Jessie Jones, a veteran TV character actor who guested on such popular series as Murphy Brown, Newhart and Night Court and also was a prolific comedy playwright, has died. She was 75.
Her writing partner Jamie Wooten told Deadline that Jones died March 20 in Washington, D.C., after a long illness.
Born on August 21, 1950, in the Texas Panhandle, Jones won a high school essay/speech contest before graduating from the University of Texas at Austin. She got her screen start in the late 1980s with guest roles on TV’s Newhart and Hooperman and continued to work regularly during the ’90s. Her credits include a number of the era’s top series including on Night Court, Designing Women, Perfect Strangers, Grace Under Fire, Melrose Place, Judging Amy, Cold Case, Who’s the Boss? and others.
She had a brief but memorable role in the first Season 3 episode of Murphy Brown as Mrs. Betty Hooley, a woman picked “at random, right out of the phone book” to be interviewed on-air by FYI host Murphy (Candice Bergen) about the challenges facing an American family in the 1990s. But the stunt goes south as Wooley turns out to be an unabashed bigot who embarrasses the show and gets scolded by the host.
Jones had a series-regular role on The WB interfaith-romance sitcom You’re the One, playing the mother of co-lead Cynthia Geary. But the series about a Southern woman and New York man didn’t click and aired only two episodes in April 1998. Jones also appeared in multiple 1995 episodes of the Saturday morning ABC comedy Fudge during its two-year run.
Along with bit roles in a handful of features, Jones also appeared in several TV movies including The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom, Caught in the Act, My Brother’s Keeper and The Rescue of Baby Jessica starring Patty Duke and Beau Bridges.
By the mid-2000s, Jones had pivoted to a prolific second career writing plays. Among her best-known works is the Southern-funeral comedy Dearly Departed, which premiered Off Broadway and was produced on multiple U.S. regional and community stages. The show was the source for Kingdom Come, a film adaptation from Fox Searchlight that featured an ensemble cast led by LL Cool J, Jada Pinkett Smith, Vivica A. Fox, Anthony Anderson, Toni Braxton and Whoopi Goldberg.
Along with her partners Wooten and Nicholas Hope, Jones also co-wrote more than two dozen other plays, specializing in Southern-flavored comedies. All published by Concord Theatricals, their Jones Hope Wooten works include such titles as The Sweet Delilah Swim Club, The Red Velvet Cake War, Christmas Belles and The Savannah Sipping Society. The trio’s works have been performed in every U.S. state and more than 25 other countries. Wooten said Jones was the most-produced female American playwright.
Jones is survived by sisters Ellen and Laura, brother-in-law Jim McCarthy, niece Margaret McCarthy and nephews Tommy McCarthy, Todd Hyso and Paul Hyso, along with grand-nieces and cousins. The family asked that donations in her memory be made to Planned Parenthood.
