The Song of Jennifer
Oscar-winning star Jennifer Jones, who died Dec. 17, shined brightest through her work with the Norton Simon Museum
By Carl Kozlowski 12/31/2009
Films have the power not only to entertain but also to affect people emotionally, sometimes for decades. One such movie for me was 1943’s “The Song of Bernadette,” which earned Jennifer Jones a Best Actress Oscar before she stopped acting and became one of Pasadena’s leading socialites through her work on the board of the Norton Simon Museum.
Growing up, I attended Little Rock Catholic High for Boys in Arkansas, and the principal, a gruff old priest named Father George Tribou, seemed to face the same dilemma every year on Good Friday — the day that Christians believe Christ died on the cross.
Father Tribou couldn’t decide whether it was better to have us leave school at noon — risking the possibility of hundreds of teenage boys running out the door and celebrating in the streets — or have us stay until 3 p.m., engaged in spiritual thoughts. His solution was to show us “The Song of Bernadette,” which at a whopping 158 minutes filled most of that three-hour gap with its portrayal of the young French girl who in 1858 claimed to have seen 18 consecutive daily apparitions of a “beautiful lady,” which townspeople felt were actual visions of the Virgin Mary. And so, each year, for four years, we watched the tale, with most of the guys bored to tears while cringing in fear of getting punished by Father Tribou if they as much as whispered.
As a young film buff who appreciated classic films well before most other guys my age, I came to deeply appreciate Jones’ performance and the holy glow she exuded from the screen. It was definitely a haunting film, filled with mysterious imagery as Bernadette wrestled with doubters and believers even more devout than herself surrounding her in her little town, her life eventually leading to the creation of a world-famous shrine to Mary in her hometown of Lourdes.
I never saw Jones act in any other films, despite a career in which she garnered four other Oscar nominations, including an astonishing three-in-a-row run (1945-47) that followed her win for “Bernadette.” But long after her acting career wound down in the early 1960s and early ’70s, with a final performance in 1974’s “The Towering Inferno,” she continued to have an impact on the art world through her marriage to Norton Simon from 1971 until his death in 1993, and continuing with the Norton Simon Museum’s board well after his passing.
Jones died on Dec. 17 in Malibu. She was 90. “She was tremendously involved in Pasadena’s art scene and often collaborated with us on exhibitions, even loaning art works to us from the Norton Simon when needed,” said David Partridge, vice chair of the Pasadena Museum of California Art. “She will be missed greatly, though we hope we’ll be able to continue our strong relationship with the Simon in the future.”
“I met her only once, after the reopening of the Norton Simon following a major renovation she helped oversee,” recalled Mayor Bill Bogaard. “But I was able to thank her for the impact of a world-class institution and its ability to educate countless visitors, especially area schoolchildren, in the finest that art has to offer.” According to her Internet Movie Database biography and her New York Times obituary, Jones had periods of great sadness interspersed with good times during her long life, surviving three husbands (including studio legend David O. Selznick) and two of her three children. But that very human factor only served to make in my mind the legacy that Jones leaves to both art and Pasadena that much greater.
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