Simon Jones is an English actor, who appeared in the television and radio
series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which he played the lead role
of Arthur Dent. Its author Douglas Adams later said that he wrote the part of
Dent with Jones in mind. Jones also featured in the 2005 film The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in a cameo role.
Life and career Jones appeared in various TV series,
including Brideshead Revisited, and the second series of Blackadder. His films
have included Club Paradise, Privates on Parade, Miracle on 34th Street and The
Devil's Own. Jones studied at King's College, Taunton
before he studied at Cambridge University where he was a member of the
Footlights and met Douglas Adams. This led to Jones being cast in Out of the
Trees and later The Hitchhiker's Guide and the film Monty Python's The Meaning
of Life. In The Meaning of Life Jones had a minor role as one of the guests at
the dinner party. He has also appeared in some of the solo film projects of the
members of Monty Python: American Friends, Brazil and 12 Monkeys.
Jones has appeared in several Broadway plays, including The Real Thing, as Max,
Benefactors, as Colin, Getting Married, as Reginald Bridgenorth, Private Lives,
as Elyot Chase, The Real Inspector Hound, as Moon, and The Fifteen Minute
Hamlet, as Hamlet, which played together in, The School for Scandal, as Joseph
Surface, Ring Round the Moon, as Romainville and Waiting in the Wings, as
Perry Lascoe. In 2009 he appeared in Blithe Spirit, as Dr. Bradman, with
Angela Lansbury and Rupert Everett. Off-Broadway he has a long list of
credits, and was nominated for the 1990 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Featured
Actor in a Play for his role in Privates on Parade.
In Regional theatre at the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, Jones starred as
Christopher Gore in the American premier of Brian Friel's The Home Place in late
2007. He returned there in late 2008 to portray C.S. Lewis in Shadowlands.
Jones is also a voice actor and audiobook presenter, with more than 70
titles to his credit. Among them are: The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul for
Simon and Schuster Audioworks for the US market
Star Trek: Cacophony, playing Lt. Commander Stewart Mulligan in an
original "Captain Sulu Adventures" audio programme, again for Simon and Schuster
The Salmon of Doubt, for New Millennium Audio
Douglas Adams at the BBC, for BBC Audio The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan
Stroud: The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem's Eye, Ptolemy's Gate, The Ring of
Solomon A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch
Cullins, which won the Audio Publishers Association's 2006 Audie Award for
Unabridged Fiction. And Another Thing..., the sixth
installment of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, written by Eoin
Colfer. In 2003, he reprised his role as Arthur
Dent in a new radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The
same year he was involved in the filming of the movie version of the first novel,
making a brief cameo appearance in the role of the holographic Magrathean
answering machine/automated defence system.
He was heard in 2009 as master detective Sexton Blake on BBC Radio 2 in the
six-part series, The Adventures of Sexton Blake!.
In addition to his work as an actor, Jones is also a co-artistic director at
New York Off-Broadway company The Actors Company Theatre, where he played the
role of Jack in the play Home by David Storey.
On 25 November 2009, Jones met his cousin Daniel Craig after Craig's
performance on Broadway in A Steady Rain for the first time. Daniel Craig is the
grandson of Jones's aunt. Jones and his son Tim were hit by a car
on 8 October 2010; though they suffered only bruises, he had to withdraw from
the Actors Company Theater's production of Václav Havel’s Memorandum.
He recovered enough to join in the Irish Repertory Theatre's production of "A
Child's Christmas in Wales", a concert version of the Dylan Thomas work. This
ran from 8 December 2009 – 2 January 2010.
2011 took him to Hartford, CT—the Hartford Stage Theatre—where he played
'Piero Soderini' in "Divine Rivalry"—a new play by Michael Kramer, directed by
Michael Wilson, and produced by the Shubert Organization. Jones had played
this part in several previous readings of the play, and was delighted to
finally be in a real, full production. Later in the year, he was in a new
musical version of "Death Takes a Holiday", with book by Tom Meehan and
Peter Stone, with music by Maury Yeston. It ran in New York City, at the
Roundabout's Laura Pels Theatre, from 7 July to 4 September. A CD was released
shortly afterwards. From there Jones returned to London
where he attended the opening night of "No Naughty Bits", at the Hampstead
Theatre on 13 September. The play, by Steve Thompson, was the story of Jones's
wife, Nancy Lewis, and the Monty Python team's lawsuit against ABC-TV in
America. 2012 found Jones back in Minneapolis,
where he played 'David Bliss', husband of Harriet Harris in "Hay Fever" at the
Guthrie Theatre. Director this time was from London—friend Chris Luscombe. After
that Jones returned to New York where he appeared, with Megan Hilty starring in
"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" at the City Center's ENCORES! concert series, which
also resulted in another CD. Selected filmography
Sir Henry at Rawlinson End Reds
Giro City Privates on Parade
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life Brazil
Club Paradise Green Card
American Friends Miracle on 34th Street
12 Monkeys The Devil's Own
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Griffin & Phoenix
References External links
Official website Simon Jones at the Internet Movie
Database Simon Jones at the Internet Broadway
Database Simon Jones at Internet Off-Broadway
Database BBC - Radio 4 - The Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy - Simon Jones Simon Jones interview at TVParty.com
[1]