Background

Ethnicity: Tommy's father, Clyde Jones, was a Welshman. He is also said to be of Cherokee descent.

Tommy Lee Jones was born on September 15, 1946, in San Saba, Texas, United States. He is a son of Clyde C. Jones, an oil field worker, and Lucille Marie (Scott) Jones, a police officer, school teacher and beauty shop owner.

Tommy had a younger brother, born three years after the actor, who died in infancy. Also, he is the first cousin of Boxcar Willie, a famous country singer.

Education

Tommy was reared in Midland, Texas, where he studied at Robert E. Lee High School. In his later years, he left for Dallas and enrolled in the St. Mark's School of Texas, which he attended on a scholarship, finishing the educational establishment in 1965. While at the school, Tommy was also drawn to theatre and appeared in student productions.

Then, Jones studied at Harvard College on a need-based scholarship, graduating cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1969. During his college years, Tommy shared a room in Dunster House with the future vice president of the United States, Al Gore.

While at Harvard, Jones also played on the football team, notably participating in the famed 1968 game between Harvard and Yale, that ended in a tie, and continued to appear in theatre productions on campus and with repertory companies during the summers.

After graduation from Harvard College, Tommy, having proved physically unsuited to professional football, decamped to New York City in pursuit of an acting career.

Career

It was in New York City, that Tommy Lee Jones began appearing in theatre productions and made his film debut in the romantic drama "Love Story" (1970), adapted from the novel by Erich Segal. He performed the role of a doctor in 1971-1975 on the television soap opera "One Life to Live" and appeared in the 1976 pilot episode of the action comedy series "Charlie's Angels".

Having moved to Los Angeles in 1975, Jones continued to search for work in television, notably playing film producer Howard Hughes in "The Amazing Howard Hughes" (1977). He made big-screen appearances in "The Betsy" (1978), an adaptation of novelist Harold Robbins's pulpy auto industry melodrama, in which he played a race-car driver; "Eyes of Laura Mars" (1978), a thriller about a fashion photographer, who experiences prescient visions of murder, in which he featured as the killer; and "Coal Miner's Daughter" (1980), a biographical film about country singer Loretta Lynn, in which he played her husband.

Later, Tommy portrayed the murderer Gary Gilmore in the 1982 television adaptation of Norman Mailer's biographical novel "The Executioner's Song", for which he earned an Emmy Award, for best actor in a limited series or special. He was also acclaimed for his convincing depiction of a former Texas Ranger in the much-watched television miniseries "Lonesome Dove" (1989), adapted from Larry McMurtry's western novel of the same name. Jones then played Clay Shaw, a Louisiana businessman, suspected of conspiring to assassinate the United States President John F. Kennedy, in "JFK" (1991); the role earned him an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. His turn as a deputy United States marshall, pursuing a doctor (played by Harrison Ford), wrongfully accused of murder, in "The Fugitive" (1993), earned Jones an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for best supporting actor.

In 1994's "The Client", film adaptation of John Grisham's legal thriller, Tommy played an ambitious prosecutor. In "Natural Born Killers" (1994) he appeared as a hyperbolically nasty prison warden. Tommy also performed the role of baseball player Ty Cobb in "Cobb" (1994).

Jones deviated from his characteristic flinty inscrutability with his turn as the deranged villain Two-Face in "Batman Forever" (1995) before playing straight man to Will Smith in the alien comedy "Men in Black" (1997) and its sequels, that followed in 2002 and 2012.

At the beginning of the new millenium Jones returned to more typical roles as a parole officer in pursuit of a wrongfully convicted murderer (Ashley Judd) in "Double Jeopardy" (1999) and as a man, attempting to find his kidnapped granddaughter, in the western "The Missing" (2003). Later, Tommy directed and starred in the grim drama "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" (2005), which traces the efforts of a rancher to return the body of a friend to Mexico, following his accidental shooting. Jones later played a weathered Texas sheriff in the Coen brothers' adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men" (2007) and a father, trying to locate his son, an Iraq War veteran, in "In the Valley of Elah" (2007).

It was in 2012, that Tommy again assumed the role of a historical figure, this time as a United States congressman, Thaddeus Stevens, in "Lincoln", Steven Spielberg's biopic about the titular United States president. In addition, Jones co-wrote, directed and starred in "The Homesman" (2014), a western about a pioneer woman (played by Hilary Swank) and a claim jumper (Jones), who must shepherd three mentally unstable women from the Nebraska Territory to Iowa in the late 19th century. He later played a doctor, who transfers the consciousness of a dead CIA agent to the brain of a death-row inmate in the thriller "Criminal" (2016).

