Graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a BFA in Drama.
Out of the closet since the beginning of her professional career in 1980, Cherry has been an outspoken advocate for gay rights ever since. She made theatre history on the Tony awards show when she thanked her partner after accepting the 'Best Actress' trophy for "The Heiress." Others have since followed suit.
A frequent reader of stories on NPR's Selected Shorts radio program.
Won Broadway's 1995 Tony Award as Best Actress (Play) for a revival of "The Heiress." She was nominated in the same cartegory two other times: in 1991 for "Our Country's Good," and in 2000 for a revival of Eugene O'Neill's "A Moon for the Misbegotten."
She won her 2nd Tony in 2005. She won for Leading Actress in a Play for her role as Sister Aloysius in John Patrick Shanley's hit play Doubt, a parable.
Shares a birthday with Björk, Goldie Hawn, Rachel Rogers, Nicollette Sheridan, & Juliet Mills
Cherry Jones Detailed Biography
Cherry Jones (born on November 21, 1956, in Paris, Tennessee) is an American actress. She is best known for her stage work, including her Tony Award-winning leading performances in Lincoln Center's 1995 production of The Heiress and John Patrick Shanley's play Doubt, which opened at the Walter Kerr Theatre in March of 2005. Other Broadway productions in which Jones has appeared include Nora Ephron's play Imaginary Friends (with Swoosie Kurtz); Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Perestroika; and Timberlake Wertenbaker's Our Country's Good, for which she earned her first Tony nomination in the role of Liz Morden.
In recent years, Jones has played some supporting roles in movies, including Hallie Flanagan in Cradle Will Rock, Edie Bailey in The Perfect Storm, Molly Star in Ocean's Twelve, and Officer Paski in Signs.
In 1995, when Jones accepted her first Tony she thanked her then-lover, architect Mary O'Connor. In 2005, when she accepted the Tony Award for Best Actress in a play for Doubt, she thanked "Laura Wingfield"-- a character in the revival of The Glass Menagerie played by Sarah Paulson.
