Grace Jones

At 76 years old, Grace Jones has this physical status:

Biography and career

Grace Jones was born in 1948 (although most sources state 1952) in Spanish Town, Jamaica, the niece of Marjorie (née Williams) (1927–2008) and Robert W. Jones (1925–2008), a local politician and Apostolic clergyman. The couple already had two children and would continue to have four more. Robert and Margaret Marjorie migrated to the East Coast of the United States, where Robert served as an agricultural labourer until a spiritual experience during a suicide attempt led him to become a Pentecostal minister. While they were in the United States, they left their children with Marjorie's mother and her new husband, Peart. Jones referred to him as "Mas P" (Mas P) and later said she "fully disliked him"; as a strict disciplinarian, Jones abused the children in his care, causing what Jones describes as "serious bullying." She was born into the family's Pentecostal faith, but she was forced to attend prayer meetings and Bible readings every night. She started at Pentecostal All Saints School before being sent to a nearby public school. As an infant, shy Jones had only one school friend and was mocked by classmates for her "skinny figure," but she excelled at sports and found solace in the beauty of Jamaica.

Marjorie and Robert then moved their children, including 13-year-old Grace, to live in the United States, where they had settled in Lyncourt, Salina, New York, near Syracuse. In 1956, her father founded the Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ in the city. Jones continued her education, and after graduating, she joined Onondaga Community College majoring in Spanish. Jones began to protest her parents and their faith by wearing makeup, drinking alcohol, and attending gay clubs with her brother. She took a drama class at college, with her drama teacher encouraging her to join him on a summer stock tour in Philadelphia. On her arrival in the city, she decided to stay in hippie communes, making money as a go-go dancer, and using LSD and other drugs. "LSD has been a very important piece of my mental development," she said later. The mental exercise was beneficial to me."

At the age of 18, she returned to New York and signed on as a Wilhelmina Model. In 1970, she went to Paris. Jones' unusual, androgynous, bold, dark-skinned appearance made the Paris fashion scene receptive to his extraordinary, nascent, black-skinned appearance. Yves St. Laurent, Claude Montana, and Kenzo Takada hired her for runway modelling, and she appeared on Elle, Vogue, and Stern's covers. Jones has worked for Azzedine Alaia as a model, and he has been shot often publicizing his line. She and Jerry Hall and Jessica Lange shared an apartment in Paris while modelling. Hall and Jones used Le Sept, one of Paris' most popular gay clubs of the 1970s and 1980s, and socialized with Giorgio Armani and Karl Lagerfeld. Jones appeared on the front page of Billy Paul's 1970 album Ebony Woman in 1973.

Jones was signed by Island Records, who brought her into the studio with disco record producer Tom Moulton. Moulton began working at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Portfolio was founded in 1977. The album featured three songs from Broadway musicals, including Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns," A Little Night Music's "What I Did for Love," A Chorus Line's "Tomorrow" and Annie's "Tomorrow." "La Vie en rose" by Édith Piaf is reinterpretation by seven minutes, followed by three new songs, two of which were co-written by Jones, "Sorry" and "That's the Trouble" is the second half of the album. Jones' first club hit "I Need a Man." Richard Bernstein, an artist for Interview, conceived the album's artwork.

Jones and Moulton produced Fame, an instant sequel to Portfolio that was also recorded at Sigma Sound Studios in 1978. "Autumn Leaves" by Jacques Prévert's album was yet another reinterpretation of a French classic. In most countries, the Canadian version of the vinyl album contained yet another French language track, "Comme un oiseau qui s'envole," which replaced "All on a Summer's Night; in most countries, this song appeared as the B-side of the single "Do or Die." Fame was a hit album on the North American club circuit, and the "Do or Die"/"Fame"/"Fame" side of both the US Hot Dance Club Play and Canadian Dance/Urban charts ranked top ten on both the US Hot Dance Club Play and Canadian Dance/Urban charts. In the early 1990s, the album was released on compact disc but soon went out of print. It was released and remastered by Gold Legion, a record company that specializes in reissuing classic disco albums on CD in 2011.

