Grace Jones

Biography

Grammy-nominee and three-time Saturn Award-nominee, Grace Jones can claim a career in show business by birthright. Her grandfather (on her mother's side) was a musician who traveled with Nat 'King' Cole. She was born May 19, 1948 in Spanish Town, St Catherine - Jamaica, to Marjorie Jones (née Williams) and Reverend Robert W. Jones. Though she was born in Jamaica, Grace was raised in Syracuse, New York, where she later studied Spanish at Syracuse University. Halfway through college, she was approached by a drama professor who proposed that she come work with him in a play he was putting on in Philadelphia, she accepted. She was 18 when she moved back to New York, and signed on as a model with Wilhelmina Modeling agency. But, since her looks were not successfully received, she moved to Paris, France, where her androgynous, bold, dark-skinned appearance fostered her potential. She modeled for Yves Saint-Laurent, Claude Montana, Kenzo Takada, Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, Hans Feurer and Azzedine Alaïa, and she appeared on the covers of "Elle", "Vogue", and "Der Stern". While modeling, she found herself acting, playing minor parts in film. Her debut film appearance was in Gordon's War (1973), she played the role of Mary, a drug smuggler. Grace started to work prolifically in the 1980s and became a successful American actress with her roles of Zula the amazonian in Conan the Destroyer (1984), and May Day in the 14th James Bond film A View to a Kill (1985). Other notable roles include: Katrina, the Egyptian queen vampire in Vamp (1986), Helen Strangé, the forceful and sex hungry model in the Eddie Murphy film, Boomerang (1992), and Christoph/Christine, an intersexed circus performer in the made-for-television film, Wolf Girl (2001).