Christopher
Jones, an actor who seemed poised for stardom before abruptly
abandoning his movie career in the late 1960s, died on Jan. 31 in Los
Alamitos, Calif. He was 72.
The cause was gallbladder cancer, said Paula McKenna, his longtime companion.
Mr.
Jones made only a few films, but his talent and star power drew
comparisons with James Dean, whose brief career his own mimicked in some
ways. Like Dean, Mr. Jones studied at the Actors Studio, worked on
Broadway and in television, and projected an aura of wild yearning and
raw energy, which he showed in films like “Wild in the Streets,” (1968) and “Ryan’s Daughter” (1970).
No
one seemed to know why Mr. Jones dropped out of the movie-star
business. Speculation ranged across several possible explanations: a
troubled personal history, a rebel’s rejection of the strict regimen of
filmmaking, his shock when a loved one was murdered because of her fame.
Mr.
Jones told an interviewer in 2007 that he had been having an affair
with the actress Sharon Tate when she and four others were viciously
killed on Aug. 9, 1969, by members of the Charles Manson cult in the
California home of Ms. Tate’s husband, the director Roman Polanski, who
was away. Mr. Jones was filming “Ryan’s Daughter” in Ireland at the
time.
His
year there was one of the worst of his life, he told The Chicago
Tribune. He was traumatized and depressed over Ms. Tate’s death and at
odds with his co-star, Sarah Miles. “I had absolutely no desire to do
anything for a long time,” he said.
Fairly sure I remember him, and it might be from the film Chubasco.
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