| Jennifer Jones News 2008 • 2006 • 2004 • 2001 • 2000 • 1998 • 1997 • 1995 (Note: An article about Jennifer Jones will appear in the May issue of Film Comment by film scholar Miriam Bale) Tribute to Jennifer Jones at the Film Society of Lincoln Center
NEW YORK, April 23, 2008––The Film Society of Lincoln Center returns to the Golden Age of Hollywood this spring, beginning with Saint and Sinner: The Tempestuous Career of Jennifer Jones at the Walter Reade Theater, May 16–24. Opening with comedy auteur Ernst Lubitsch’s late masterpiece Cluny Brown and including a new 35mm restoration of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s Gone to Earth, the series presents 14 classic films starring the award-winning 1940s and ’50s actor. Several special guests will introduce selected films, including critics Molly Haskell and Andrew Sarris, historian and Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne, Academy Award-winning film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, producer Daniel Selznick and Jennifer Jones biographer Edward Z. Epstein. In addition to spotlighting the myriad roles Jones portrayed throughout her career, Saint and Sinner showcases some of cinema’s most inventive and exciting directorial talents. These include John Huston (Beat the Devil), Vincente Minnelli (Madame Bovary), King Vidor (Duel in the Sun, Ruby Gentry), William Wyler (Carrie), and Henry King, who directed Jones in her first starring role, an Academy Award-winning performance as a saintly French peasant persecuted for her reports of angelic visitations in The Song of Bernadette. “Jennifer represented a woman of mystery,” says Joanna Ney, producer of arts programming at the Film Society and the curator of the series. “Her sui generis performances captured compassionate, vulnerable and sometimes bitter heroines who were also—though they did not mean to be—femme fatales, because her feminine drive challenged the guy in question.” Jennifer Jones was born Phylis Isley in Tulsa, Okla., in 1919, taking the experiences of her childhood in a show business family to New York’s American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Though she met and married her first husband, actor Robert Walker, in New York in 1939, her attempts at breaking onto the stage were short-lived: Jones appeared in her first Hollywood film, New Frontier, a B-movie Western starring John Wayne, the same year as her wedding. Soon discovered by mogul David O. Selznick, she rocketed to stardom in The Song of Bernadette. She soon
displayed a gift for comedy starring alongside Charles Boyer in
1946’s Cluny Brown (also showing as part of the
upcoming Film Society series “Charles Boyer and The Art
of Seduction,” May 23-27), as well as a remarkable talent
for melodrama, captivating audiences with her depictions of psychological
turmoil and vulnerability in such films as Madame Bovary
(1949), Gone to Earth (1950) and Carrie (1952). Yet, the public interest in Jones’s relationship with Selznick often outpaced her reputation as talented and distinctive actress. The pair married in 1949, while Jones appeared in such Selznick-produced projects as Since You Went Away (1944), the boldly sexual Duel in the Sun (1946) and Portrait of Jennie (1948). She earned four additional Oscar nominations, the last coming in 1956 for Love is a Many-Splendored Thing. Jones and Selznick remained married until Selznick’s death in 1965. By the late ’60s, Jones had virtually retired from Hollywood acting. She married millionaire art collector Norton Simon in 1971, three years before her final onscreen appearance in The Towering Inferno. She remains active advocating for the rights of the mentally ill and as a director of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. A series pass is available for Saint and Sinner: The Tempestuous Career of Jennifer Jones combined with the Film Society’s following series, “Charles Boyer an the Art of Seduction.” The pass admits one person to a total of five titles in the two series, May 16–27. They are $40; $30 for Film Society members, and available only at the Walter Reade Theater box office (cash only). Single screening tickets for the series are $11; $7 for Film Society members, students and children (6-12, accompanied by an adult); and $8 for seniors (62+). They are available at both the Walter Reade Theater box office and online at www.filmlinc.com. The Film Society of Lincoln Center was founded in 1969 to celebrate American and international cinema, to recognize and support new directors, and to enhance the awareness, accessibility and understanding of film. Advancing this mandate today, the Film Society hosts two distinguished festivals: the New York Film Festival, which annually premieres the best films from around the world and has introduced the likes of François Truffaut, R.W. Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, Pedro Almodóvar, Martin Scorsese, and Wong Kar-Wai to the United States, and New Directors/New Films, co-presented by the Museum of Modern Art, which focuses on emerging film talents. Since 1972 when the Film Society honored Charles Chaplin, the annual Gala Tribute celebrates an actor, filmmaker or industry leader who has helped distinguish cinema as an art form. Additionally, the Film Society presents a year-round calendar of programming at its Walter Reade Theater and offers insightful film writing to a worldwide audience through Film Comment magazine. Please note: Due to construction work taking place around Lincoln Center, access to the Walter Reade Theater is at 165 West 65th Street close to Amsterdam Avenue. Once there, take the escalator, elevator or stairs to the upper level. Schedule at a Glance (Detailed Program Information Follows) Friday, May 16 Saturday, May 17 Sunday, May 18 Monday, May 19 Tuesday, May
20 Wednesday, May 21 Thursday, May 22 Friday, May
23 Saturday, May 24 Saint and Sinner: The
Tempestuous Career of Jennifer Jones
This wacky film came
from a madcap production bordering on chaos. The treatment, written
by the book’s author Claud Cockburn, was scrapped and Huston
went on location without a script. At Selznick’s recommendation,
Truman Capote re-wrote the film as shooting progressed; a few
pages of dialogue were delivered to the director just before the
cameras rolled. The actors are said to have improvised many of
the scenes, not knowing what motivated their characters. But no
matter. Over the past decades the film has gained a cult status
and is still hugely entertaining.
Ernst Lubitsch’s late masterpiece Cluny Brown is a little-known, sophisticated comedy romance with serious overtones and performances that bubble with charm and wit. Cluny (Jennifer Jones), a plumber’s niece sent to work as a servant at an English country estate, refuses to acknowledge her station in life. She finds a kindred spirit in Professor Belinski (Charles Boyer), a European intellectual on the run from the Nazis. The two displaced souls form a bond, though Cluny focuses her attentions on Mr. Wilson (the hilarious Richard Haydn, who enlivened many Hollywood films in the ‘40s), a pompous chemist attached to the apron strings of his dour mother (the great Una O’Connor). Jones and Boyer, two utterly different actors, are beautifully in-sync in this amusing tale of manners and mores in upper crust England, as the two outsiders try to accommodate themselves in an uncomfortable world where rule breakers are not meant to dally with rule makers. Critics Molly Haskell and Andrew Sarris will introduce the screening on Friday, May 16.
Big, brawling, engrossing and bizarre, Duel in the Sun was David O. Selznick’s bid for a repeat success after his bonanza Gone with the Wind, this time with Jennifer Jones starring as the torrid Pearl Chavez. While nothing can match Wind for grandeur and romance, Duel in the Sun is remarkable in its own way, “a lavish, sensual spectacle, so heightened it becomes a cartoon of passion,” as Pauline Kael wrote. The story, based on the “hot” novel by Niven Busch, captures the feuding McCanleses, a ranching family headed by patriarch Jackson (Lionel Barrymore) and his long-suffering wife Laura Belle (Lillian Gish). King Vidor infuses the expansive story with an undercurrent of social realism—the tyranny of an older generation and the irresponsibility of the new–– while the shoot-out finale still astonishes with its operatic intensity. An uncredited Josef von Sternberg also provided ideas, and, needless to say, Selznick’s thumbprint is omnipresent: Cruelty and passion go hand in hand in this strangely affecting and delirious romantic western affectionately (and derisively) labeled “Lust in the Dust.” Co-starring Gregory Peck as the spoiled Lew; Joseph Cotten as Jesse, the upstanding son; and Walter Huston in an amusing cameo as The Sinkiller. Edward Z. Epstein, author of Portrait of Jennifer: A Biography of Jennifer Jones will introduce the screening on Friday, May 16.
