As the daughter of vaudeville artists, they have been touring extensively as a child with her parents across the USA. Later she studied at the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts, where met her colleagues Robert Walker. After marriage, both moved to Hollywood. Taking their name Phyllis Isley, she took a few supporting roles in westerns and B-movies, without causing a big impression on audiences and critics.

The turning point in her career came in 1941 when they caught the attention of producer David O. Selznick pulled up, which it took under a long-term contract and it also gave the stage name Jennifer Jones. After three years of intensive preparation Jones eventually took over from the competition by Linda Darnell, the role of St. Bernadette Soubirous in the Henry King adaptation of the bestseller The Song of Bernadette by Franz Werfel. Jones won for her portrayal of the Oscar as best actress. It subsequently rose to Jones as a performer of romantic Frauenschicksale a popular star. In the home front drama as if you took leave, she was seen in 1944 as a daughter of Claudette Colbert too. The following year she received another Oscar nomination for her sensitive depiction of a young war widow in Love Letters, it was directed by William Dieterle on the side of Joseph Cotten, who starred in Since You Went Away nor the admirers of her mother's film. Ernst Lubitsch brought Cluny Brown before them for the camera after Gene Tierney was indispensable. The shooting was overshadowed by Lubitsch's health deteriorated dramatically.

A completely different role played Jones finally as a half-breed in the Western Duel in the Sun, who came in late 1946 after endless shootings, many Regiewechseln and bitter quarrels with the censor in the national distribution. Jennifer Jones played a young woman who moves away from the conventional notions of morality and virtue, and enters an appearance on a disastrous affair with her adopted brother, Gregory Peck.

Only some years later, Jones again stepped in front of the camera, but neither the adaptation of Madame Bovary or the appearance alongside John Garfield in We Were Strangers have been accepted by the audience. Her performance in Portrait of Jennie take them to the will of Selznick its name back to the top of the popularity lists. But the story that played at different time scales, and they together again with Joseph Cotten and William Dieterle, was a financial flop. Only William Wyler was able to help Jones at a comeback. His film adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie Jones, who was morbidly ambitious stage actress who drives on their way to the top of her faithful admirers and supporters, played by Laurence Olivier in ruin and suicide. Critics praised the strong play of the stars and told her ahead of a successful second career, but the subsequent films did not reach the level of Wyler's work.

Jones, however, had a renewed comeback in 1955 when she took the female lead in "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, the film adaptation of a popular book. The film was financially successful bands of the year.

Her marriage to Robert Walker were divorced 1945th Jennifer Jones in 1949 married her producer David O. Selznick. With Selznick, she was married until his death in 1965th In 1971 she married the industrialist and art collector Norton Simon and took only sporadically role offers an actress. On one of her last movie roles was in 1974 created a performance film The Towering Inferno. Her husband was appointed in 1977 as Chairman of the Norton Simon Museum, a position which she continues even after his death in 1993.