Tommy Lee Jones' Main TV Roles Show Character(s) Lonesome Dove Woodrow F. …

Main Movie Roles

BIOGRAPHY:

Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) 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.

Born in San Saba, Texas, the son of Clyde C. and Lucille Marie (Scott) Jones, Tommy Lee Jones worked in underwater construction and on an oil rig. He attended St. Mark's School of Texas, a prestigious prep school for boys in Dallas, on a scholarship, and went to Harvard on another scholarship. He roomed with future Vice President 'Al Gore' and played offensive guard in the famous 29-29 Harvard-Yale football game of '68 known as "The Tie." He received a B.A. in English literature and graduated cum laude from Harvard in 1969.

Following college, he moved to New York and began his theatrical career on Broadway in A Patriot for Me (1969). In 1970, he made his film debut in Love Story (1970). While living in New York, he continued to appear in various plays, both on- and off-Broadway: Fortune and Men's Eyes (1969); Four on a Garden (1971); Blue Boys (1972); Ulysses in Nighttown (1974). During this time, he also appeared on a daytime soap opera, One Life to Live (1968) as Dr. Mark Toland from 1971-75.

There he began to get some roles on television: Charlie's Angels (1976) pilot episode; Smash-Up on Interstate 5 (1976); and The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977). While working on the movie Back Roads (1981), he met and fell in love with Kimberlea Cloughley, whom he later married.

More roles in television--both on network and cable--stage and film garnered him a reputation as a strong, explosive, thoughtful actor who could handle supporting as well as leading roles. He made his directorial debut in The Good Old Boys (1995) on TNT. In addition to directing and starring in the film, he co-wrote the teleplay with J.T. Allen. The film, based on Elmer Kelton novel, is set in west Texas where Jones has strong family ties. Consequently, this story of a cowboy facing the end of an era has special meaning for him.

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, and Colonel Chester Phillips in Captain America: The First Avenger. 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.

Jones was married to Kate Lardner, the daughter of screenwriter and journalist Ring Lardner Jr., from (1971 to 1978).

Jones has two children from his second marriage to Kimberlea Cloughley, the daughter of Phil Hardberger, former mayor of San Antonio: Austin Leonard (b. 1982) and Victoria Kafka (b. 1991). On March 19, 2001, he married his third wife, Dawn Laurel.


TRIVIA:

• Good friends with: 'Al Gore (I)' (qv), 'Willie Nelson' (qv), 'Gary Busey' (qv), 'Oliver Stone (I)' (qv) and 'Robert Duvall' (qv).
• Born on the exact same day as filmmaker and good friend 'Oliver Stone (I)' (qv).
• His ex-wife, 'Kate Lardner (I)' (qv), is 'Ring Lardner' (qv)'s granddaughter.
• Real-life son, 'Austin Leonard Jones' (qv), played his son, Tommy, in _Yuri Nosenko, KGB (1986) (TV)_ (qv).
• Is an avid polo player. He even bought a house in a Polo Country club in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• Is the only Texan to have played fellow Texan 'Howard Hughes (I)' (qv). 'Leonardo DiCaprio' (qv) (The Aviator), 'Jason Robards' (qv) (_Melvin and Howard (1980)_ (qv)) and 'Terry O'Quinn' (qv) (_The Rocketeer (1991)_ (qv)) were born in California, Illinois, and Michigan, respectively.
• An animated caricature of him appeared in an episode of the animated series adaptation of _Men in Black (1997)_ (qv) alongside an animated caricature of his MIB co-star 'Will Smith (I)' (qv), set against a scene parodying another hit film starring Smith, _Independence Day (1996)_ (qv).
• Owns the movie rights to 'Cormac McCarthy' (qv)'s controversial novel "Blood Meridian," which many consider unfilmable.