For this Technicolor foray into romantic drama, the unbeatable team of Powell and Pressburger adapted Mary Webb’s novel about a 19th-century Welsh gypsy girl and her conflict between propriety, love and independence. Headstrong Hazel Woodus (Jones) has an affinity for wild things and cannot resist adventure, even after she has settled into a passionless marriage with a minister (Cyril Cusack) who lives with his mother (Sybil Thorndike). A tug-of-war soon develops between Hazel’s affection for her husband and her carnal desire for the rakish Jack Reddin (David Farrar). This spectacularly beautiful film, shot by Christopher Challis with art direction and production design by the Academy Award-winning team Arthur Lawson and Hein Heckroth (The Red Shoes), is part fairy tale, part Victorian melodrama and utterly breathtaking to behold. Jones is impressive in a role virtually impossible to pull off, and she gets wonderful support from the all-British and Welsh cast. Thelma Schoonmaker, Oscar-winning editor and widow of Michael Powell, will introduce the screening on Saturday, May 17.
Miss Dove (Jones) is
an inspirational teacher who governs her New England classroom
by strict disciplinary rules. A distaff Mr. Chips with precise
Victorian speech and manners, she is respected and feared by several
generations of students. When she is suddenly hospitalized, the
concerned bystanders rally round to await the outcome, as the
teacher’s life unfolds in flashback.
Jones stars as Han Suyin, a widowed Eurasian doctor who falls in love with American news correspondent Mark Elliot (William Holden). The attraction is mutual, but Elliot can’t obtain a divorce from his unhappy wife. This barrier combines with the disapproval of Suyin’s tradition-bound relatives and Hong Kong’s rigid racial laws to force the couple into a clandestine romance, conducted mostly on a grassy, windswept hill. As the film's memorable tagline puts it, "In each other’s arms…they found a love that defied 5,000 years of tradition!” Jones is radiant in this romantic adaptation of Suyin's autobiographical novel, filmed on location in Hong Kong by Jones-favorite Henry King (The Song of Bernadette). She received her fifth Academy Award nomination for her performance, while the film scored Oscars for costume design, score and a title song written by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis that was on in everyone’s lips in 1955. Leon Shamroy provided the breathtaking color photography. Author and producer Daniel Selznick, son of David O. Selznick, will introduce the screening.
With the exception of a heavy-handed framing device involving Gustave Flaubert’s obscenity trial, Vincente Minnelli’s Madame Bovary is the most faithful and affecting film version of the great 19th century novel. Jones, allegedly fearful of taking on such a complex role, is simply ravishing. The film perfectly captures Emma’s girlish enthusiasm; her yearning and discontent; her insistent desire to have it all regardless of the cost; and her final, brutally punishing descent into tragedy. Possessing a seemingly intuitive understanding of Flaubert’s work, Jones projects all of her character’s contradictions–– warmth, vanity (her extravagant shopping sprees are a hedonistic delight), the desire but inability to be a good wife and mother, and an uncontrollable romanticism when faced with a handsome new lover (Louis Jourdain)––in a powerful performance that hits all the marks. Minnelli’s exquisite ballroom waltz is a marvel of cinematography, choreography and Jones’s delirious excitement. Co-starring Van Heflin, Gene Lockhart, and James Mason as Flaubert, with a powerful score by Miklós Rózsa.
Based on the
novella by Robert Nathan, Portrait of Jennie is a romantic
fantasy for the ages that has gathered a hefty cult with time.
The ethereal film (aided by Dmitri Tiomkin’s score, after
Debussy) follows penniless, struggling artist Eben Adams (Joseph
Cotten) and the strange girl (Jones) he meets in Central Park.
She seems to age each time he sees her. Is she real? Isn’t
the real Jennie Appleton long dead? Why has she entered his life?
