Jennifer Jones

Here are two glorious songs performed by the great Ed Ames, chosen to illustrate the beauty and many moods of legendary actress Jennifer Jones.
Jennifer Jones (born Phylis Lee Isley in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1919 - d. 2009) was an American actress. She won the Academy Award for best actress for her performance in The song of Bernadette (1943). Jones' parents toured the Midwest in a traveling tent show they owned and operated. Jones attended Monte Cassino Junior College in Tulsa and Northwestern University before transferring to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in 1938. It was here she met and fell in love with fellow acting student Robert Walker. The two were married on January 2, 1939. They returned to Tulsa for a 13-week radio program arranged by her father, and then headed for Hollywood. Isley landed two small roles, first in a 1939 John Wayne western titled New frontier, followed by a serial entitled Dick Tracy's G-men. In these two films, she was billed as "Phyllis Isley" (Phyllis now spelled with two Ls). However, when she and Walker failed a screen test for Paramount Pictures, they decided to return to New York City. While Walker found steady work in radio programs, Isley worked part-time modeling hats for the Powers Agency while looking for possible acting jobs. When she learned of auditions for the lead role of Claudia in Rose Franken’s hit play of the same name, she presented herself to David O. Selznick’s New York office but fled in tears after what she thought was a bad reading. Selznick, however, overheard her audition and was impressed enough to have his secretary call her back. Following an interview, she was signed to a seven-year contract. She was carefully groomed for stardom and given a new name: Jennifer Jones. Director Henry King was impressed by her screen test as Bernadette Soubirous for The song of Bernadette and she won the coveted role over hundreds of applicants. In 1944, on her 25th birthday, Jones won the Academy Award for best actress for her performance as St. Bernadette. That year, Jones' friend, Ingrid Bergman, was also a Best Actress nominee for her work in For whom the bell tolls. Jones apologized to Bergman, who replied, “No, Jennifer, your Bernadette was better than my Maria.” Over the next two decades, Jones appeared in a wide range of roles selected by Selznick (whom she later married). Her dark beauty and sensitive nature appealed to audiences and she projected a variable range. Her initial saintly image — as shown in her first starring role — was a stark contrast three years later when she was cast as a provocative bi-racial woman in Selznick’s controversial film Duel in the sun. Other notable films included Since you went away, Love letters, Cluny Brown, Portrait of Jennie, Madame Bovary, Carrie, Ruby Gentry, Indiscretion of an American wife, Beat the devil, Love is a many-splendored thing, Good morning Miss Dove, The man in the gray flannel suit and A farewell to arms. Her leading men during this period included Charles Boyer, Joseph Cotten, Gregory Peck, John Garfield, Charlton Heston, Laurence Olivier, Montgomery Clift, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Robert Stack, Sir John Gielgud, Rock Hudson, and Jason Robards. Her last big-screen appearance came in the spectacular disaster film The towering inferno (1974), in which she danced with Fred Astaire before a fire threatened partygoers in a new San Francisco skyscraper. Jones is a breast cancer survivor. The actress Susan Strasberg, who died of breast cancer, was married to actor Christopher Jones and named her only child Jennifer Robin Jones in the actress's honor. 

Enjoy Jennifer Jones' classic beauty!