Movie Actress of The 1950s and 1960s
Jones impressed Rodgers and Hammerstein with her musically trained voice and she was cast as the female lead in the film adaptation of their hit musical Oklahoma! in 1955. Other film musicals quickly followed, including Carousel, April Love (1957) and The Music Man, in which she was often typecast as a wholesome, kind character. However, she won a 1960 Academy Award for her performance in Elmer Gantry portraying a woman corrupted by the title character played by Burt Lancaster. Her character becomes a prostitute who encounters her seducer years later and takes her revenge. She was reunited with Ron Howard (who had played her brother in The Music Man) in The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963). Jones landed the role of a lady who fell in love with the professor in Fluffy (1965). She also has an impressive stage résumé, including playing the title character in the Broadway musical Maggie Flynn in 1968.
Read more about this topic: Shirley Jones
Famous quotes containing the words movie and/or actress:
“Turning one’s novel into a movie script is rather like making a series of sketches for a painting that has long ago been finished and framed.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“An actress must be a woman whose emotional perceptions are true, and to make them so, she must have a fine contempt for any art or thought that betrays them for something false.”
—Nance O’Neil (1874–1965)