Jennifer Jones

Jennifer Jones was thrice married. Her first marriage was to actor Robert Walker in 1939. The couple had two sons, both of whom went on to become actors. She developed an affair with film producer David O. Selznick while still married to Walker. The marriage ended in 1945.

She married Selznick in 1949 and had one daughter. The couple remained married until Selznick’s death in 1965. Their daughter committed suicide in 1976.

Her third marriage was to multi-millionaire industrialist, art collector and philanthropist Norton Simon in 1971. Simon died in 1993.

She was born as Phylis Lee Isley on March 2, 1919, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Flora Mae (née Suber) and Phillip Ross Isley as their only child. Her parents owned and starred in the Isley Stock Company, a tent-show theatrical troupe that toured the rural Midwest. Thus she was exposed to show business at an early age.

She attended Monte Cassino, a girls' school, before proceeding to the Northwestern University in Illinois, where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. Then she moved to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in 1938.

Married in 1939, Isley began her career with a 13-week radio program, arranged by her father. Soon she ventured into Hollywood and found small roles in movies. In the early 1940s, she auditioned for the lead role in the hit play ‘Claudia’ which producer David O. Selznick was making into a movie. She did not get the role but Selznick recognized her potential and started grooming her for her future career.

Selznick gave her the name Jennifer Jones and helped her sign a seven-year contract. She appeared as Bernadette Soubirous in the 1943 drama film ‘The Song of Bernadette’ which was a great success both critically and financially. Jones’ performance was much lauded and she won an Academy Award.

As an ambitious but emotionally vulnerable woman, she let Selznick control her career and choose the roles she played. Throughout the 1940s she acted in versatile roles that Selznick chose for her. In 1946, she appeared in ‘Duel in the Sun’ as a bi-racial woman who becomes involved in prejudice and forbidden love.

She appeared in several other films like ‘Cluny Brown’ (1946), ‘Portrait of Jennie’ (1948), ‘Madame Bovary’ (1949), and ‘We Were Strangers’ (1949) in the late 1940s. She began the 1950s on a positive note, starring in ‘Carrie’ (1952), a film version of Theodore Dreiser’s novel ‘Sister Carrie’ co-starring Laurence Olivier.

Her career flourished throughout the 1950s, and her 1955 romantic drama film ‘Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing’ was especially successful. She played a Eurasian doctor Han Suyin who falls in love with a married-but-separated American correspondent. Her performance earned her a nomination for Academy Award for Best Actress.

Jennifer Jones played the saintly Bernadette Soubirous in the movie ‘The Song of Bernadette’ which became one of her best known roles. Her wholesome, innocent image as a pious young girl in the film captured the audience’s hearts and impressed the film critics as well.

She portrayed a flirtatious bi-racial young woman Pearl Chavez in the film ‘Duel in the Sun.’ The movie though highly controversial due to its sexual content was a box-office hit and earned Jones a nomination for Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.