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Cherry Jones Cast as the President on "24"  Out actress Cherry Jones has been cast as President Allison Taylor on Season 7 of the Emmy-winning drama 24, Fox announced Sunday at the 2007 Television Critics Association press tour. The show's new season begins in January 2008. Fox did not reveal any details about the character, but Jones will be the show's first female commander in chief. Critics are already noting that the casting coincides with Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy, but Fox Entertainment Chairman Peter Liguori insisted the show intends no comment on real-world politics. That's lucky for Hillary: Previous presidents have not fared well on 24, facing everything from air attacks to assassination and rarely serving a full term. Although fans of 24 may not have heard of the 50-year-old actress, theatergoers know Jones as a major Broadway star. A Tony Award-winner for The Heiress (1995) and Doubt (2005), Jones has also had television and movie roles, most recently in Ocean's 12 and The West Wing. AfterEllen.com readers may know her best for the 2001 Lifetime movie What Makes a Family (costarring Brooke Shields), based on the true story of a Florida lesbian mother’s fight to maintain custody of her child after the death of her partner. Jones grew up in Paris, Tenn. She attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, making her Broadway debut in Stepping Out in 1987. Her myriad other theater credits include Angels in America (1993), A Moon for the Misbegotten (2000) and Faith Healer (2006). She has been called the finest stage actress of her generation, eliciting comparisons to Helen Hayes and Colleen Dewhurst. Onstage, she is magnetic, somehow simultaneously warm and intimidating. Her theater work will undoubtedly serve her well as she moves into the fictional Oval Office. With the 24 casting news, Jones becomes the only openly lesbian actress in a prominent role on a prime-time network show next season. The last woman to hold that honor was Jones' girlfriend, Sarah Paulson (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip). (Clearly there's some sort of unwritten network rule that limits the number of out actresses on prime-time television to one. At least Jones won't have to travel far for the torch-passing ceremony.) Most websites and wire stories reporting the casting news do not mention that Jones is a lesbian. Jones herself has always been open about her sexual orientation. She even told the San Francisco Chronicle that her first crush was Julie Andrews. She played a lesbian in the 1993 play And Baby Makes Seven, kissing her co-star onstage. Twelve years later, she and Paulson shared a kiss on national television when Jones won the Tony Award for Best Actress for her role in Doubt; she thanked Paulson in her acceptance speech. Last February, Jones told AfterEllen.com that she believes it's important to "live my life openly and freely and with joy and thanksgiving." Her presence on a network show — as only the second female president on television, after Geena Davis on ABC's short-lived Commander in Chief — will likely make her fans and the lesbian community even more grateful for that openness. Season 7 (aka "Day 7") of 24 begins in January 2008, airing Mondays at 9:00 p.m. on Fox. |
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Wow, AWESOME!
I adore Cherry Jones, and this will be a wonderful high-profile role for her. Now if only 24 weren't so right-wing and reactionary, I might actually enjoy watching it.
Oh, one big omission in this article. It mentions some of her performances, but it doesn't mention Cherry Jones winning a Tony for The Heiress. She gave a legendary performance, it was her first Tony, and she thanked her lover in her acceptance speech, at a time when this was VERY uncommon on awards shows, even the Tonys. I remember being a teenager, barely out, and watching this speech, and I was so thrilled by it.
--abzug
Visit http://www.badgirlsannex.com!
Will the president have a first gentleman or a first lady?
My bet is that she'll be a
No omission--
Look again, abzug, it says right there "A Tony Award-winner for The Heiress (1995) and Doubt (2005),"
I am so excited for this! I LOVE Cherry JOnes in everything I've ever seen her in, she has such an amazing presence...unfortunately this means I will now have to add 24 to my already too long list of shows I watch!
Whoops!
My bad. I don't know why I didn't notice that paragraph! I can blame it on lack of sleep and utter physical exhaustion. Or just the fact that her speech remains one of my favorite Tony Award memories so I wanted it to have a shout-out. Thanks for pointing it out. :)
--abzug
Visit http://www.badgirlsannex.com!
mixed feelings
Was really happy to hear about her role on 24. With Cherry on 24 and Portia on Nip/Tuck, I now have two things to look forward to.
