HAPPY BIRTHDAY TODAY: Tommy Lee Jones. (Not to be confused with Tommy Lee). Born 15 September 1946 has now ripened to the youthful age of just 80 years. (Biog detail below) Actor/Director: and Four Times Nominee. As well as many other Movies, Tommy may be better known to us as Agent K in the Men in Black Films or as Lt Gerard In the Fugitive and U.S Marshals Movies as well as Batman Forever As 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. BIOG: His 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, Colonel Chester Phillips in Captain America: The First Avenger and Warden Dwight McClusky in Natural Born Killers. 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 Miners Daughter, and baseball great Ty Cobb. Early Life Jones was born on September 15, 1946 in San Saba, Texas. His mother, Lucille Marie (née Scott), was a police officer, school teacher, and beauty shop owner, and his father, Clyde C. Jones, was an oil field worker. The two were married and divorced twice. Jones has stated that his grandmother was of Cherokee ancestry. He was raised in Midland, Texas and attended Robert E. Lee High School. He graduated from the St. Marks School of Texas, which he attended on scholarship; he now serves on the board of directors. He attended Harvard College on a need-based scholarship. He stayed in Mower B-12 as a freshman, across the hall from future Vice President Al Gore, the son of Senator Albert Gore, Sr. of Tennessee. As an upperclassman, he stayed in Dunster House with roommates Gore and Bob Somerby, who later became editor of the media criticism site the Daily Howler. Jones played offensive guard on Harvards undefeated 1968 varsity football team, was nominated as a first-team All-Ivy League selection, and played in the 1968 Game, which featured a memorable and literally last-minute Harvard 16-point comeback to tie Yale. He recounts his memory of the most famous football game in Ivy League history in the documentary Harvard Beats Yale 29-29. Jones graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1969; his senior thesis was on the mechanics of Catholicism in the works of Flannery OConnor. Career Tommy Lee Jones moved to New York to become an actor, making his Broadway debut in 1969s A Patriot for Me in a number of supporting roles. In 1970 he landed his first film role, coincidentally playing a Harvard student in Love Story (Erich Segal, the author of Love Story, said that he based the lead character of Oliver on the two undergraduate roommates he knew while attending Harvard, Jones and Gore). In early 1971, he returned to Broadway in Abe Burrows Four on a Garden where he shared the stage with Carol Channing and Sid Caesar. Between 1971 and 1975 he portrayed Dr. Mark Toland on the ABC soap opera, One Life to Live. He returned to the stage for a 1974 production of Ulysses in Nighttown with Zero Mostel. It was followed by the acclaimed TV movie The Amazing Howard Hughes, where he played the lead role. In films, he played an escaped convict hunted in Jackson County Jail (1976), a Vietnam veteran in Rolling Thunder (1977) and an automobile mogul, co-starring with Laurence Olivier, in the Harold Robbins drama The Betsy. In 1980, Jones earned his first Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of country singer Loretta Lynns husband, Doolittle Mooney Lynn, in the popular Coal Miners Daughter. In 1981 he played a drifter opposite Sally Field in Back Roads, a comedy that received middling reviews. In 1983, he received an Emmy for Best Actor for his performance as murderer Gary Gilmore in a TV adaptation of Norman Mailers The Executioners Song. That same year he starred in a pirate adventure, Nate and Hayes, playing the heavily-bearded pirate Captain Bully Hayes. In 1989, he earned another Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Texas Ranger lawman Woodrow F. Call in the acclaimed television mini-series Lonesome Dove, based on the best-seller by Larry McMurtry. In the 1990s, blockbuster hits such as The Fugitive co-starring Harrison Ford, Batman Forever co-starring Val Kilmer, and Men in Black with Will Smith made Jones one of the best-paid and most in-demand actors in Hollywood. His performance in The Fugitive received broad acclaim and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a sequel. When he accepted his Oscar, his head was shaved for his role in the film Cobb, which he made light of in his speech: The only thing a man can say at a time like this is I am not really bald. Actually Im lucky to be working. Among his other well-known performances during the 1990s were those of the accused conspirator Clay Shaw/Clay Bertrand in the 1991 film JFK (which earned him another Oscar nomination), as a terrorist who hijacks a U.S. Navy battleship in Under Siege and as a maximum-security prison warden whos in way over his head in Natural Born Killers. Jones co-starred with director Clint Eastwood as astronauts in the 2000 film Space Cowboys, in which both played retired pilots and friends/rivals leading a space rescue mission together. In 2005, the first theatrical feature film Jones directed, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, was presented at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. Joness character speaks both English and Spanish in the film. His performance won him the Best Actor Award. His first film as a director had been The Good Old Boys in 1995, a made-for-television movie. Two strong performances in 2007 marked a resurgence in Joness career, one as a beleaguered father investigating the disappearance of his soldier son in In the Valley of Elah, the other as a Texas sheriff hunting an assassin in the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men. For the former, he was nominated for an Academy Award. Jones has been a spokesperson for Japanese brewing company Suntory since 2006. He can be seen in various Japanese TV commercials of Suntorys Coffee brand Boss as a character called Alien Jones, an extraterrestrial who takes the form of a human being to check on the world of humans. There are 34 such commercials, many of which can be seen on YouTube. In 2010, Jones appeared alongside Ben Affleck in the recession drama The Company Men. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where early reviews praised Joness performance as pitch-perfect. Jones had a role in the Marvel Studios film, Captain America: The First Avenger. He also directed, produced and co-starred with Samuel L. Jackson in an adaptation of The Sunset Limited. 2012 saw yet another turning point in Joness career, starting in a reprisal of his role as Agent K in Men in Black 3, the romantic dramedy Hope Springs, and co-starring as Thaddeus Stevens in Steven Spielbergs Lincoln. Joness performance in Lincoln received wide critical acclaim, with many reviewers claiming that he stole the film from star Daniel Day-Lewis. For this performance, Jones received his fourth Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor. Personal Life At the 2000 Democratic National Convention, he presented the nominating speech for his college roommate, Al Gore, as the Democratic Partys nominee for President of the United States. Jones was married to Kate Lardner, the daughter of screenwriter and journalist Ring Lardner Jr., from 1971 to 1978. He has two children from his second marriage to Kimberlea Cloughley, the daughter of Phil Hardberger, former mayor of San Antonio: Austin Leonard (born 1982) and Victoria Kafka (born 1991). On March 19, 2001, he married his third wife, Dawn Laurel. Jones resides in Terrell Hills, Texas, a suburb of San Antonio, and speaks fluent Spanish. He owns a 3000 acre 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. He also owns a home and farm in polo mecca Wellington, Florida. Jones is a serious polo player and he has a house in a polo country club in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a supporter of the Polo Training Foundation. He is an avid San Antonio Spurs fan; he is often seen courtside at Spurs games. In 2008, Jones signed on with Chesapeake Energy to be a spokesperson for a public relations campaign to promote shale gas (natural gas derived from shale rock through hydraulic fracturing or fracking) in Texas. Filmography[edit] Film Year : Title: Role Notes: 1970 Love Story Hank Simpson 1973 Life Study Gus 1975 Elizas Horoscope Tommy Lee 1976 Smash-Up on Interstate 5 Officer Hutton Television movie 1976 Jackson County Jail Coley Blake 1977 The Amazing Howard Hughes Howard Hughes 1977 Rolling Thunder Corporal Johnny Vohden 1978 The Betsy Angelo Perino 1978 Eyes of Laura Mars John Neville 1980 Coal Miners Daughter Doolittle Mooney Lynn Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 1980 Barn Burning Ab Snopes Short film 1981 Back Roads Elmore Pratt 1982 The Executioners Song Gary Mark Gilmore Television movie Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie 1982 The Rainmaker Starbuck Television movie 1983 Nate and Hayes Captain Bully Hayes 1984 The River Rat Billy 1985 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Brick Pollitt Television movie 1985 The Park is Mine Mitch Television movie 1986 Black Moon Rising Quint 1986 Yuri Nosenko: Double Agent Steve Daley Television movie 1987 Broken Vows Pater Joseph McMahon Television movie 1987 The Big Town George Cole 1988 Stranger on My Land Bud Whitman Television movie 1988 April Morning Moses Cooper Television movie 1988 Stormy Monday Cosmo 1988 Gotham Eddie Mallard 1989 The Package Thomas Boyette 1990 Fire Birds Brad Little 1991 JFK Clay Shaw/Clay Bertrand Nominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role 1992 Under Siege William Strannix 1992 House of Cards Jake Beerlander 1993 The Fugitive Marshal Samuel Gerard Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo (shared with Harrison Ford) Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role Nominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated—National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor 1993 Heaven & Earth Steve Gerard Butler 1994 Blown Away Ryan Gaerity Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Villain 1994 The Client Reverend Roy Foltrigg 1994 Natural Born Killers Warden Dwight McClusky 1994 Blue Sky Maj. Henry Hank Marshall 1994 Cobb Ty Cobb Nominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Vijay 1995 The Good Old Boys Hewey Calloway Television movie Also director Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie 1995 Batman Forever Harvey Dent/Two-Face Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Villain 1997 Volcano Mike Roark 1997 Men in Black Kevin Brown/Agent K Nominated—Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actor – Sci-Fi Nominated—MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo (shared with Will Smith) Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 1998 U.S. Marshals Samuel Gerard Nominated—Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Duo – Action/Adventure (shared with Wesley Snipes) 1998 Small Soldiers Chip Hazard Voice 1999 Double Jeopardy Travis Lehman Nominated—Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actor – Suspense 2000 Rules of Engagement Col. Hayes Hodge Hodges 2000 Space Cowboys William Hawk Hawkins 2002 Men in Black II Kevin Brown/Agent K 2003 The Hunted L.T. Bonham 2003 The Missing Samuel Jones 2005 Man of the House Roland Sharp 2005 The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada Pete Perkins Also director Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama 2006 A Prairie Home Companion Axeman Nominated—Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast Nominated—Gotham Award for Best Ensemble Cast 2007 No Country for Old Men Ed Tom Bell National Board of Review Award for Best Cast San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Nominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role Nominated—Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast Nominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role 2007 In the Valley of Elah Hank Deerfield Nominated—Academy Award for Best Actor Nominated—Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama 2009 In the Electric Mist Dave Robicheaux 2010 The Company Men Gene McClary Nominated—Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture 2011 The Sunset Limited White Also director and executive producer 2011 Captain America: The First Avenger Colonel Chester Phillips 2012 Men in Black 3 Kevin Brown/Agent K 2012 Hope Springs Arnold Soames
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 10:09:01 +0000