Jones' live shows were highly sexualized and flamboyant, prompting her to be dubbed "Queen of the Gay Discos."

She appeared in the highly disputed Italian television show Stryx, which was broadcast on Rai 2 and where she played the role of Rumstryx in the same year.

Muse was the last of Jones' disco albums. The album features a re-recorded version of "I'll Find My Way to You" by Jones, three years before Muse. Jones, who appeared in the 1976 Italian film Colt 38 Special Squad in which Jones played a role as a club performer, also performed a song called "Again and Again" that was included in the film. Both songs were created by composer Stelvio Cipriani. Thor Baldursson, an Icelandic keyboardist, produced the majority of the album and performed duet with Jones on the track "Suffer." Richard Bernstein's cover art is similar to the last two albums. Muse, like Fame, was later released by the Gold Legion.

Jones transitioned into modern wave music with the 1980 release of Warm Leatherette, as anti-disco sentiments were expanding and with the support of the Compass Point All Stars. The album featured covers of songs by The Normal ("Private Life"), The Pretenders ("Love Is the Drug"), Smokey Robinson ("The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game"), Tom Petty ("Breakdown"), Jacques Higelin ("Pars"), and Jacques Higelin ("Pars"). Sly Dunbar announced that the title track was also the first to be recorded with Jones. Tom Petty reinterprets Jones's "Breakdown" lyrics, and he also wrote the third verse of Jones' reinterpretation. "A Rolling Stone" was Jones' co-written song on the album. "Pull Up to the Bumper" was supposed to be included on the album, but its R&B sound was not compatible with the rest of the program. She had begun working with photographer and graphic designer Jean-Paul Goude, with whom she had also had a friendship. As the B-side, an extended version of "Private Life" was released as a single, with a recap of Joy Division's "She's Lost Control" and a non-album track as the B-side.

Jones' covers of songs by Flash and the Pan ("Walking in the Rain"), Bill Withers ("Use Me"), Iggy Pop/David Bowie ("Nightclubbing"), and "I've Seen That Face Before" were included in Nightclubbing's 1981 edition. Jones wrote three songs, "Feel Up," "Art Groupie," and "Pull Up to the Bumper." On the album Ghost in the Machine, Sting wrote "Demolition Man" and later shared it with The Police. Marianne Faithfull's poem "I've Done It Again" was published. Compass Point All Stars, including Sly and Robbie, Wally Badarou, Mikey Chung, Uziah "Sticky" Thompson, and Barry Reynolds contributed to the good rhythm on Nightclubbing. Jones' highest-ranking record on the US Billboard mainstream charts and R&B charts ranked the album in the top five countries in four countries, and it became Jones' highest-ranked position on the US Billboard main albums and R&B charts.

On NME's Year of the Year list, nightclubbing took the number one slot. The album debuted at No. 1 in Slant Magazine, according to Slant Magazine. On its list of the 1980s' Best Albums, 40 others appear on its list. Nightclubbing is now widely regarded as Jones' best studio album. The album's cover art is a drawing of Jones by Jean-Paul Goude. Jones is portrayed as a man wearing an Armani suit jacket, with a cigarette in her mouth, and a flattop haircut. Jones slapped chat show host Russell Harty live on air after he had to interview other guests, making Jones feel she was being dismissed.

Jones, who had already released two reggae-oriented albums as part of Compass Point All Stars' production, moved to Nassau, Bahamas in 1982, and released "Life My Life," according to Jones; Jones' final contribution to the Compass Point trilogy consisted in just one cover, Melvin Van Peebles' "The Apple Stretching." The rest of the tracks were original songs; "Nipple to the Bottle" was co-written with Sly Dunbar, and apart from "My Jamaican Guy," Barry Reynolds' "Man of the Sea" was written. Despite being limited to a single copy, the title track was left off the album. "Man Around the House" (Jones, Reynolds) and a representation of "Ring of Fire," written by June Carter Cash and Merle Kilgore and popularized by Johnny Cash, were among the session's outtakes. The album's cover art resulted from another Jones/Goude collaboration; the work has been described as being as popular as the album's music on record. Jones' disembodied head is pulled out from a photograph and pasted onto a white background. Jones' head is sharpened, giving her head and a rectangular shape. A piece of plaster is pasted over her left eyebrow, and her forehead is smacked with drops of sweat.