Tommy joined the cast of "Jason Bourne" (2016), an installment of the action franchise, starring Matt Damon as the titular rogue agent, as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The next year, he turned to comedy in "Just Getting Started", in which he played an ex-FBI agent, who teams up with his rival at a retirement community to save the woman of both their affections from her kidnappers. Jones played a veteran journalist, covering the impending invasion of Iraq in "Shock and Awe" (2017). He later appeared as the missing father of an astronaut (played by Brad Pitt) in the futuristic drama "Ad Astra" (2019).

Currently, Jones resides in Terrell Hills, Texas.

Achievements

• Tommy Lee Jones is a notable American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his roles in "Men in Black", "The Fugitive", "No Country for Old Men" and "Lincoln". His other notable starring roles include Texas Ranger Woodrow F. Call in the TV miniseries "Lonesome Dove", the villain Two-Face in "Batman Forever", terrorist William "Bill" Strannix in "Under Siege", Texas Ranger Roland Sharp in "Man of the House", rancher Pete Perkins in "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada", which he also directed, Colonel Chester Phillips in "Captain America: The First Avenger", CIA Director Robert Dewey in "Jason Bourne" and Warden Dwight McClusky in "Natural Born Killers".
  
  During his career, Tommy obtained a number of prestigious, including the Academy Award, the Golden Globe Award, the Primetime Emmy Award, the Cannes Film Festival Award, the Jupiter Award, the MTV Movie + TV Award, the Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award, the Screen Actors Guild Award and others. Besides, he was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame with one star on November 30, 1994.
  
  Besides, the actor received many nominations for different awards, including the Academy Award, the Golden Globe Award, the Primetime Emmy Award, the BAFTA Award, the Awards Circuit Community Award, the Blockbuster Entertainment Award, the CableACE Award, the Gotham Award, among many others.

Works

More photos

• movie

  • The Homesman

    (Three women, who have been driven mad by pioneer life, ar...)

    2014
  • Batman Forever

    (Batman must battle former district attorney Harvey Dent, ...)

    1995
  • Lincoln

    (As the American Civil War continues to rage, America's pr...)

    2012
  • Gotham

    (Down-and-out New York detective Eddie Mallard (Jones) fin...)

    1988
  • Ad Astra

    (Astronaut Roy McBride undertakes a mission across an unfo...)

    2019
  • Criminal

    (In a last-ditch effort to stop a diabolical plot, a dead ...)

    2016
  • The Company Men

    (The story centers on a year in the life of three men, try...)

    2010
  • Space Cowboys

    (When retired engineer Frank Corvin (Clint Eastwood) is ca...)

    2000
  • In the Valley of Elah

    (A retired military investigator works with a police detec...)

    2007
  • The Client

    (A young boy, who witnessed the suicide of a mafia lawyer,...)

    1994
  • Nate And Hayes

    (A swashbuckling adventure, which takes place in the mid-1...)

    1983
  • Emperor

    (As the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II, Gen...)

    2012
  • No Country For Old Men

    (Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a ...)

    2007
  • The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada

    (Ranch foreman Pete Perkins looks to fulfill the promise t...)

    2005
  • Hope Springs

    (After thirty years of marriage, a middle-aged couple atte...)

    2012
  • House of Cards

    (A widow tries to find out why her daughter's strange beha...)

    1993
  • Rolling Thunder

    (A returning war veteran loses his family to a violent hom...)

    1977
  • Cobb

    (A reporter, hired to write the "official" biography of Ty...)

    1994
  • Captain America: The First Avenger

    (Steve Rogers, a rejected military soldier, transforms int...)

    2011
  • JFK

    (New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison discovers ther...)

    1991
  • Love Story

    (A boy and a girl from different backgrounds fall in love ...)

    1970
  • Men In Black

    (A police officer joins a secret organization, that police...)

    1997
  • Men In Black II

    (Agent J is sent to find Agent K and restore his memory af...)

    2002
  • The Eyes Of Laura Mars

    (A famous fashion photographer develops a disturbing abili...)

    1978
  • The Executioner's Song

    (The story of Gary Gilmore, a convicted murderer, who lobb...)

    1982
  • Man Of The House

    (A Texas Ranger must protect a group of cheerleaders, who ...)

    2005
  • Just Getting Started

    (A two-hander action comedy in the vein of "Midnight Run" ...)

    2017
  • Men In Black 3

    (Agent J travels in time to M.I.B.'s early days in 1969 to...)

    2012
  • The Fugitive

    (Dr. Richard Kimble, unjustly accused of murdering his wif...)

    1993

Religion

Jones, well-known for giving reporters a hard time during interviews, has not been forthcoming with his religious views. Many claim he is Jewish, but he attended a non-denominational Christian high school, a prestigious one, for which he earned a scholarship to attend. And he wrote his senior thesis at Harvard on the "Mechanics of Catholicism" in the works of Flannery O'Connor - the Southern American poet. So, Jewish seems sort of out of the question.