My mixed feeling come with the lack of coverage about Cherry as a lesbian. On the one hand, I think it's a good thing that the word "lesbian" is not automatically associated with her name and that it's not a news-worthy piece of information. On the other hand, I like hearing/talking about lesbians as much as humanly possible. Cherry nor Sarah Paulson get a great deal of attention for their lady-lovin' orientation. (At last year's Golden Globes, I was really hoping to see Sarah at the show with Cherry on her arm--not Matthew Perry for God's sake!) In other words, I WANT MORE LESBIAN POWER COUPLES! Ellen and Portia, Posh and Becks, Cherry and Sarah.
I hear ya
I have the very same mixed feeling as you. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that if Cherry were straight, they wouldn't mention her relationship status in a casting news article like this. But it's a fine line between progress (being gay is so normalized that it's not worth mentioning) and invisibility (being gay is never mentioned).
I suspect the lack of coverage of Cherry Jones and Sarah Paulson as a couple has to do with the fact that they never talk about their relationship in the press. Which in a way is kinda cool. They just ARE, they don't have to promote themselves or their relationship, or talk talk talk about it. That's the normalized gay relationship ideal, in my mind. Which they are able to have because outside the theatre community and the gay community, they simply aren't noticed. It will be interesting to see what happens now that Sarah Paulson is higher profile (post-Studio 60) and Cherry Jones will also be reaching a wider audience--will their relationship stay so unspoken in the press?
--abzug
Visit http://www.badgirlsannex.com!
Just for the record...
Back in 1985 Patty Duke played Julia Mansfield, the first female President of the United States in a sitcom called, "Hail to the Chief".
It was the 80's and the show was hokey, but it was also forward thinking enough that President Mansfield's head Secret Service agent was a homosexual named Randy, who referred to himself as "the most lethal pansy in the world".
Kmuck58
I'm excited. That's all.
I'm excited. That's all. This and having a lesbian cheerleader on 'Heroes' is really making the new fall line-ups seem a bit more appealing.
...and all was well, and the world smiled.
Visibility equals More Movies?
Buckboard
As you wrote, Cherry isn't well known outside the theater, although she's had minor roles in several films and on TV. Anyone who has seen her perform on stage knows it's criminal that she won't be playing the nun in "Doubt" in the film version. (Meryl Streep is!) So perhaps playing in this right wing action drama will make her better known and give her the power to get better roles in film.
In What Makes a Family, Cherry played the lesbian mother who died. Brooke Shields was the partner who fought for custody. (AE wrote: "based on the true story of a Florida lesbian mother’s fight to maintain custody of her child after the death of her partner (played by Brooke Shields).")
thanks
This one has me a bit worried, to be honest...
I know they say the timing of casting a female president is not a comment on the fact that Hillary might be our next president, but... Hillary's sexuality has been constantly called into question by her political opponents over the years. So while I'm usually happy to see a terrific, OUT actress cast in a prominent role, a part of me can't help but worry whether it's an insidious way for Joel Surnow et al. to smear Hill's reputation, including the "taint"-by-association of Jones's lesbiosity. I fear the character will turn out to be either secretly evil, incredibly weak and ineffective, or frigid and relentlessly bitchy, all as a way of subliminally discrediting Hillary in the eyes of the viewers. Considering that the season will air in the months leading up to the election, it's quite a convenient platform for conservatives to impugn Hill's character under the guise of fiction.
I Agree!
The neo-cons use every dirty trick in their scummy bag of tricks to blackball their opponents so it would not surprise me a bit.
Just go into any chat room and you will soon realize that misogyny is alive and well here in the good old USA. And even worse than listening to men and their gender based hate is listening to other women support them. Will we never learn that for all of us to rise none of us can be accomplices to the hate against our very essence.
So, I think it will take nothing short of a miracle for us to see a woman become U.S. President in our lifetimes. It's the ultimate glass ceiling and its been reinforced to be virtually shatterproof for women and minorities.
Of course, in this case, I sincerely hope I will be proved wrong.
I get what you're saying,
livin' large :)
I just got here via a Wonkette link! Very, very cool:
http://wonkette.com/politics/dept%27-of-know-your-rights/powerful-lesbian-will-be-president-282342.php