antonio Spurs fan; he is often seen
courtside at Spurs games. In 2008, Jones signed on with Chesapeake Energy
to be a spokesperson for a public relations campaign to promote shale gas in Texas.
Filmography Film
Television Awards and nominations
Coal Miner's Daughter Nominated
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
The Executioner's Song Won
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor - Miniseries or a Movie
Lonesome Dove Nominated
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor - Miniseries or a Movie
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Series, Miniseries or Television Film
JFK Nominated
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting
Role
The Fugitive Won
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor
– Motion Picture MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo
Nominated BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting
Role
Blown Away Nominated
MTV Movie Awards for Best Villain
The Good Old Boys Nominated
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries
or Television Movie
Batman Forever Nominated
MTV Movie Awards for Best Villain
Men in Black Nominated
Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
MTV Movie Awards Best On-Screen Duo
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada Won
Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
A Prairie Home Companion Won
Gotham Awards for Best Ensemble Cast
No Country for Old Men Won
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Nominated BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting
Role Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding
Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
In the Valley of Elah Nominated
Academy Award for Best Actor Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture
Drama
The Company Men Nominated
Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Captain America: The First Avenger Nominated
Scream Award for Best Supporting Actor
Lincoln Won
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting
Role
Nominated Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
References
Further reading Grunert, Andrea, "Les bons et les méchants
selon Tommy Lee Jones", in: Francis Bordat et Serge Chauvin Les bons et les méchants
Université Paris X, 2005, p. 339–352, ISBN 2-907335-30-8
External links Tommy Lee Jones at the Internet Movie Database
Tommy Lee Jones at the Internet Broadway Database Tommy Lee Jones at the Internet Off-Broadway
Database Tommy Lee Jones at the TCM Movie Database
Tommy Lee Jones at AllMovie