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Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an Oscar winning American actor and director from San Saba, Texas. Born to George Elmer Jones and Bessie Lele Whiteaker, he is of Welsh and 1/4 Cherokee Native American ancestry.
A graduate of the St. Mark's School of Texas, he attended Harvard on a scholarship, where he was a roommate of former Vice President Al Gore and of John Lithgow at Dunster House. Jones played offensive tackle on Harvard's undefeated 1968 varsity football team, was nominated as a first-team All-Ivy League selection, and played in the memorable last minute (literally) Harvard 16 point come-from-behind blitz which defeated Yale in the 1968 Game. Jones graduated cum laude with a degree in English in 1969.
He then moved to New York City to become an actor. He started acting on Broadway and made his debut in Love Story. Between 1971 and 1975, he portrayed Dr. Mark Toland on the ABC soap opera, One Life to Live, and then he played the role of an escaped convict who was hunted down by the police in Jackson County Jail (1976).
In 1983 he received an Emmy for Best Actor for his performance as murderer Gary Gilmore in a TV adaptation of Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song.
In the 1990s, movies such as The Fugitive costarring Harrison Ford and Men in Black with Will Smith brought him tens of millions of dollars and made him one of the top actors of Hollywood.
His role in The Fugitive won him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
At the 2000 Democratic National Convention he nominated his college roommate, Al Gore, as the Democratic party's nominee for President of the United States.
On March 19, 2001, he married Dawn Laurel (his third marriage).
In 2005, he released his first feature-film The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, that was presented at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. It won him the Best Actor Award. |
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