‘Ryan’s Daughter’ star Christopher Jones dies aged 72

Christopher Jones, an actor who seemed poised for stardom before abruptly abandoning his movie career in the late 1960s, died on January 31st in Los Alamitos, California. He was 72. The cause was gallbladder cancer, said Paula McKenna, his longtime companion.

No one seemed to know why Jones dropped out of the movie business. However, he told an interviewer in 2007 he had been having an affair with the actress Sharon Tate when she and four others were viciously killed on August 9th, 1969, by members of the Charles Manson cult in the California home of Tate's husband, the director Roman Polanski, who was away. Jones was filming Ryan's Daughter in Ireland at the time.

That year was one of the worst of his life, he told the Chicago Tribune. He was traumatised and depressed over Tate's death and at odds with his co-star, Sarah Miles. "I had absolutely no desire to do anything for a long time," he said.

He appeared in only one more film, Mad Dog Time, a 1996 comedy in which he had a small role, as a favour to a friend, Larry Bishop, the director. – (New York Times)