Considering she was the spouse of producer with the mostest, David O'Selznick, Jennifer Jones, born Phyllis Lee Isley appeared in less than thirty films and shorts; a seemingly paltry resume for a person of Jennifer Jones' proportion. The Oklahoman's fateful Hollywood encounter with future husband O'Selznick, who once likened her eyes to jewels in a crown - would lead her to her first role in a George Sherman oater co-starring John Wayne, New Frontier Horizon (1939) and simultaneously break up her marriage to character actor Robert Walker. And much like her contemporary Linda Darnell, her striking black-Irish looks were believed to undermine her acting chops and casted were aspersions and nepotism assumed, for she was now married to one of the most influential men in Tinseltown history - it was seen as the sole reason the actress could land such critical roles, namely as Mestiza madchen Pearl in King Vidor's omnipotent Duel in the Sun. O'Selznick would be thoroughly lambasted for his inability to remain objective when it came to his wife up on the screen, bringing forth a perceived character of smoldering sexuality and little else.
But for the exclusive few that were able to discern, Jennifer Jones was certainly a fresh breath of cinematic air and testament would come when in 1943, she was cast as a precocious peasant girl in Henry King's Song of Bernadette; an Oscar rewarded in earnest for this role which was erroneously billed as Jones' first starring role, where Jones already established herself in three previous productions using her birth-name Phyllis Isley. And although the film was woefully overlooked, Madame Bovary, based on the Flaubert classic, was a customized character comprised by Vincent Minnelli who had an affinity for understanding Jennifer's complexities and in her practically effortless performance here we the jury deem her guilty as charged for this being her most beguiling moment. In the earlier Portrait of Jennie, a film that was more revered for its visual effects than the truly compelling performances of Miss Jones and Joseph Cotten, we witness that same travesty once again where the actress is seen as little more than a glamorous mush, but anyone with just a touch of perspicacity would have agreed Jones was oh so far from the madding starlet.
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| Pearl before swine - Duel in the Sun (1946) |
In her penultimate film Cult of the Damned (1969), Jones who was a seasoned fifty-year old, is Astrid Steele, a role initially rejected by Jeanne Crain - Jones plays the gold-digging ex-blue film star extraordinaire with a ferocity and had the golden opportunity to utter one of the most bizarre and laughingly offensive lines of movie script history to date ' Are you out of your Chinese skull.' And given an actress of Jones' prestige, she was ever the sport to take on this role in the obscure Robert Thom satire.
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| Jennifer Jones and quip in the satirical Cult of the Damned (1969) |
And although most of the adulation and accolades went to her contemporary, Vivien Leigh for her acting achievements, Jennifer Jones was every stitch deserving of these same honors, and with or without the Hollywood bigwig that slept on that other side of the marital bed - she still would by every intent and purpose, have been one of the greatest if not acknowledged as such, actresses of our time.
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| Phyllis Lee Isley |
Jones' life, having been marred by tragedy, losing two of her three children in 1976 and 2007 respectively, left our earth on the morning of December 17,2009. She was 90 years old.