Tommy Lee Jones, the American actor best known for playing gruff, weathered characters in films such as "The Fugitive" and "No Country for Old Men," turns 80 on September 15. He is not expected to celebrate the milestone, after learning on New Year's Day this year that his daughter Victoria had died suddenly.
Victoria Jones, a young actress born from Tommy Lee Jones's second marriage, had struggled for years with serious drug problems. She died in a luxury hotel in San Francisco from a cocaine overdose.
Though he seemed destined for character parts and dark roles, given a face etched early with wrinkles that drew comparisons to another famous screen tough guy, Charles Bronson, Jones broke free of typecasting. He built a career on undeniable talent, disciplined technique and a realistic approach to acting, while also working extensively in theatre.
It took years for him to become widely known. His breakthrough came in the early 1990s, when Oliver Stone cast him in "JFK," earning him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He followed it with Andrew Davis's blockbuster thriller "The Fugitive," opposite Harrison Ford, which won him the Oscar.
From there his career shifted toward bigger, leading roles, and he proved himself an accomplished director as well as an actor.
Texas, Harvard and Al Gore
Jones was born on September 15, 1946, in San Saba, Texas, to a mother who worked as a police officer and teacher and a father who was a cowboy and oilfield worker. Of Cherokee descent, he grew up in Midland, Texas, before the family moved to Dallas, where he attended St. Mark's School. He won a scholarship to Harvard University, where he studied English Literature.
At Harvard, Jones was a classmate and roommate of Al Gore, who later became US Vice President and whom Jones supported during Gore's 2000 presidential campaign. He also played on Harvard's undefeated football team in 1968, a year before graduating with honors.
From Broadway to Faye Dunaway
In 1969, Jones moved to New York to pursue acting, making his Broadway debut in "A Patriot for Me." In 1970 he landed his first film role in "Love Story," playing, coincidentally, a Harvard student. Two years later he returned to Broadway while also beginning to appear in television series.
He went on to appear in four films, most notably the 1978 thriller "Eyes of Laura Mars" alongside Faye Dunaway. In 1980 he earned his first Golden Globe nomination for playing the husband of country singer Loretta Lynn in the biopic "Coal Miner's Daughter," and in 1981 he starred opposite Sally Field in the comedy "Back Roads."
'The Fugitive' and the Oscar
Wider recognition finally arrived in the 1990s, first with "JFK" and then with "The Fugitive," in which Jones played a tough, relentless federal marshal chasing Harrison Ford's character. The performance impressed the film's star and won Jones the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, along with a BAFTA nomination.
'Men in Black'
His success was significant enough that in 1998 he reprised the tough-lawman role in the sequel "U.S. Marshals," this time as the undisputed lead, co-starring Wesley Snipes. Offers poured in. In 1997 he scored another major commercial hit in Barry Sonnenfeld's comic fantasy adventure "Men in Black," alongside Will Smith.
He also joined the strong ensemble cast of Clint Eastwood's "Space Cowboys," with Donald Sutherland and James Garner alongside Eastwood himself, and in 2003 delivered another acclaimed performance in William Friedkin's thriller "The Hunted," co-starring Benicio del Toro.
From Texas to Cannes
Having already directed two television films, Jones took the leap into feature directing in 2005 with "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada," a neo-western drama in which he also starred, winning the acting prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The film follows an interior, existential journey carrying social and political themes, set symbolically along the US-Mexico border, exploring classic western ideas of loyalty, friendship and morality with modernist touches, and using the harsh Texas landscape, a place Jones loves, almost as a co-star.
Working at a relentless pace
Jones continued to take on films at a rapid clip, many of them commercial and some of little consequence. But in 2007 he appeared in the Coen brothers' acclaimed thriller "No Country for Old Men," playing an old-fashioned sheriff pursuing a serial killer played by Javier Bardem, and the same year starred in Paul Haggis's "In the Valley of Elah" as a Vietnam veteran investigating the brutal killing of his soldier son.
A woman's view of the Wild West
In 2014, Jones returned to the director's chair for the western "The Homesman," also taking the lead role of an aging drifter and cavalry deserter forced to cross dangerous, wild territory while escorting a spinster played by Hilary Swank. Approaching the classic western through a female perspective with an original, realistic and unconventional style, Jones worked closely on his characters' tragicomic contradictions to deliver a notable, stylish and mature film. It was nominated for the Palme d'Or and won several awards.
A tragic role
Jones, who has been married three times, has another child, Austin, in addition to his late daughter Victoria. He remains active and selective in his work, dividing his time between a large cattle ranch in Texas and his home in San Antonio, and is a devoted follower of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team.
A major actor who has spent decades at the center of the entertainment industry, Jones no longer has anything to prove on screen or stage. He has instead had to take on the far harder role of a father living with an unspeakable loss.
