Jennifer Jones: podcast appearances and interviews

Jennifer Jones, also known as Jennifer Jones Simon, was an actress and mental-health advocate who was born Phylis Lee Isley on March 2, 1919. Her career spanned over five decades during which she received critical acclaim and multiple award nominations, including five Academy Award nominations and a win for Best Actress for her role in The Song of Bernadette. She also earned a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. Jones worked as a model in her youth before transitioning to acting in 1939, initially appearing in a western and serial before her breakthrough role in 1943. Her portrayal of Bernadette Soubirous in The Song of Bernadette earned her widespread recognition. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, she starred in a variety of films that garnered acclaim, with notable performances in Since You Went Away, Love Letters, Duel in the Sun, and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, which earned her additional Oscar nominations. Jones was married to film producer David O. Selznick until his death and later married industrialist Norton Simon. She retired from film after her final appearance in The Towering Inferno in 1974, which also earned her a Golden Globe nomination. A survivor of mental health struggles, she became an advocate after her daughter’s tragic death by suicide in 1976. In 1980, she founded the Jennifer Jones Simon Foundation for Mental Health and Education. Jones spent her later years living in Malibu, California, where she passed away of natural causes in 2009 at age 90.