- Born
- Died
- Birth nameFrederick Charles Jones
- Height1.85 m
- British character actor Freddie Jones came to the acting profession after ten years of working as a laboratory assistant and acting in amateur theater on the side. To kick off his mid-life career change, Jones attended Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama in Kent, England, on a scholarship. He then worked in repertory theater, later joining up with the Royal Shakespeare Company and gaining recognition as an actor of exceptional cleverness, intelligence and perception.
His theatrical film debut came in 1967 in Peter Brook's critically acclaimed, Marat/Sade (1967). Two years later, Jones made his mark on the acting world playing "Claudius" in the six-part television miniseries, The Caesars (1968). Based on this performance, he was named "The World's Best Television Actor of the Year" at the Monte-Carlo TV Festival in 1969. Also, around this time, Jones gave one of his most touching film performances, that of the "monster" in Le Retour de Frankenstein (1969), in which he displayed pathos reminiscent of Boris Karloff's monster.
Critical acclaim led him into more prominent roles in television, e.g., Les Fantômes du château (1976), Children of the Stones (1977), and Pennies from Heaven (1978), as well as in film, e.g., La seconde mort d'Harold Pelham (1970), Antoine et Cléopâtre (1972), All Creatures Great and Small (1975) and L'Ultime Attaque (1979). He achieved international recognition as a film actor after appearing in such Hollywood films as Clint Eastwood's Firefox : L'Arme absolue (1982) and David Lynch's Elephant Man (1980), Dune (1984) and Sailor & Lula (1990).
Arguably one of his most endearing roles was the frequently drunk reporter "Orlando" in Federico Fellini's Et vogue le navire... (1983). His theatrical acting also went well as he was well suited for literary dramas, e.g., Loin de la foule déchaînée (1967), Nicholas Nickleby (1977), Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1985), Adam Bede (1992), David Copperfield (2000) and La vengeance de Monte Cristo (2002).- IMDb mini biography by: Lyn Hammond
- SpouseJennie Heslewood(1965 - July 9, 2019) (his death, 3 children)
- Children
- Father of Toby Jones (actor), Rupert Jones (director), and Casper Jones (actor).
- He and Dudley Sutton are the only actors to appear in both the ITV cult classic series Mon ami le fantôme (1969) and its BBC remake Mon ami le fantôme (2000).
- Played Fortunato in the 1995 version of The Cask of Amontillado (1995). His son, actor Toby Jones, played the antagonist role of Montresor in the 2014 production The Cask of Amontillado (2014).
- Opened the New Victoria Theatre in Newcastle-under-Lyme, near Stoke-on-Trent where he was born.
- My life springs from my wife, my family, my work and my whisky.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content