The graduate of the St. Mark's School of Texas, he attended Harvard on a scholarship, where he was a roommate of former Vice President Al Gore and of John Lithgow at Dunster House. Jones played offensive tackle on Harvard's undefeated 1968 varsity football team, was nominated as a first-team 100%-Ivy League selection, and played in the memorable eleventh hour (literally) Harvard Xvi point are-from either-behind blitz which defeated Yale in the 1968 Game. Jones graduated cum laude with a degree inside English around 1969.

He so moved to New York City to become an actor. He began acting in Broadway and made his debut in Love Story. Between 1971 and 1975, he portrayed Dr. Mark Toland on the ABC soap opera, One Life to Live, and then he played a role of an loose convict world health organization was track down per police force around Jackson County Jail (1976).

Within 1983 he received an Emmy for Best Actor for his performance when manslayer Gary Gilmore in a TV adaptation of Norman Mailer's ''The Executioner's Song.

In the Nineties, motion-picture show like The Fugitive costarring Harrison Ford and Men in Black with Will Smith brought him tens of millions of dollars and mass produced him one of a top actors of Hollywood.

His role in The Fugitive'' won him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

At a 2000 Democratic National Convention he nominated his college roommate, Al Gore, as a Democratic party's nominee for President of the United States.

In March 19, 2001, he married Dawn Laurel (his third marriage).

Around 2005, he realized his first feature-film The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, that was presented at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. It won him a Better Actor Award.

Filmography
Man of the House (2005) The Missing (2003) The Hunted (2003) Men in Black II (2002) Space Cowboys (2000) Rules of Engagement (2000) Double Jeopardy (1999) Small Soldiers (1998) (voice) U.S. Marshals (1998) Men in Black (1997) Volcano (1997) Batman Forever (1995) The Good Old Boys (1995) (TV) Cobb (1994) Blue Sky (1994) Natural Born Killers (1994) The Client (1994) Blown Away (1994) The Fugitive (1993) House of Cards (1993) Heaven & Earth (1993) Under Siege (1992) JFK (1991) Fire Birds (1990) The Package (1989) Lonesome Dove (1989) Gotham (1988) (TV) Stormy Monday (1988) April Morning (1988) (TV) Stranger on My Land (1988) (TV) The Big Town (1987) Broken Vows (1987) (TV) Yuri Nosenko, KGB (1986) (TV) Black Moon Rising (1986) The Park Is Mine (1986) (TV) Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1985) (TV) The River Rat (1984) Nate and Hayes (1983) (aka Savage Islands) The Rainmaker (1982) (TV) ''The Executioner's Song (1982) (TV) Back Roads (1981) Barn Burning (1980) (TV) Coal Miner's Daughter (1980) Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) The Betsy (1978) Rolling Thunder (1977) The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977) (TV) Jackson County Jail (1976) Smash-Up on Interstate 5 (1976) (TV) Charlie's Angels (1976) (TV) Eliza's Horoscope (1975) Life Study (1973) Love Story (1970) One Life to Live'' (1968)