Oscar Profile #114: Tommy Lee Jones

Born September 15, 1946 in San Saba, Texas to an oil-field worker and his wife, who had been a police officer, school teacher and later beauty shop owner, Tommy Lee Jones is a colorful award-winning actor. Although mostly of Welch descent, one of his grandmothers was of Cherokee ancestry a fact heonce used to refer to himself as “a poor Indian boy”..

Raised in Midland, Texas, he won a needs based scholarship to Harvard where he became roommates with future U.S. Vice President Al Gore. He played on Harvard’s undefeated 1968 football team and later recounted his experiences in the documentary Harvard Beats Yale 29-29.

Jones moved to New York to become an actor in 1969 where he immediately began to recive roles in Broadway productions. He made his film debut playing a Harvard law student in 1970’s Love Story, a film for which fellow Harvard student, writer Erich Segal, has said the main character is based on a composite of Jones and Gore.

Between 1971 and 1975 he alternated supporting roles on Broadway with his recurring role in the TV soap opera One Life to Live. Alternating between films and TV work in the late 1970s, his breakout performance was in the title role of the 1977 TV movie, The Amazing Howard Hughes.

Jones received his first Golden Globe nomination as Sissy Spacek’s husband in 1980’s Coal Miner’s Daughter. He won an Emmy playing convicted murderer Gary Gilmore in 1982’s The Executioner’s Song and received another Emmy nomination for 1989’s Lonesome Dove from the acclaimed novel by Larry McMurtry.

He did some of his best work in the 1990s, receiving an Oscar nominations for 1991’s JFK, an Oscar for 1993’s The Fugitive and box office glory with 1997’s Men in Black. He also appeared opposite Jessica Lange in her Oscar winning role in 1994’s Blue Sky and played Harvey Dent in 1995’s Batman Forever opposite Val Kilmer.

In the first decade of the 21st Century he made an acclaimed directorial debut with 2005’s The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, starred in 1997’s Oscar winning No Country for Old Men and received his third Oscar nomination for that same year’s In the Valley of Elah.

Jones has a 3,000 acre ranch outside of San Antonio, Texas, owns a polo country club in Buenos Aires, Argentina and is in involved in many civic causes. It’s a wonder he has time to make movies, but make them he does, starring in no less than four films in 2012 alone. This year’s films include Men in Black 3 again opposite Will Smith; Hope Springs for which he received better notices than his three time Oscar winning co-star, Meryl Streep; the unreleased Emperor in which he plays General Douglas MacArthur and Stephen Spielberg’s Lincoln for which he is again in the Oscar conversation. Tommy Lee Jones is one of the busiest 66 year-olds on the planet.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER (1990), directed by Michal Apted

Sissy Spacek won an Oscar playing country singer Loretta Lynn in her rise from poverty to international success, but Spacek’s performance was not delivered in a vacuum. She had tremendous support from Beverly D’Angelo, a better and truer Patsy Cline than Jessica Lange would be in Sweet Dreams five years later; Leon Helm as her dirt poor but loving father and especially Tommy Lee Jones in a complex portrayal of Dolittle Lynn, Loretta’s loving but straying husband.

JFK (1991), directed by Oliver Stone

Jones and Stone were born on the same day and have had a longstanding personal friendship but have thus far only worked together this once. The screenplay which attempts to give credence to discredited New Orleans DA Jim Garrison’s theory on the plot behind the Kennedy assassination is mostly overheated hogwash, but Stone’s film is a compelling one nonetheless thanks to some superlative acting, the best of which is done by Oscar nominated Jones as wealthy right-wing businessman and conspirator Clay Shaw.

THE FUGITIVE (1993), directed by Andrew Davis

One of the most successful films based on an old TV series, Harrison Ford is in excellent form as innocent man on the run Dr. Richard Kimble. Even better is Jones in his Oscar winning portrayal of his pursuer, Sam Gerard. Jones, as is his wont, wrote much of his own dialogue include the classic response to Ford’s “I’m innocent”. Jones, in perfect dry delivery responds “I don’t care” which is all you need to know to believe Jones’ off-screen persona of being as acerbic as the characters he plays.

IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH (2007), directed by Paul Haggis

Jones received his third Oscar nomination and first and only (to date) nomination in the lead category for his heartbreaking portrayal of a retired military investigator who sets out on his own to uncover the truth of his son’s disappearance following his return from duty in Iraq.

The story is by Mark Boal, the Oscar winning screenwriter of The Hurt Locker and the current Zero Dark Thirty.

LINCOLN (2012), directed by Steven Spielberg

Jones once again finds himself in Oscar conversations for his portrayal of firebrand Senator Thaddeus Stevens in Spielberg’s acclaimed production about the fight for passage of the 13th amendment to abolish slavery, based in part on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals.

He also gave a much different, but well-received performance this year in a completely different role as the aging, tired, somewhat embarrassed husband in the comedy Hope Springs for which may well receive a Golden Globe nomination as well.

Jones’ complex