page_title: Jennifer Jones
section_title: 1919–1939: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Jennifer Jones / Biography / 1919–1939: Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Ray Corrigan, Jennifer Jones &amp; John Wayne in New Frontier aka Frontier Horizon - cropped screenshot (original image&#160;: see source)
context_page_description: Jennifer Jones, also known as Jennifer Jones Simon, was an American actress and mental health advocate. Over the course of her career that spanned over five decades, she was nominated for the Oscar five times, including one win for Best Actress, as well as a Golden Globe Award win for Best Actress in a Drama. Jones is among the youngest actresses to receive an Academy Award, having won on her 25th birthday.
  A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Jones worked as a model in her youth before transitioning to acting, appearing in two serial films in 1939. Her third role was a lead part as Bernadette Soubirous in The Song of Bernadette, which earned her the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Actress that year. She went on to star in several films that garnered her significant critical acclaim and a further three Academy Award nominations in the mid 1940s, including Since You Went Away, Love Letters, and Duel in the Sun.
  In 1949, Jones married film producer David O. Selznick, and appeared as the eponymous Madame Bovary in Vincente Minnelli's 1949 adaptation.
context_section_description: Jones was born Phylis Lee Isley in Tulsa, Oklahoma on March 2, 1919, the daughter of Flora Mae (née Suber) and Phillip Ross Isley. Her father was originally from Georgia, while her mother was a native of Sacramento, California. An only child, Jones was raised Roman Catholic. Her parents, both aspiring stage actors, toured the Midwest in a traveling tent show that they owned and operated. Jones accompanied them, performing on occasion as part of the Isley Stock Company.
  In 1925, Jones enrolled at Edgemere Public School in Oklahoma City, then subsequently attended Monte Cassino, a Catholic girls school and junior college in Tulsa. After graduating, she enrolled as a drama major at Northwestern University in Illinois, where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority before transferring to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in September, 1937. It was there that she met and fell in love with fellow acting student Robert Walker, a native of Ogden, Utah. The couple married on January 2, 1939.
  Jones and Walker returned to Tulsa for a 13-week radio program arranged by her father and then made their way to Hollywood. She landed two small roles, first in a 1939 John Wayne Western titled New Frontier, which she filmed in the summer of 1939 for Republic Pictures. Her second project was the serial entitled Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939), also for Republic. In both films, she was credited as Phylis Isley. After having failed a screen test for Paramount Pictures, Jones became disenchanted with Hollywood and decided to return to New York City.
caption: Jones with Ray Corrigan (left) and John Wayne (right) in New Frontier (1939)
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