Tommy once said: "I'm a believer in belief. Faith is something, that works - it causes people to do things, it has results. It's an intangible, indefinable, very real thing. And it moves people, sometimes to atrocity. And sometimes to survival."

Politics

Jones is a Democrat, though he's flown in the face of the Democratic platform, when it comes to the environment. At the 2000 Democratic National Convention, Tommy gave the nominating speech for Al Gore, his roommate during his time at Harvard, as the Democratic Party's nominee for President of the United States.

Views

Quotations: "Let me explain something you already know. I'm from Texas and we understand the nature of a border. From what I've seen, vigilant Texans are being ordered to stand down and allow criminals to pass. Mr. President, prepare to see Texans ignoring those orders."

"Kindness and politeness are not overrated at all. They're underused."

"What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area."

"I always told my children, when they whined... Only the boring are bored."

"I don't see people as groups, I see them as individuals."

"All my life I've had the privilege to make my living with my imagination, and the most important thing has been to see my creative life grow. I was educated to do that and have lived accordingly."

"I think, that no matter how much you don't like yourself or the drama of your life you can still find some comedy in it."

"Characters with no integrity are just as interesting as characters with lots of integrity."

"I don't get it. If you're saying, Tommy Lee, you don't fit the image of the East Coast, social elitist wealthy people, who comprise Harvard, the only thing I can say is you have no idea what comprises Harvard."

"No director wants to be directed, but no good director... would shy away from the good ideas of others."

"I like everything Meryl does. I like watching her come to work... I don't care... I like everything about her. I like watching her drink coffee. I don't care what she does... She can do no wrong in my eyes."

"Age will flatten a man."

"The most important question in American cinema, I've learned, is "When is lunch?""

"Human beings are glorious and preposterous characters."

"Normal people with normal problems can be hilarious."

Personality

Tommy has a good command of Spanish, which he used to good effect in "Men in Black".

Being a polo player, Jones owns a house in a polo country club in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and is a supporter of the Polo Training Foundation. Besides, he is a big fan of San Antonio Spurs, an American professional basketball team.

Besides acting and directing, Jones owned and helped to operate several cattle and horse ranches during his lifetime. He owns a 3,000-acre (1,200 ha) 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". Tommy also owns a home and farm in Wellington, Florida

Physical Characteristics: Tommy's height is about 1.85 m and his weight is approximately 91 kg.

Interests

• Sport & Clubs

  polo

Connections

During the period from 1971 to 1978, Tommy was married to Kate Lardner, an actress and stepdaughter of screenwriter and journalist Ring Lardner Jr. In 1981, he married Kimberlea Cloughley, a photographer and daughter of Phil Hardberger, former mayor of San Antonio. Their marriage produced two children - Austin Leonard and Victoria Kafka. In 1996, Tommy and Kimberlea divorced.

It was on March 19, 2001, that Jones married his third wife - Dawn Laurel, a photographer.

Father:

Clyde C. Jones

Clyde C. Jones was an oil field worker.

Mother:

Lucille Marie (Scott) Jones

Lucille Marie (Scott) Jones is a former police officer, school teacher and beauty shop owner.

child:

Victoria Kafka Jones

Victoria Kafka Jones is an American actress.

child:

Austin Leonard Jones

Austin Leonard Jones is an American actor.

first cousin:

Boxcar Willie

Boxcar Willie was an American country music singer, songwriter and Air Force personnel sergeant, who sang in the "old-time hobo" music style, complete with dirty face, overalls and a floppy hat.

ex-wife:

Kate Lardner

Kate Lardner is an American actress. She is known for her work on "Quincy, M.E." (1976), "Making Mr. Right" (1987) and "The Crutch" (2005).

ex-wife:

Kimberlea Cloughley

Kimberlea Cloughley is an American photographer.

Wife:

Dawn Laurel

Dawn Laurel is an American photographer.

ex-father-in-law:

Ring Lardner Jr.

Ring Lardner Jr. was an American journalist and screenwriter, blacklisted by the Hollywood film studios during the Red Scare of the late 1940's and 1950's.

ex-father-in-law:

Phil Hardberger

Phil Hardberger is an American politician, lawyer and jurist, who served as mayor of San Antonio, Texas, taking office in June, 2005. A Democrat, he was elected on a non-partisan ballot.

Friend:

Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone is an American filmmaker, director and writer.

Friend:

Al Gore

Al Gore is an American politician and environmentalist, who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001.

Friend:

Tom Berenger

Tom Berenger is an American television and motion picture actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Staff Sergeant Bob Barnes in "Platoon" (1986).

References

• The Films of Tommy Lee Jones This work traces the films of Tommy Lee Jones, including roles in "Eyes of Laura Mars", "JFK", "The Fugitive", "The Client" and "Men in Black".
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