Jennifer Jones
From Oscar-winning star to mental-health advocate.
Phylis Lee Isley, known professionally as Jennifer Jones, was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on March 2, 1919, to parents who were aspiring stage actors.[1][2] She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1944 for her third screen role in The Song of Bernadette.[3]
Quick Facts
- Birth name
- Phylis Lee Isley
- Born
- 2 March 1919
- Birthplace
- Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.
- Died
- 17 December 2009
- Place of death
- Malibu, California, U.S.
- Resting place
- Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California, U.S.
- Years active
- 1939–1974
- Known for
- The Song of Bernadette
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
Jones accompanied her parents' traveling tent show and performed on occasion as part of the Isley Stock Company.[2] She enrolled at Edgemere Public School in Oklahoma City in 1925, then attended Monte Cassino, a Catholic girls school in Tulsa.[4] After graduating, she studied drama at Northwestern University and later transferred to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in September 1937.[4] There she met fellow acting student Robert Walker, and they married on January 2, 1939.[4]
Under her maiden name Phylis Isley, she played ingenues in the Republic Pictures western New Frontier and the serial Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939).[1] She began an affair with Selznick while rising to prominence for The Song of Bernadette, separated from Walker in November 1943, and formally divorced him in June 1945.[5] She married her third husband, multimillionaire Norton Simon, on May 29, 1971.[3] After not passing a Paramount Pictures screen test, she went back to New York City and had a part-time job modeling hats for the Powers Agency.[2][3]
On July 13, 1949, Jones wed Selznick while at sea; following his 1965 death, she largely withdrew from acting.[6][2]
What the cited sources add
The same source states that her acting career began when she reached ten, spending summers trouping with her parents' show.[7] The same encyclopedia also notes that Jones wed Selznick in 1949 and then stepped back from her career.[8]
References
- Wikipedia, "Jennifer Jones" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Green 2011, p. 7; Green 2011, p. 7; Green 2011, p. 7 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Jennifer Jones" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Green 2011, p. 7 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Jennifer Jones" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Green 2011, p. 7; Green 2011, p. 7 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Jennifer Jones" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Green 2011, p. 7; Green 2011, p. 7; "Jennifer Jones", jenniferjonestribute.weebly.com; "Jones, Jennifer (1919–2009)", okhistory.org; Green 2011, p. 7; Green 2011, p. 7 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Jennifer Jones" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Watters, "Lost L.A.: Time for tea — and spin control: When Jennifer Jones' affair with David Selznick sank their marriages, the actress played tea party for a magazine spread", Los Angeles Times, October 2, 2010; Green 2011, p. 7; Green 2011, p. 7 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Jennifer Jones" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Green 2011, p. 7; Green 2011, p. 7; Green 2011, p. 7; Crowther, Bosley, "'We Were Strangers,' Starring Jennifer Jones and Garfield, Is New Feature at Astor", The New York Times, April 28, 1949; Green 2011, p. 7; "Madame Bovary", Variety, December 31, 1948; Green 2011, p. 7 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- "Jennifer Jones", jenniferjonestribute.weebly.com. facts only, no text reused. jenniferjonestribute.weebly.com
- "Jones, Jennifer (1919–2009)", okhistory.org. facts only, no text reused. okhistory.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Jennifer Jones (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
More in Writers & Journalists
Elsewhere in Historical Figures
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced
