Out Spotlight

Today's Out Spotlight is a theater, film and television actress best known for her role as president of the United States. A Broadway veteran, she is considered one of America’s foremost stage actresses. She has received two Tony Awards. She is a also an advocate fore gay rights. Today's Out Spotlight is actress and advocate Cherry Jones.

Cherry Jones was born November 21, 1956 in Paris, Tennessee. She grew up in the small town with her mother a high school teacher and her father owning a flower shop. “I came from a very loving family where I knew I had their unconditional love no matter what,”

With her sights set on acting, she headed north enrolling at the prestigious Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, where in 1978, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. In 1980, she became a founding member of the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she played a wide range of roles.

In the mid-1980’s, she left the ART and moved to New York and performing in the Broadway productions including “Angels in America,” “The Night of the Iguana”,“A Moon for the Misbegotten, and Timberlake Wertenbaker's "Our Country's Good", for which she earned her first Tony nomination.In 1995, she received a Tony Award for her role in “The Heiress” and made headlines by being the first award winner to publicly thank her then lover, architect Mary O'Connor.

In 1998, Jones narrated a documentary film about the history of the gay rights movement, “Out of the Past.”

She has narrated the audiobook adaptations of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series including, Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, Farmer Boy, On the Banks of Plum Creek, By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter and Little Town on the Prairie.

In recent years, Jones has ventured into feature films appearing in “The Horse Whisperer”, “Cradle Will Rock”, “Erin Brockovich” and “The Perfect Storm”, Oceans Twelve and The Village.

In 2001, Jones costarred with Brooke Shields in the Lifetime Television movie “What Makes a Family,” based on the true story of a lesbian couple and a custody battle. “I’m more proud of that than anything I’ve ever done. There’s so much social worth to that film,”

An outspoken advocate of gay rights, she received GLAAD’s Vito Russo Media Award for her contribution toward eliminating homophobia in 2004.

In 2005, she was honored with a second Tony Award for her portrayal of Sister Aloysius in “Doubt.” When she accepted her Best Actress Tony, she thanked "Laura Wingfield", the Glass Menagerie character being played in the Broadway revival by Jones's girlfriend actress Sarah Paulson. The pair had attended the awards together and kissed right after Jones won, thus making it clear that Paulson was not closeted about the relationship.

In 2007, Paulson and Jones declared their love for each other in an interview with VelvetPark at Women's Event 10 for the LGBT Center of New York. Paulson and Jones ended their relationship in 2009 and remain friends.

She may be best-known for her role as President Allison Taylor on the Fox series 24. In 2009, Jones received an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a drama series for her role on “24."

“I was never in the closet. From the moment…I stepped onto the theatrical stage, I was always out. It was never an issue.”