She went on to star in several films that garnered her significant critical acclaim and a further three Academy Award nominations in the mid-1940s, including Since You Went Away (1944), Love Letters (1945) and Duel in the Sun (1946).

She appeared in several films throughout the 1950s, including Ruby Gentry (1952), John Huston's adventure comedy Beat the Devil (1953) and Vittorio De Sica's drama Terminal Station (1953).

After her 22 year-old daughter, Mary Jennifer Selznick, took her own life in 1976, Jones became deeply involved in mental health education.

[4] After graduating, she enrolled as a drama major at Northwestern University in Illinois, where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority before transferring to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City in September 1937.

[11] When she learned of auditions for the lead role in Rose Franken's hit play Claudia in the summer of 1941, she presented herself to David O. Selznick's New York office but fled in tears after what she thought was a bad reading.

[18] Jones's saintly image from her first starring role was starkly contrasted three years later when she was cast as a biracial woman in Selznick's controversial Duel in the Sun (1946), in which she portrayed a mixed-race indigenous (mestiza) orphan in Texas who falls in love with a white man (Gregory Peck).

[19] Also in 1946, she starred as the title character in Ernst Lubitsch's romantic comedy Cluny Brown as a working-class English woman who falls in love just before World War II.

[26] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times felt that Jones's performance was lacking, noting: "There is neither understanding nor passion in the stiff, frigid creature she achieves.

[28] Variety deemed the film "interesting to watch, but hard to feel," although it noted that "Jones answers to every demand of direction and script.

[31] Crowther criticized her performance, writing: "Mr. Olivier gives the film its closest contact with the book, while Miss Jones' soft, seraphic portrait of Carrie takes it furthest away.

"[32] Also in 1952, she costarred with Charlton Heston in Ruby Gentry, playing a femme fatale in rural North Carolina who becomes embroiled in a murder conspiracy after marrying a local man.

"[34] In its review, Variety deemed the film a "sordid drama [with] neither Jennifer Jones nor Charlton Heston gaining any sympathy in their characters.

[38] Aside from the tensions between cast and crew, Jones was mourning the recent death of her first husband Robert Walker, and also missed her two sons, who were staying in Switzerland during production.

[39] Terminal Station was screened at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival[40] and was released in a heavily truncated form in the United States with the title Indiscretion of an American Wife.

[41] Also in 1953, Jones teamed again with director John Huston to star in his film Beat the Devil (1953), an adventure comedy costarring Humphrey Bogart.

[44] Jones was cast as Chinese-born doctor Han Suyin in the drama Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), a role that brought her fifth Academy Award nomination.

"[46] Next, she starred as a schoolteacher in Good Morning, Miss Dove (1955),[47] followed by a lead role in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, a drama about a World War II veteran.

[50] The film received mixed reviews,[51] with Variety noting that "the relationship between Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones never takes on real dimensions.

Her first role in four years was a lead part in the British drama The Idol (1966) as the mother of an adult son in Swinging Sixties London who has an affair with his best friend.

[54] In 1966, Jones made a rare theatrical appearance in the revival of Clifford Odets' The Country Girl, costarring Rip Torn, at New York's City Center.

[62] On May 11, 1976, Jones's 21-year-old daughter Mary, a student at Occidental College, committed suicide by jumping from the roof of a 22-floor apartment hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

"[25] Jones enjoyed a quiet retirement, living with her eldest child, son Robert Walker Jr., and his family in Malibu for the last six years of her life.