Film and theater actor Tommy Lee Jones ’69 will receive the 2012 Harvard Arts Medal on Thursday, April 26, at Sanders Theatre. Jones, the subject of a 1994 Harvard Magazine profile, will take part in a conversation at Sanders with fellow actor John Lithgow ’67, Ar.D. ’05, who performed with Jones in plays on the Loeb mainstage when both were undergraduates. The Sanders event will kick off the 2012 Arts First weekend, an annual spring celebration of the arts at Harvard that Lithgow launched in 1994, when he was a member of the Board of Overseers.
An avid horseman and polo player, Jones has hosted the Harvard Polo Club at his Texas ranch. He has thrice been nominated for Academy Awards, and won as Best Supporting Actor in 1993 for his portrayal of a federal marshal in The Fugitive. His range as a player is wide, including, for example, comic turns as Agent K in the Men in Black films.