By Eunice Charles
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an American actor. He has received various accolades including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
After appearing in several projects from the 1960s to 1980s, Jones established himself as a leading man in the 1990s, known for his gruff and authoritative film roles. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in the thriller film The Fugitive (1993). His other Oscar-nominated roles were as businessman Clay Shaw in JFK (1991), Hank Deerfield in In the Valley of Elah (2007), and Congressman Thaddeus Stevens in Lincoln (2012). He played Agent K in the Men in Black franchise. Other notable roles were in Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980), Volcano (1997) Under Siege (1992), Natural Born Killers (1994), The Client (1994), Batman Forever (1995), Double Jeopardy (1999), No Country for Old Men (2007), The Company Men (2010), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Jason Bourne (2016), and Ad Astra (2019).
Jones won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his role as executed murderer Gary Gilmore in The Executioner’s Song (1982). He was further nominated for playing Texas Ranger Woodrow F. Call in the television miniseries Lonesome Dove (1989). He portrayed Howard Hughes in the CBS film The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977). He directed and starred in the western TNT movie The Good Old Boys (1995). He directed, starred in and executive produced the HBO film The Sunset Limited (2011).
Jones was born on September 15, 1946, in San Saba, Texas. His mother, Lucille Marie Jones (née Scott; 1928–2013), was a police officer, school teacher, and beauty shop owner, and his father, Clyde C. Jones (1926–1986), was a cowboy and oil field worker. The two were married and divorced twice. Jones is of Cherokee descent. He was raised in Midland, Texas, and attended Robert E. Lee High School. Jones later moved to Dallas and graduated from the St. Mark’s School of Texas in 1965, which he attended on scholarship.
Jones entered Harvard College in 1965 on need-based aid. As an upperclassman, he lived in Dunster House and was roommates with future U.S. Vice President Al Gore and with Bob Somerby, who later became editor of the media criticism site The Daily Howler. Jones majored in English literature and was a pupil of dramatist Robert Chapman. He graduated in 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude. His senior thesis was on “the mechanics of Catholicism” in the works of Flannery O’Connor.
Jones played guard on the Harvard Crimson football team from 1965 to 1968. He was a member of Harvard’s undefeated 1968 football team. He was named as a first-team All-Ivy League selection, and played in the 1968 Game. The game featured a memorable and last-minute Harvard 16-point comeback to tie Yale. He recounted his memory of “the most famous football game in Ivy League history” in the documentary Harvard Beats Yale 29–29.
Jones resides in Terrell Hills, Texas, a city just outside of downtown San Antonio, and speaks Spanish.
Jones is a polo player, and he has a house in a polo country club in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a supporter of the Polo Training Foundation. He is an avid San Antonio Spurs fan; he is often seen courtside at Spurs games. At the 2000 Democratic National Convention, he gave the nominating speech for his former college roommate, Al Gore, as the Democratic Party‘s nominee for President of the United States.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Question of the Day
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Complete, I am an ill-placed zephyr; behead me, and I am floating logs; behead me again, and I am part of a ship. (What word fits the first clue? Follow the directions to form new words from it.)
Draft – raft – aft
Died
- Andre Le Notre (landscape architect) –
- Robert Penn Warren (poet) –
- Johnny Ramone (guitarist and co-founder of The Ramones) –
- Tito Jackson ( musician; member of The Jackson 5) –
Born
- James Fenimore Cooper (author) –
- Alexander Roberts Dunn (Victoria Cross recipient) –
- William Howard Taft (27th U.S. president) –
- Bruno Walter (symphony conductor) –
- Agatha Christie (Mystery writer Agatha Christie, one of the best-selling novelists of all time; born in Torquay, Devon, England) –
- Robert McCloskey (author and illustrator of the children’s classics Make Way for Ducklings and Blueberries for Sal) –
- Bobby Short (jazz musician) –
- Murray Gell-Mann (physicist) –
- Tomie dePaola (children’s author, illustrator) –
- Merlin Olsen (football player) –
- Tommy Lee Jones (actor) –
- Oliver Stone (director) –
- Dan Marino (football player) –
- Tom Dolan (Olympic gold medalist) –
- Dave Annable (actor) –
- Ben Schwartz (actor and comedian) –
- Prince Harry (youngest son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana) –
Events
- British troops occupied New York –
- The U.S. Department of Foreign Affairs was renamed the Department of State –
- Orville Wright made first turn with airplane in air –
- A milch goat show started at the Rochester Industrial Exposition in New York state –
- The Lone Ranger TV series debuted with American Clayton Moore and Canadian Jay Silverheels –
- Bomb killed four girls in a Birmingham, Alabama, church that was popular for civil rights meetings –
- Greenpeace, an environmental organization, was founded. –
- 113 lb. 1-oz. black drum caught, Lewes, Delaware –
- 22 lb. 7-oz. summer flounder caught, Montauk, New York –
- First successful portable MP3 player debuted –
- Earth received the last radio signals from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, at 7:55 a.m. EDT. Launched in 1997, Cassini traveled 7 years to reach Saturn. There, it spent 13 years gathering data about the planet and its moons, until the craft’s fuel was almost exhausted. Its mission ended when operators purposely had it dive into Saturn’s atmosphere to disintegrate. –
Weather
- The temperature in Wilmington, Vermont, was 27 degrees F –
COURTESY www.almanac.com
