Jennifer Jones

Actresses

Jennifer Jones (born Phylis Lee Isley; March 2, 1919 – December 17, 2009), also known as Jennifer Jones Simon, was an American actress and mental health advocate. She made her film debut (under her given name) in George Sherman’s New Frontier (1939), with John Wayne, Ray “Crash” Corrigan, and Raymond Hatton. She also appeared in the 15 part serial Dick Tracy’s G-Men (1939), with Ralph Byrd, Irving Pichel, Ted Pearson, Walter Miller, and George Douglas.

Jones won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Henry King’s The Song of Bernadette (1943), with William Eythe, Charles Bickford, Vincent Price, Lee J. Cobb, and Gladys Cooper. She would be nominated 3 more times in the Best Actress category for William Dieterle’s Love Letters (1945), with Joseph Cotten, Ann Richards, Cecil Kellaway, Gladys Cooper and Anita Louise; King Vidor’s Duel in the Sun (1946), with Cotten, Gregory Peck, Lillian Gish, and Lionel Barrymore, and Walter Huston; and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), with William Holden. She was also nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for John Cromwell’s Since You Went Away (1944), with Claudette Colbert, Cotten, Shirley Temple, Monty Woolley, Barrymore, Robert Walker, and Guy Madison.

Other notable films of the 1940s include Ernst Lubitsch’s Cluny Brown (1946), with Charles Broyer, Peter Lawford, Helen Walker, Reginald Gardiner, and Reginald Owen; Portrait of Jennie (1948), with Cotten Ethel Barrymore, Gish, and Cecil Kellaway; John Huston’s We Were Strangers (1949), with John Garfield; and Vincente Minnelli’s Madame Bovary (1949), with James Mason, Van Heflin, Louis Jourdan, Alf Kjellin, Gene Lockhart, Frank Allenby, and Cooper.

Films in the early 1950s include Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger’s Gone to Earth (1950), with David Farrar, Cyril Cusack, and Esmond Knight; William Wyler’s Carrie (1952), with Laurence Olivier, Miriam Hopkins, and Eddie Albert; Ruby Gentry (1952), with Charlton Heston and Karl Malden; Vittorio De Sica’s Terminal Station (1953), with Montgomery Clift and Richard Beymer; and Beat the Devil (1953), with Humphrey Bogart, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, and Peter Lorre.

Films in the mid to late 1950s include Henry Koster’s Good Morning, Miss Dove (1955), with Robert Stack, Kipp Hamilton, Robert Douglas, Peggy Knudsen, Marshall Thompson, Chuck Connors, and Mary Wickes; Nunnally Johnson’s The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956), with Peck, Fredric March, Cobb, Keenan Wynn, and Marisa Pavan; Sidney Franklin’s The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1957), with John Gielgud, Bill Travers, and Virginia McKenna; and Charles Vidor’s A Farewell to Arms (1957), with Rock Hudson, De Sica, Mercedes McCambridge, and Elaine Stritch.

Later film roles included Tender is the Night (1962), with Jason Robards Jr., Joan Fontaine, Tom Ewell, Cesare Danova, Jill St. John, and Paul Lukas; Daniel Petrie’s The Idol (1966), with Michael Parks, Jennifer Hilary, and Guy Doleman; Angel, Angel, Down We Go (1969), with Jordan Christopher and Roddy McDowall; and John Guillermin’s The Towering Inferno (1974), with Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Holden, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, Susan Blakely, Richard Chamberlain, O.J. Simpson, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner, Susan Flannery, Gregory Sierra, and Dabney Coleman.

Each review will be linked to the title below.

(*seen originally in theaters)

(**seen rereleased in theaters)

  • New Frontier (1939) – directed by George Sherman
  • Dick Tracey’s G-Men (1939) – directed by William Witney & John English – 15 part serial
  • The Song of Bernadette (1943) – directed by Henry King
  • Since You Went Away (1944) – directed by John Cromwell
  • The Fighting Generation (1944) – directed by Alfred Hitchcock – WWII propaganda short
  • Love Letters (1945) – directed by William Dieterle
  • Cluny Brown (1946) – directed by Ernst Lubitsch
  • Duel in the Sun (1946) – directed by King Vidor – uncredited directing by Josef von Sternberg, William Dieterle, William Cameron Menzies, Otto Brower, Sidney Franklin, & David O. Selznick
  • Portrait of Jennie (1948) – directed by William Dieterle
  • We Were Strangers (1949) – directed by John Huston
  • Madame Bovary (1949) – directed by Vincente Minnelli
  • Gone to Earth (1950) – directed by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
  • Carrie (1952) – directed by William Wyler
  • Ruby Gentry (1952) – directed by King Vidor
  • Terminal Station (1953) – directed by Vittorio De Sica
  • Beat the Devil (1953) – directed by John Huston
  • Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955) – directed by Henry King
  • Good Morning, Miss Dove (1955) – directed by Henry Koster
  • The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956) – directed by Nunnally Johnson
  • The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1957) – directed by Sidney Franklin
  • A Farewell to Arms (1957) – directed by Charles Vidor
  • Tender Is the Night (1962) – directed by Henry King
  • The Idol (1966) – directed by Daniel Petrie
  • Angel, Angel, Down We Go (1969) – directed by Robert Thom
  • The Towering Inferno (1974) – directed by John Guillermin