Gemma Jones (born December 4, 1942) is an English character actress on both stage and screen.
Jones was born Jennifer Jones in London, England, the daughter of Irene (née Isaac) and Griffith Jones, an actor. Her brother, Nicholas Jones is also an actor. She attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
She was first recognised outside the UK in 1974, after playing the Empress Frederick in the BBC television drama series Fall of Eagles and Louisa Trotter in another BBC drama, The Duchess of Duke Street. She later played Mrs Dashwood alongside Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson in the Academy Award-winning period drama Sense and Sensibility (1995).
Other notable roles include Lady Queensbury in Wilde (1997), Grace Winslow in The Winslow Boy (1999), Pam Jones in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) and Poppy Pomfrey in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), also alongside Alan Rickman. She is currently onscreen as Connie James in series six of the BBC1 drama Spooks.
Daughter of actor Griffith Jones and sister of actor Nicholas Jones (I).
An Associate Member of RADA.
Graduated from RADA.
She has the dubious distinction of playing the first character to die in the popular detective series "Inspector Morse" (1987).
Was an avid mountain climber for many years, a passion she credited to the fact that her family originally came from the Welsh mountains.
Is a good friend of fellow RADA graduate Martin Jarvis.
Current hobbies include gardening and hill walking near the Jones family home, an old lead miner's cottage in the Welsh mountains.
