23. She Froze
With all this positive attention, Jones should have been on cloud nine. Instead, she faced crippling self-doubt. In an interview in 1981, she spoke about what life was like after her early success. She said she had a kind of stage fright. It didn’t seem to matter how much people loved her acting, she was starting to freeze up. It was becoming quite clear that Jones was not really Hollywood star material—and that was a problem.
24. She Was An Introvert
Unlike other Hollywood stars at the time, Jones was very shy. She didn’t like having her picture taken, because she was anxious about how she’d look in it. Jones spent hours choosing the best outfit—even when she was just leaving the house. She also hated giving interviews. In fact, she had to create a little charade to perform just to avoid facing the media.
25. She Played A Maid
Jones often received phone calls from Selznick’s publicist, and they were always about doing some kind of promotion for her career. Jones began to dread those calls—until she came up with a sneaky plan. If she answered the phone and it was the publicist, Jones would pretend to be the maid and say that Jones was out. The next phone call she received, however, couldn’t be so easily avoided.
26. He Missed Her
Jones got a call from her ex, Walker. Turns out, since Jones had left him for Selznick, Walker’s life had gone downhill. His career was doing fine, but he desperately missed his life with Jones. Walker was drinking heavily, and shortly after the release of his most famous film, Strangers on a Train, Walker fell into a fit caused by too much of the hard stuff. Jones was already stressed—and the tragedy that followed was too much for her to bear.
27. She Felt Responsible
Walker was in a bad state, mostly because he missed Jones. His drinking had gone to a very dangerous level, and his doctor wanted to help. The doctor gave Walker some medication meant to calm him from his fit. Unfortunately, the medication was too strong, and the worst thing happened: Walker died. Jones took it hard, and to make the pain even worse, she probably felt extreme guilt for her role in Walker’s demise.
28. She Was Second Fiddle
Jones was still dating producer Selznick at this time—but he had drama of his own going on. When he started seeing Jones, he was already married to Irene Mayer, the daughter of one of the scarier movie moguls: Louis B. Mayer. Lucky for Selznick, it was Irene who instigated their split, which left Selznick available for Jones. But before they could marry, they had an epic movie to make.
29. She Was Going To Be Huge
Selznick spent a lot of time thinking about ways to outdo his most notable accomplishment: Gone With the Wind. Now he had Jones, and he was going to make her into a star as big as Vivien Leigh in a film as big as GWTW. The film was 1946’s Duel in the Sun and the stakes couldn’t have been higher—for both Selznick and Jones.
30. She Needed To Be Bigger
Selznick wasn’t taking any chances on Duel in the Sun, which had earned the nickname “Lust in the Dust.” It was a sexy western and Selznick wasn’t leaving anything to chance. He sent Jones to Max Factor in order to have a rubber contraption made to enhance Jones’ bosom. Jones refused to wear it—but that didn’t prevent the film from causing a scandal.
31. She Ruffled Some Feathers
The Catholic Church was not happy with two things about Duel in the Sun: The plot lacked morality, and, more importantly, the actress who’d been so virginal in Song of Bernadette was now half-naked on the film's posters. Jones, a Catholic herself, must have taken the church’s accusations personally. Maybe this was the reason she made herself into an honest woman.
Duel in the Sun (1946), Selznick Releasing Organization
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32. She Got Hitched
It took them a few years, but on July 13, 1949, Jones and Selznick finally decided to tie the knot. They held the ceremony on a yacht on the Italian coast—so there was no shortage of knots to use as examples. Jones had it made: She was an actress married to a film executive who had his own studio. Unfortunately, that's just when everything started to go wrong.
33. She Went Blah
Because of her husband’s position, Jones certainly had no shortage of film roles. The only problem was that she seemed to have lost her mojo for acting. For the next decade or, critics consistently described her characters as passionless and lacking feeling. Maybe being married to the producer had made her lose her drive to succeed. It got so bad that she couldn’t even hit someone with conviction.
34. She Was Timid With Her Fists
In 1952, Jones took the lead role in Ruby Gentry. In one scene the script's direction was for her to slap her co-star Charleton Heston across the face. Both the director and Heston himself had trouble convincing her to slap Heston full-on so it would look real. After much cajoling, Jones finally put her back into it—and instantly regretted it. She somehow managed to break her hand in the process.
Her next leading man, however, presented a very different problem.
Ruby Gentry (1952), 20th Century Fox
35. She Gave It Her Best Try
In 1957, when Jones appeared with Rock Hudson in the film version of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, the critics didn’t buy her romance with her costar (though later revelations about Hudson might explain that). Whatever the reason, the movie tanked, and Selznick never made another film. He wasn’t, however, done with manipulating Jones’ career.
36. She Was Under His Control
Jones’ problems in films seemed to have started when she hooked up with Selznick, but that wasn't even the worst part. Rumors that Selznick made all the decisions for his wife’s career started swirling through Hollywood. He decided what films she could or could not be in, so it might have been that Selznick was making all the wrong decisions. There's certainly plenty of proof of that...
37. She Missed Out
In 1944, 20th Century Fox was making a film noir feature based on the book Laura by Vera Caspary. Jones was their first choice for the title role. The movie went on to be a huge hit, with the National Film Registry eventually selecting it for preservation. Unfortunately, you won’t see Jones in the film, as her husband didn't approve of it. But it wasn’t just her he controlled.
38. She Was Tied Down
In addition to controlling Jones, Selznick also wanted to control the people who worked with her. He sent countless memos—while hopped up on amphetamines—about the camera angles that suited her best and even about her makeup and costumes. Selznick seemed to want to be in charge of every aspect of Jones’ career. Something had to give.