These questions remain as elusive as the girl herself, whose portrait
Eben is compelled to paint.
A narrow-minded town in the Southern bayou is the setting for this moody, romantic melodrama about an unconventional backwoods girl (a sultry Jennifer Jones) who values her independence and follows her heart right into a dark labyrinth of prejudice, hypocrisy and scandal. Harboring a powerful love for Boake Tackman (a rugged Charlton Heston), scion of a decaying blueblood clan, Ruby is too spirited and passionate to hide her feelings, especially when the upwardly mobile Boake plans to marry a more appropriate social equal. Enraged, Ruby takes revenge by accepting an offer of marriage from tycoon Jim Gentry (Karl Malden), and the die is cast for events to spring out of control. With an award-winning score featuring Larry Adler on harmonica, this no-holds-barred love story follows a pattern of desire and revenge that played out successfully in Duel in the Sun, making Jennifer Jones the most beautiful involuntary sinner in screen history. The final entry in a classic B-movie serial about a trio of cowboys known as The Three Mesquiteers, New Frontier stars John Wayne in a story of manifest destiny colliding with the cruel hand of industrial progress. He’s joined onscreen by newcomer Phylis Isley, four years before she won an Oscar as Jennifer Jones.
An epic of home and hearth based on a collection of letters written by Ohio newspaper columnist Margaret Buell Wilder to her husband fighting in World War II, Since You Went Away represents both a Rorschach test of the period’s family values and an optimism that turned bitter two years later in William Wyler’s more realistic The Best Years of Our Lives. Claudette Colbert leads the star-studded cast as a capable and courageous wife, the mother of two grown daughters: the glowing Jane (Jones) and the zesty Bridget (Shirley Temple), both on the verge of their first romantic escapades. David O. Selznick wrote and produced the film, which won the Academy Award for Best Score (Max Steiner) and earned eight other nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Colbert) and Best Supporting Actress (Jones); the scene at the railroad station when Jane says goodbye to her fiancé (Robert Walker) is an unforgettable vignette, made even more poignant by the estranged couple’s ironic reunion in casting. Since You Went Away was a smash hit with audiences, grossing well over four million dollars at a time when movie ticket prices were as low as 25 cents. Co-starring Joseph Cotten, Hattie McDaniel, Agnes Moorehead and Oscar-nominee Monty Woolley.
Based on Franz
Werfel’s hugely popular novel, The Song of Bernadette
was David O. Selznick’s special project and Jones, his 24-year-old
discovery, had the inside track despite the availability of other,
better-known actresses. The gamble paid off: Jennifer Jones astonished
the movie world with her radiant performance as Bernadette Soubirous,
a 19th-century French peasant girl who claimed to receive visitations
from The Lady and faced persecution as a lunatic and liar by her
disbelieving community.
