Career
Jones became known to television viewers after starring in the BBC serial Kenilworth (1967) as Queen Elizabeth I and in BBC2's 1970 dramatisation of The Spoils of Poynton.
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. In 1980, she played the role of Portia in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of The Merchant of Venice, opposite Warren Mitchell's Shylock.
On stage, in 1986, she played the great soprano Giuseppina Strepponi in After Aida at the Old Vic Theatre.
Jones 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), Bridget's mother Pam Jones in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) and Poppy Pomfrey in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), reprising her role in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (2011).
From 2007 to 2008 she played Connie James in the BBC1 drama Spooks. In 2010, she appeared in the Woody Allen film You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.
In 2011 she appeared in the BBC1 series Merlin, as the Cailleach, the gatekeeper to the spirit world.
Also in 2011 she appeared in the Bridge Project's version of Richard III as Queen Margaret, alongside Kevin Spacey as Richard III and directed by Sam Mendes, at the Old Vic and subsequently on an international tour.
Read more about this topic: Gemma Jones
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“In time your relatives will come to accept the idea that a career is as important to you as your family. Of course, in time the polar ice cap will melt.”
—Barbara Dale (b. 1940)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)
“The 19-year-old Diana ... decided to make her career that of wife. Today that can be a very, very iffy line of work.... And what sometimes happens to the women who pursue it is the best argument imaginable for teaching girls that they should always be able to take care of themselves.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)