Good morning/day to all.
"If" is a beautiful song, Letty. I remember "Bread" performing it.
The birthday celebrity will be 87 years old today.
Hey Bob, one less bio for you.
Jennifer Jones was born Phylis Lee Isley in Tulsa, Oklahoma to Phil Isley and Flora Mae Suber, who toured the Midwest in a traveling tent show they owned and operated. Jones attended Monte Cassino Junior College in Tulsa and Northwestern University before transferring to the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York in 1938. There she met and fell in love with fellow acting student Robert Walker and they were married on January 2, 1939 when Jones was 19 years old.
They returned to Tulsa for a 13 week radio program arranged by her father, and then headed for Hollywood. Phylis landed two small roles, first in a John Wayne western titled New Frontier (1939) and later a serial, Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939) but when she and her husband failed a screen test for Paramount Pictures, they decided to return to New York.
Career
While Walker found steady work in radio programs Phylis worked part-time work modeling hats for the Powers Agency and looked for possible acting jobs. When she learned of auditions for the lead role of Claudia in Rose Franken's hit play of the same name, she presented herself to David O. Selznick's New York office, but fled in tears after what she thought was a bad reading. Selznick, however, overheard her audition and was impressed enough to have his secretary call her back. Following an interview, she was signed to a seven year contract.
She was carefully groomed for stardom and given her new name - Jennifer Jones. Director King Vidor was impressed by her screen test as Bernadette Soubirous for The Song of Bernadette and she won the coveted role over hundreds of applicants. Jones was presented with the Best Actress Academy Award (1943) on her 25th birthday in 1944.
Portrait of Jennifer Jones painted by Robert Brackman for the film Portrait of Jennie to represent the painting by Eben Adams (played by Joseph Cotten).Over the next two decades, she appeared in a wide range of roles judiciously selected by Selznick. Her dark beauty and sensitive nature appealed to audiences and she projected a variable range. Her initial saintly image, as shown in her first starring role, was a stark contrast three years later when she was cast as a provocative half-breed in Selznick's controversial Duel in the Sun (1946). Other notable films included Since You Went Away (1944), Cluny Brown (1946), Portrait of Jennie (1948), Madame Bovary (1949), Ruby Gentry (1952), Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing and Good Morning Miss Dove (1955).
The portrait of her for the film Portrait of Jennie was painted by Robert Brackman.
Private life
Jones's first marriage to Robert Walker produced two sons, Robert Walker Jr. and Michael Walker, both of whom became actors. The couple divorced in 1944.
Jones married Selznick in 1949, staying with him until his death in 1965. Following Selznick's death, she semi-retired from acting and appeared in only a few films. Her last appearance was a strong supporting role in The Towering Inferno (1974). Her daughter with Selznick, Mary Jennifer Selznick, committed suicide in 1976. This led to Jones' interest in mental health issues.
She married multi-millionaire industrialist, art collector and philanthropist Norton Simon in 1971, and remained married to him until his death in 1993. She is currently on the board of directors of the Norton Simon Museum in Los Angeles.
Jennifer Jones is a breast cancer survivor. The late actress Susan Strasberg, who died of breast cancer, was married to a fellow actor surnamed Jones, and named her only child, a daughter, Jennifer Jane Jones, after the esteemed older actress.
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Filmography
1939 New Frontier
1939 Dick Tracy's G-Men
1943 The Song of Bernadette
1944 Since You Went Away
1945 Love Letters
1946 Cluny Brown
1946 Duel in the Sun
1948 Portrait of Jennie
1949 We Were Strangers
1949 Madame Bovary
1949 Gone to Earth (released in the U.S. in 1952 in a heavily edited form as The Wild Heart)
1952 Carrie
1952 Ruby Gentry
1953 Beat the Devil
1954 Indiscretion of an American Wife
1955 Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing
1955 Good Morning Miss Dove
1956 The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
1957 The Barretts of Wimpole Street
1957 A Farewell To Arms
1962 Tender is the Night
1965 The Idol
1969 Cult of the Damned
1974 The Towering Inferno
2006 The Last New Yorker in production