Jones' three albums under the Compass Point All Stars label resulted in Jones' One Man Show, a live performance art/pop theater performance developed by Goude and Jones and "Warm Leatherette"), "Walking in the Rain," "Pull Up to the Bumper" and "I've Seen That Face Before" and the album's title track, "My Jamaican Guy" and "My Jamaican Guy" from Living My Life ("La Vie en Up to the album Jones appeared in elaborate costumes and masks (in the opening sequence as a gorilla) as well as a series of Grace Jones lookalikes. The following year, a video version of a live in London and New York City, as well as a studio video, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Long-Form Music Video.

Jones played Zula the Amazonian in Conan the Destroyer (1984) and was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress following the release of Living My Life. In 1985, Jones starred as May Day, henchwoman to main antagonist Max Zorin in the 14th James Bond film A View to a Kill; Jones was also nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. She appeared on Arcadia's "Election Day" in the same year. Jones was one of many celebrities to promote the Honda Scooter; Lou Reed, Adam Ant, and Miles Davis were among the many performers; others included Lou Reed, Adam Ant, and Miles Davis. Jones and her boyfriend, Dolph Lundgren, also got a nude for Playboy.

Following Jones's success as a mainstream actress, she returned to the studio to work on Slave to the Rhythm, the last of her Island recordings. The information was written by Bruce Woolley, Simon Darlow, Stephen Lipson, and Trevor Horn, and Horn and Lipson were involved. It was a concept album that featured several interpretations of the title song. Frankie Goes to Hollywood as a follow-up to "Relax," but Jones was given a sequel. All eight tracks on the album were based on excerpts from a conversation with Jones, who discussed several aspects of her personal life. Journalist Paul Morley conducted the interview. The album includes voice-overs from actor Ian McShane's biography Jungle Fever, as well as excerpts from his biography Jungle Fever. Slave to the Rhythm was a hit in German-speaking countries and in the Netherlands, where it earned top-ten positions. It debuted at number 12 on the UK Albums Chart in November 1985, becoming Jones' second-highest-ranking album. Jones received a MTV Video Music Award nomination for his title track's music video.

Island Life, Jones' first best-of-compilation collection, which featured songs from the majority of her debuts with Island (Portfolio, Fame, Warm Leatherette, Living My Life, and Slave to the Rhythm), following her success with Slave to the Rhythm. Glenn O'Brien, an American writer and journalist, wrote the essay for the inlay book. The collection was produced in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and the United States. Jones' celestial body was included in a series of separate photographs on the front page of the collection, which was part of Goude's attempt to create convincing illusions by cutting-and-paint techniques. The body's position is anatomically insignificant.

The artwork, "Nigger Arabesque," was first published in the New York magazine in 1978 and was used as a backdrop for Jones' hit song "La Vie en rose" music video. The work has been described as "one of pop culture's most famous photographs." In Nicki Minaj's 2011 music video for "Stupid Hoe," in which Minaj imitated the pose, the image was also parodied.

Jones began to perform under new label with Manhattan Records, which culminated in Inside Story, Jones worked with musician Nile Rodgers of Chic, whom Jones had previously tried to work with during the disco period. The album was shot at Skyline Studios in New York and post-produced at Atlantic Studios and Sterling Sound. Inside Story was Jones' first album, which culminated in heated debate with Rodgers. The album was more accessible than her previous albums with Compass Point All Stars, and it introduced new styles of pop music, with undertones of jazz, gospel, and Caribbean sounds. Jones and Bruce Woolley wrote all of the songs on the album. Richard Bernstein collaborated with Jones again to create the album's artwork. Story on the inside made it to the top 40 in many European countries. Jones's last entry to the US Billboard 200 albums chart was in 2012. In the vampire film Vamp's second year, Jones starred as Katrina, an Egyptian queen vampire. Jones received a Saturn Award for her role in the film for her role as a Best Supporting Actress.

