Tommy Lee Jones has never been much for interviews, so it meant something when he let a reporter from The New York Times through the gates of his ranch outside San Saba, Texas, for a feature published on November 10. He turned 80 on September 15, and he was born in San Saba in 1946, which means the man who chased Harrison Ford across a dam in The Fugitive now lives a short drive from where his life began. The Times found him worrying about feral hogs, showing off a house older than the Civil War, and still keeping most of himself to himself.
The visit came at the end of a painful year. Jones has not spoken publicly about the loss of his daughter, Victoria, and he did not change that for the Times. But between what he said about his land and what his wife of 25 years said about him, the piece offers the clearest picture in a long time of how he is living now, and why he chose this place to do it.
What Happened To His Daughter Victoria?
Victoria Kafka Jones was 34 when she was found unresponsive at the Fairmont San Francisco in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2026. She was the younger of the two children Jones had with his second wife, Kimberlea Cloughley and had appeared as a girl beside her father in Men in Black II and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, the 2005 western he also directed.
The family released a short statement two days later. “We appreciate all of the kind words, thoughts, and prayers,” it read, as reported by HELLO! and Rolling Stone. “Please respect our privacy during this difficult time.” In February, the San Francisco medical examiner ruled her death an accident caused by the toxic effects of cocaine, KTVU and Fox News reported. People had earlier found court records showing she had been arrested at least twice in the year before she died.
After that, Jones went quiet. A source told People soon after that he was “very private” and was keeping a low profile at home in Texas. Home, for Jones, has a long history behind it.
How Did A Harvard Lineman End Up Back In San Saba?
Jones grew up mostly in Midland, the son of an oil field worker, and a scholarship took him to St. Mark’s School in Dallas and then to Harvard. There he shared a room with a young Al Gore and played offensive guard on the undefeated 1968 football team, including the famous Harvard and Yale game that ended in a 29 to 29 tie after Harvard scored 16 points in the last minute. Author Erich Segal is said to have drawn on both roommates for the hero of Love Story, and Jones made his film debut in the 1970 movie as one of the hero’s Harvard pals.
The decades that followed made him one of the most recognizable faces in American film. He won an Emmy for playing killer Gary Gilmore in The Executioner’s Song in 1983. Six years later he rode across the screen as Captain Woodrow F. Call opposite Robert Duvall in Lonesome Dove. Then came Deputy U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in The Fugitive, which won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the deadpan Agent K in Men in Black.
He bought the San Saba property more than two decades ago, and when DYR caught up with him at a rare appearance in October, he had just returned to television. The ranch turns out to be a story of its own.
What Is Life Like On The Ranch Now?
The house is a two-story limestone home built in 1856, “when Sam Houston was still alive,” as Jones put it to the Times. The working ranch around it covers roughly 6,000 acres, according to the Times and People. Inside, he keeps two slate-topped tables signed by Frank Lloyd Wright alongside Native American artifacts found on the land. “As you can see, the house has an architectural statement to make,” he told the paper.
The current trouble is hogs. Wild pigs have been tearing up the lawn, and Jones, who never wanted a barrier, is reluctantly thinking about one. “I didn’t want any fences around the house,” he said.
Horses are the other constant. Jones took up polo in the 1970s, and the ranch now has two polo fields and about 25 horses. His wife, Dawn Laurel-Jones, 62, still competes. They met in 1995 on the set of The Good Old Boys, the TV movie he directed and starred in, where she worked as a camera assistant, and they married in March 2001. Together they breed polo horses and look after two Italian greyhounds.
He has not retired, either. In FX’s The Lowdown, which returned for its second season in October, Jones plays the estranged father of Ethan Hawke’s character, and JoBlo’s review of the new season called him fantastic. Still, his wife made clear to the Times that the attention that comes with the work costs him something.
Why Tommy Lee Jones Says He Finally Went Home
“It’s very alienating for him to be objectified so thoroughly,” Dawn Laurel-Jones told the Times, “even in some of the most private moments that he can’t even process without being under a microscope.” She did not say which moments she meant. In a year like this one, she didn’t have to.
Jones explained the choice in a few words. “There came a time when I became aware that I could live anywhere I wanted to,” he told the Times. “So, in my wisdom, I went home.”
For a man who has played lawmen, outlaws and cattle drivers across half a century of westerns, it was a fitting answer, and he had one more line about the place that raised him. “I knew that God loved me,” he said, “because he put me on the ground in Texas.”
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