Film fest focuses on Jones, Selznick Norfolk, Virginia, July 9, 2006 A FILM FESTIVAL to showcase one of the more intriguing partnerships in film history opens Monday, led by Virginian-Pilot movie critic Mal Vincent. A rare theatrical screening of the spectacle "Duel in the Sun," starring Jennifer Jones and produced by David O. Selznick, opens the festival at 7:15 p.m. It is the first of six features in the Jennifer Jones-David O. Selznick Film Festival, which runs for six consecutive Monday nights at the Naro Expanded Cinema in Norfolk. Jones, who earned five Academy Award nominations and one subsequent Oscar, remains one of the more mysterious and complex actresses in film lore because she has seldom granted interviews. Her last film was "The Towering Inferno" in 1974, yet her place in film history grows. She now is chairman of the board of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif., and is active in social and charitable causes. She has been invited to the festival. As the producer of "Gone With the Wind" and "Rebecca," which won best-picture Oscars for 1939 and 1940, Selznick was the most powerful man in Hollywood when he signed the girl from Oklahoma to an exclusive contract. She was married (to actor Robert Walker) and the mother of two sons when she met the producer. He spent the rest of his life promoting and managing her career. They were married from 1949 until his death in 1965 - years that included the major films of her career. Her marriage to millionaire art collector Norton Simon came later. "Duel in the Sun," a steamy western released in 1946 about a young woman who comes between two brothers, was initially panned by critics but became a box office success. It has gained respect over the years, and director Martin Scorsese said it influenced film forever. It was made for the sole purpose of changing Jennifer Jones' saintly image, which she acquired from playing the lead role in "The Song of Bernadette." "Duel in the Sun" achieved that purpose. It was banned by censors and the Catholic Church, although it was tame by today's standards. The all-star cast includes Gregory Peck, Virginia's own Joseph Cotten (a native of Pet ersburg), Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Butterfly McQueen, Herbert Marshall and Charles Bickford, with narration by Orson Welles. All screenings will include discussions before and after the films, led by Vincent. He will give talks on the real-life as well as the on-screen intrigue of the Jones- Selz?nick pairing. Naro managers said the search for theatrical prints of the films has been exhaustive, and this is likely the last time any of the films will be seen in a theater and on the big screen. The festival will continue on July 24 with the MGM production "Madame Bovary," in which Jones stars with Van Heflin and Louis Jordan. "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing" screens on July 31. Aug. 7 is North Carolina night with "Ruby Gentry" starring Jones and Charlton Heston in a drama set in a small North Carolina seaport town. The families of military veterans are honored with a screening of Selznick's World War II drama of the home front, "Since You Went Away," on Aug. 14. It stars Jones with her then-husband Walker . The festival will close Aug. 21 with the film that made Jones a star and won her the Academy Award, "The Song of Bernadette." The complete schedule is as follows: July 17 – Duel in the Sun July 24 Madame Bovary July 31 Love is a Many-Splendored Thing Aug. 7 Ruby Gentry Aug. 14 Since You Went Away Aug. 21 Song of Bernadette
Selznick/Jones home featured in new book
"There were these upside down Italian carafes suspended in ornamental wrought iron holders with red wine poised on one side and white wine on the other. You stuck your glass underneath whichever color you wanted and a button released the wine. It was the first time I'd really had expensive wine and normally when you have really expensive wine, the wine bottle is put on the table so you can see the label. Not here. Jennifer would never appear at these parties until quite late in the evening. David O. would assign a guest to be the hostess at each table. He was a fabulous host. He just loved giving parties. We'd have dinner and Jennifer would appear around dessert time, because she would have been downstairs endlessly changing outfits. But then she would make this fabulous entrance in this glamorous, gorgeous dress. She'd sort of swish around down this long room saying hello. She would not sit down. Then she'd go down to change again. Often, I saw her in three or four different outfits by the end of the evening. It was fabulous because it was everything that was left of old Hollywood." Another snippet by designer Leonard Stanley: "...Tony (Duquette) and I were up at the Selznick's talking about doing a few things in the living room. Jennifer went downstairs and came back dragging on the floor four Charles James ball gowns and the most beautiful dress from Christian Dior's second collection. It was tulle and blue satin, and she said, "Well, I'll never wear them again. Why don't we cut them up and make pillows." Tony said, "Jennifer, these Charles James belong in a museum!"