Jones appeared in two films, Straight to Hell, and Mary Lambert's Siesta, for which Jones was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress. Bulletproof Heart was released in 1989, written by Chris Stanley, who co-wrote, and co-produced the majority of the songs, and was featured on "Don't Cry Freedom" as a guest vocalist. C+C Music Factory's Robert Clivillés and David Cole also produced some songs on the album.

Jones appeared in the documentary The Life and Times of Andy Warhol in 1990. Helen Strangé appeared in the Eddie Murphy film Boomerang, for which she also contributed to the soundtrack "7 Day Weekend" from 1992. In 1992, Jones released two more soundtrack songs; "Evilmainya," recorded for the film Freddie, as F.R.O.7; and "Let Joy and Innocence Prevail" for the film Toys; Marilyn Monroe was supposed to debut Black Marilyn Monroe on 1994, a graphic based on the singer's name. In September 1993, "Sex Drive" became the first single, but the project was eventually shelved due to unknown reasons. During the same sessions, the track "Volunteer" was released, which was leaked in 2009. Jones reunited with Tom Moulton in 1995 for a disco-house tribute to Candi Staton's 1978 album "Victim," but Island Records has cancelled the album.

Jones produced "Love Bites," an up-tempo electronic track to promote the Sci-Fi Channel's Vampire Week in early November 1996, which consisted of a sequence of vampire-themed films on the channel in early November. Jones appears on the track from the perspective of a vampire. The album was released as a non-label promo-only single. It had not been made commercially available as of 2013.

Jones was supposed to release Force of Nature, a trip hop band Tricky's debut on June 1998. Force of Nature was postponed due to a dispute between the two bands, and only a white label 12" single containing two dance mixes of "Hurricane" was released ten years later; an older version of this song, "Clandestine Affair" (recycling the chorus from her unreleased 1993 track "Volunteer") appeared on a bootleg 12" in 2004. Jones performed the song "Storm" in 1998 and appeared in an episode of the Beastmaster television series as the Umpatra Warrior in 1999.

Jones released "The Perfect Crime," an up-tempo song for Danish television conceived by composers David Duus and Kre Jacobsen. Jones was also ranked 82nd on VH1's "100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll" in the top 82nd place. Jones co-produced with rapper Lil' Kim in 2000 and appeared on her album "Revolution" from her album The Notorious K.I.M. Jones appeared in Wolf Girl (also known as Blood Moon) as an intersex circus performer in 2001. Jones appeared on stage with Luciano Pavarotti in 2002 to help the United Nations Refugee Agency's services for Angolan refugees in Zambia. At a tribute concert for record producer Trevor Horn at London's Wembley Arena in November 2004, Jones performed "Slave to the Beat."

Jones' next full-length album was released nearly 20 years after Jones decided "never to do an album again," after a mutual acquaintance, milliner Philip Treacy, changed her mind after meeting music producer Ivor Guest. After the two became friends, Gast let Jones listen to a track he had been working on, "Devil in My Life," until Jones set the lyrics to the song. After a party in Venice, the songs were written.

With 23 tracks, the two ended up. "This Is," "Williams' Blood"," and "I'm Crying (Mother's Tears), an ode to her mother Marjorie, were included in the album's ode. "Love You to Life" was another track based on true events, and "Corporate Cannibal" refers to corporate capitalism. Alex Sadkin, a member of Compass Point All Stars who died in a motor crash in 1987, was killed in a "Well Well" video. "Sunset Sunrise" was written by Jones' uncle, Paulo, and the song explores the connection between man and mother nature. "The Key to Funky," "Body Phenomenon," "Sister Sister" and "Misery" were among the four songs that were deleted from the album. Jones, Sly and Robbie, Wally Badarou, Barry Reynolds, Mikey Chung, and Uziah "Sticky" Thompson, along with trip-hop artist Tricky and Brian Eno, collaborated on the album's production.

