Victoria Jones was 14 when her father, Tommy Lee Jones, “fired” her from a movie role after she refused to get out of bed for an early call time — an anecdote circulating again after the actor’s daughter died at 34.
Victoria Jones, the daughter of the Academy Award-winning actor, was found dead early New Year’s Day at the Fairmont San Francisco hotel. Authorities said foul play is not suspected, but the cause of death remains under investigation.
Nearly two decades earlier, her father had spoken warmly about working with his teenage daughter during a 2006 interview with The New Yorker.
Jones told the magazine that Victoria, then 14, appeared in the film “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” as a young Mexican girl and had already shown professional discipline well beyond her years.
“She’s a good actress, has her SAG card, speaks impeccable Spanish,” Jones said at the time, according to the interview by Lillian Ross. He credited her language skills to her childhood, explaining that when she was a baby, he asked her nurse to speak to her in Spanish.
But Jones said the realities of a film set eventually tested his daughter’s resolve.
“She had to get up at 5 a.m. for her part,” he recalled. “One morning, she wouldn’t get out of bed. I said, ‘Honey, this is work.’ But she wouldn’t budge. So I fired her.”
Jones added that the firing didn’t last long.
“Then, without telling me, the production staff went over and woke her and rushed her out to the set just in time,” he said.
At the time, he was touring internationally with the film, which he directed and starred in, and spoke proudly of his children and their independence.
Victoria Jones’ acting résumé was brief but notable. In addition to “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,” she appeared in “Men in Black II” alongside her father and had a small role in the TV series “One Tree Hill.”
She did not pursue an acting career beyond her teenage years.
The San Francisco Fire Department said it received a call for a medical emergency at 2:52 a.m. on New Year’s Day. Paramedics arrived shortly afterward and pronounced the woman dead at the scene.
San Francisco police officers arrived at approximately 3:14 a.m. after receiving a report of a deceased person, according to the department.
Officers met with medics at the hotel, and the case was turned over to the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
A police source with direct knowledge of the investigation told NBC Bay Area that foul play is not suspected. Authorities have not yet confirmed an official cause of death, and no additional details have been released.
Representatives for Tommy Lee Jones did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Fairmont San Francisco did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Victoria Jones was the daughter of Jones and his second wife, Kimberlea Cloughley, whom he was married to from 1981 to 1996. She had one brother, Austin Jones.
In recent years, Victoria had largely stayed out of the public eye, though she occasionally appeared alongside her father at film premieres and international festivals.
Court records show she had multiple run-ins with law enforcement, including arrests in Napa County and Santa Cruz County on charges related to controlled substances and domestic battery.
She pleaded not guilty in the Napa County cases and was released on bail, according to records.
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