Tommy Lee Jones is an American actor and film director. He has received four Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actor for his performance as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in the 1993 thriller film The Fugitive
Jones was born in San Saba, Texas on September 15, 1946. He was raised in Midland, Texas, and attended the then-named Robert E. Lee High School. His mother was Lucille Marie, and his father was Clyde C. Jones. Lucille was a police officer, school teacher, and beauty shop owner, while Clyde was a cowboy and oil, a field worker. Ironically, Clyde and Lucille got married and divorces twice.
Jones’s off-screen life is equally rich. An eighth-generation Texan, he went to a prestigious Dallas prep school on scholarship but worked in oil fields on breaks with his father.
He went to Harvard, also on scholarship, where he lived with Al Gore and befriended the writer Erich Segal. Jones and Gore were allegedly co-inspirations for the preppie hero of Segal’s novel Love Story; Jones appeared in the 1970 film.
Actor Tommy Lee Jones emerged as one of his generation’s most admired and respected film stars. A start on the daytime soap “One Life to Live” eventually led to leading roles in made-for-television movies like “The Amazing Howard Hughes” and “The Executioner’s Song” that demonstrated his acting prowess.
Jones has often been described as being sometimes difficult. He has had some infamous episodes which are still being referred to till date. One of such is during an interview with Bernard Weinraub in which he told the influential New York Times correspondent that he found one of his questions to be stupid. Regardless, Tommy Lee Jones is one of the best you would find on any given day