David O. Selznick Gets Hollywood Walk of Fame Star by BOB THOMAS, Associated Press Writer Oct. 27, 2004 Even though he produced "Gone with the Wind" and other movie classics, David O. Selznick never had his own star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. That oversight was corrected Tuesday when the Producers Guild sponsored the late producer's star on Hollywood Boulevard, a half-block from Grauman's Chinese theater where many of his films played. "David Selznick should have been among the first 1,500 names when the Walk of Fame was started in 1960," commented Walk impresario Johnny Grant, adding that the event finally "remedied that unbelievable omission." Daniel Selznick, who unveiled the star, admitted that "my father's feelings were hurt that he wasn't included." Two performers from "Gone with the Wind" were among the small gathering in front of the Roosevelt Hotel: Ann Rutherford, who played Scarlett's sister, and Cammee King, the ill-fated young daughter of Scarlett and Rhett Butler. Rutherford read letters from Olivia de Havilland, the wistful Melanie, Selznick widow Jennifer Jones, and Rhonda Fleming, who was discovered by the producer. "This giant among creators," de Havilland wrote from Paris, "has enriched the lives of generation after generation." Rutherford was asked if it was true that the actresses in "Gone with the Wind" wore silk petticoats under their hoop skirts. "Absolutely," she replied. "I told David he could save a lot of money if he used flannel petticoats as I did in westerns. He said maybe the audience wouldn't see the petticoats, but the actresses would know they were silk." Son of pioneer filmmaker Lewis J. Selznick, David Selznick grew up in the movie business and at 29 headed production at RKO studio when "King Kong" was made and Katharine Hepburn became a star. He moved to MGM, run by his father-in-law Louis B. Mayer, and produced "David Copperfield," "Dinner at Eight," "Anna Karenina" and "A Tale of Two Cities." Selznick formed his own company, brought Alfred Hitchcock and Ingrid Bergman to Hollywood, and made such films as "A Star Is Born," "Rebecca," "Spellbound," "Duel in the Sun" as well as "Gone with the Wind." He died in 1965.
Here's an interesting bit of trivia - Bill Mayrath writes to me and sends this photo of an award given to Phylis Isley by Pawnee Bill who had a Wild Wild West Show that competed with and later merged with Buffalo Bill. The award reads: "On the 12th day of July, 1939, by authority of the Pawnee Indian Council and the Chiefs of the Skidi Band of Pawnees - Phylis Isley was inducted into the Pawnee Tribe for her distinguished accomplishments in the entertainment world, reflecting great credit upon her native state of Oklahoma and is hereby given the Indian name of "Red Star". Thank you Bill! And if anyone would like a larger sized photo of the award (that you can actually read), drop me an e-mail and I will forward it to you.
AFI Chooses Top 100 Romantic Films "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" was chosen as one of the Top 100 films (it ranked #85). Hard to believe that "Portrait of Jennie" didn't make it! (although it and "Love Letters" were among the 400 films nominated). You can see AFI's complete list on their web site
(VARIETY, Sept. 17, 2001) THEY FLEW IN FROM ALL OVER, but then were unable to wing out. For the wedding of Cecilia Peck to Daniel Voll, guests arrived from as far away as Bali and as near as Mexico for the Sept. 8 ceremony at the home of her parents Veronique and Gregory Peck. Most of the guests were the close friends of the couple but the showbiz contingent included Lauren Bacall and Jennifer Jones Simon as well as the Pecks' poker-playing pals Barbara Sinatra, Angie Dickinson, Felicia Lemmon and Pat and Larry Gelbart. The ring bearer was the wedding couple's 2½-year-old son Harper for the service performed by Rev. Jim Cavanaugh of St. Jerome's. (Army Archerd)
Jones to host Norton Simon Documentary event Excerpted from Variety, Nov. 28, 2000 Candice Bergen, Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones Simon will host guests at the world premiere of "The Art of Norton Simon," the 30-minute docu directed by Davis Guggenheim, produced by Charles Guggenheim at the inauguration of the newly renovated Norton Simon Museum Theater. The galleries, recently renovated by Frank Gehry, will be open to guests … (Army Archerd) |
Saint
and Sinner: The Tempestuous Career of Jennifer Jones 
Beat
the Devil
Carrie
Cluny
Brown
Duel
in the Sun
Gone
to Earth Restored Print
Good
Morning, Miss Dove
Love
Is a Many-Splendored Thing
Madame
Bovary
Portrait
of Jennie
Ruby
Gentry
Since
You Went Away
The
Song of Bernadette
Tender
Is the Night
JJ's
first award?
 |
Jennifer made a rare public
|