39. She Was Free At Last
After a decade and a half of being controlled by Selznick, Jones was finally free—but her freedom came at a cost. After suffering several heart attacks, Selznick passed on June 22, 1965. Although she’d lost her husband, at least now Jones was free to do the films she wanted. It was her chance to show the world what she could do on her own, but was she up to this new challenge?
40. She Saw Her Future
In May 1971, after years of spiraling in the wake of Selznick's passing, Jones finally seemed to have recovered. Her life at the time was outside of Hollywood and she was focussing on raising the daughter she’d had with Selznick: Mary Jennifer. But she had to return to normal life eventually. One evening, she was attending a reception in LA and there she laid eyes on an interesting man.
He wasn’t like other men she knew. He was...different, and in a good way.
41. She Had A New Obsession
Jones’ new obsession, Norton Simon, was a semi-retired business mogul who had turned to art collecting. He said Jones had first drawn him in with her beauty. But it was her charity work that was the defining factor. Jones was working with young people with drug problems at the time. But, in a strange way, Simon had known Jones before this encounter.
42. She Looked Familiar
Years before Jones and Simon laid eyes on each other, Simon had fallen in love with a portrait he was trying to buy. The portrait was a prop in a 1948 film called Portrait of Jennie, starring Jones. So, in fact, Simon had fallen for Jones quite a few years before he’d actually met her. It wasn't long after their meeting that Jones reciprocated the feeling.
Portrait of Jennie (1948), Selznick Releasing Organization
43. She Took The Plunge
As an art collector, Jones’ husband often visited Europe in pursuit of more art. Jones, who had once thought museums were boring, now was Simon’s constant companion. The two impulsively married in London while on one of their trips. They’d only been dating for a few months when they tied the knot on a tugboat—which was the second wedding on water for Jones.
44. She Did A Disaster
In 1974, Jones decided to give films another shot. She appeared in the star-studded disaster flick Towering Inferno, but really...who didn’t? The cast was huge and full of Hollywood royalty who had let their fame lapse. Her romantic interest in the film was dancing legend Fred Astaire. But there was a dark connection between this film and Jones’ real life.
45. Her Role Was Ominous
Jones’ appearance in the disaster film about a tall building had an eerie prescience. In the film, Jones’ character has a fatal fall from an elevator in the tower. Only two years after the release of The Towering Inferno, Jones’ daughter also fell from a 22-floor building—two days after Mother’s Day. Like Jones’ character in the movie, her daughter didn’t survive.
The Towering Inferno (1974), 20th Century Fox
46. She Faced A Loss
Jones’ daughter had not gotten over the passing of her father, Selznick. She also had emotional breakdowns and used morphine and barbiturates. For these reasons, authorities ruled Mary Jennifer Selznick’s fall from the building a suicide. It was a huge blow to Jones. She’d lost her lovely daughter. What would she do without her?
47. She Took Action
Instead of wallowing in depression about her daughter’s suicide, Jones took action. She founded the Jennifer Jones Simon Foundation For Mental Health and Education. Her goal was to remove the stigmatization of mental illness. Jones led the organization until 2003. Jones was certainly an advocate for people suffering from mental illness, and it may have been that interest that led Jones to her next venture.
48. She Was Too Old
Jones read the novel Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurty and immediately wanted to turn it into a film. She bought the rights to the popular book and saw herself as the best person for the lead role. The director, James L. Brooks, had only one problem: Jones, at 62, was too old. Shirley MacLaine—15 years younger—got the role and the Oscar that went with it.
49. She Faced A Disease
Jones’ husband Simon visited his doctor and received a startling diagnosis: Guillain-Barré syndrome. GBS is a rare syndrome that affects the immune system and can, in some cases, cause paralysis. Simon was soon incapacitated and turned to Jones for help. He quickly named Jones president of his museum and she was thrust into a new career. But did she have what it took?
50. She Did An About Face
Jones had gone from someone uninterested in museums to the president of one. And she was not just president by title. Jones dove right in and worked with architect superstar Frank Gehry on the interior design of the museum. Jones had found a second career and loved every minute of it. Her husband’s condition, however, had gone from bad to much worse.
51. She Ended Up With Selznick
Eventually, Simon’s illness led to his passing in 1993. Jones soon moved in with her son and his family in Malibu. She lived a peaceful life surrounded by many grandchildren until her passing on December 17, 2009. There was a cremation, and her ashes lay with her second husband Selznick. Whether she actually wanted this is anyone’s guess.
It wouldn't surprise us if the control-obsessed Selznick had arranged it before his demise.
52. She Went Into Orbit
On May 7, 1991, scientists were looking for a name for a new planet. They decided on 6249 Jennifer in Jones’ honor. She’s in good company up there in the dark sky. Other celebrities with planets named after them include Sean Connery, Meg Ryan, and even Mr. Rogers. If we’ve learned anything about Jones, she’s likely a planet by itself, trying to avoid being noticed too, too much.
53. She Hit Rock Bottom
Maybe what Jones wanted when freed of Selznick was just to be left alone. Her career took a slow and sad route to nowhere. Then, in 1967, just two years after her husband’s passing, a good friend of hers—Charles Bickford from The Song of Bernadette—also passed. Jones was distraught, and it drove her to disturbing places. She took a bottle of pills, some booze and checked into a Malibu Beach hotel.
54. She Took A Dangerous Walk
Jones took the sleeping pills and drank the booze. In her altered state, she wandered close to a cliff overlooking the beach. Hours later, they found Jones rolling unconscious in the Malibu surf. She almost didn’t make it. Later she claimed that the whole thing had just been an accident, but it remained a dark cloud over her life for the rest of her days.
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