No Country for Old Men actor Tommy Lee Jones once reminisced about working with his daughter, Victoria, who tragically passed away this week at the young age of 34.
Victoria Jones reportedly passed away at the Fairmont hotel in San Francisco in the early hours of New Year’s Day. The San Francisco Fire Department confirmed that paramedics responded to a call at the hotel’s address around 2:52am.
Upon arrival, paramedics discovered an individual who had died, leading the local police department and medical examiner’s office to take over the investigation.
The cause of her death remains unknown.
Victoria was the youngest child of Jones and his second wife, Kimberlea Cloughley. She initially pursued a path in acting like her father and appeared alongside him in the 2002 film Men in Black II.
In 2005, she collaborated with Jones again on the film The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which he both directed and acted in.
During a conversation with The New Yorker published on January 2, 2006, nearly 20 years before Victoria’s passing, Jones praised his daughter’s performance in the movie, where she portrayed a young Mexican girl.
Jones remarked about Victoria, who was 14 at the time: “She’s a good actress, has her SAG card, speaks impeccable Spanish. When she was a baby, I told Leticia, her nurse, to speak to her in Spanish.”
Despite their familial bond, Jones did not offer special treatment to Victoria.
He added: “I fired my daughter. She had to get up at 5 A.M. for her part. One morning, she wouldn’t get out of bed.”
Jones recounted how he tried to motivate her, saying: “I said, ‘Honey, this is work.’ But she wouldn’t budge.”
To teach Victoria a lesson about the consequences of her actions, Jones added: “So I fired her.”
Fortunately, the production staff intervened, waking Victoria up and getting her to the set just in time without informing Jones.
Following the heartbreaking news of her passing, condolences have poured in for Victoria’s family. One fan expressed on X: “My thoughts are with Tommy and the family, losing a child is unimaginable. Hug your loved ones tight, life’s twists can be harsher than any movie script.”