In the United Kingdom, the album was released on Wall of Sound on November 3, 2008. Including North America, PIAS, the umbrella company for Wall of Sound, has distributed Hurricane globally. According to review aggregator Metacritic, the album received a 72 percent score out of 100. Jones appeared at Massive Attack's Meltdown festival in London on June 19, 2008, and Jones performed four new songs from the album and premiered "Corporate Cannibal," which Jones and artist Nick Hooker collaborated on. Jones boosted the album even further by appearing on talk show Jonathan Ross, performed at numerous awards galas, and embarked on The Hurricane Tour. Jones was honoured with the Q Idol Award in the same year.

Chris Cunningham shot Dazed & Confused with Jones as a model to produce "Nubian versions" of Rubber Johnny in 2009. It was suggested in an interview with BBC's The Culture Show that the collaboration could develop into a film project. Jones collaborated with avant-garde poet Brigitte Fontaine on a duet called "Soufi" from Fontaine's album Prohibition, which was produced by Ivor Guest.

Jones performed for guests at the 18th annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Viewing Party in March 2010. The Elton John AIDS Foundation is one of the world's largest non-profit organizations supporting HIV prevention efforts, and it aims to eliminate stigma and misogy of HIV/AIDS. The event raised US$3.7 million. Grace Jones – Live in Concert – The same year, a budget DVD version of A One Man Show was released. It contained three bonus video clips ("Slave to the Beat"), "Love Is the Drug," and "Crush."

Jones collaborated with Brigitte Fontaine on two tracks from her debut, L'un n'empêche pas l'autre, in 2011 and appeared at the opening ceremony of the 61st FIFA Congress. Hurricane – Dub, Jones' dub version of the album, was released on September 5, 2011. Ivor Guest's dub versions were created, with contributions from Adam Green, Frank Byng, Robert Logan, and Ben Cowan.

Jones, Deborah Harry, Bebel Gilberto, and Sharon Stone attended the Inspiration Gala in So Paulo, Brazil, raising $1.3 million for amfAR (the Foundation for AIDS Research). "La Vie en Rose" and "Pull Up to the Bumper" closed the evening on a bleak night. Jones performed "Slave to the Rhythm" at the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II (while keeping a hoop spinning round her waist throughout), and the Lovebox Festival two months later. Jones gave her only North American show of 2012, her second North American show of the year 2012, on October 27, 2012, at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City. Sir Tom Jones was given not only the GQ Men of the Year award, but also the underwear. "I didn't think you wore one," Tom Jones said in good humor after receiving the gift.

On April 28, 2014, Universal Music Group released a deluxe version of her Nightclubbing collection as a two-disc set and Blu-ray audio. The set contains the majority of the 12" mixes of singles from the album as well as two previously unreleased tracks from the Nightclubbing sessions, including a remix of Gary Numan's "Me!" "I Disconnect from You" is the word that comes to mind.

Jones was revealed to have contributed "Original Beast" to the soundtrack of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.

On September 29, 2015, Jones' book I'll Never Write My Memoirs was published.

Jones performed on the track "Charger" from their fifth studio album Humanz in 2017.

The Order of Jamaica was granted by the Jamaican government in October 2018.

Jones was curator of the 27th edition of the Meltdown Festival, the UK's longest-running artist-curated music festival, in June 2022. Jones had been announced as the curator for the 2020 festival but it had been postponed until 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Jones revealed that a brand new 'African hybrid' album was in production, as well as the album's "Sunshine In Wartime" and "Born Black."

Jones appeared on Beyoncé's album "Move" from her seventh studio album Renaissance, which was released in July 2022.

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