Vincent Peter Jones (born 5 January 1965 in Watford, England) is a British actor and former footballer who played from 1984 to 1999 for various teams, including Wimbledon, Leeds United, Sheffield United, Chelsea, Queens Park Rangers and Wales note ; famously, he was a member of the "Crazy Gang" Wimbledon side which rose through the divisions and won The FA Cup in 1988. Meaning that unlike several actors who originally wanted to be professional sportspeople, he actually was one before going into acting. On the pitch, he cultivated a "hard man" image thanks to his aggressive and physically uncompromising style of play. Off the pitch, he courted controversy by presenting Soccer's Hard Men, an infamous 1992 football video which featured archive footage of Jones and other "hard men" of the game (Nobby Stiles, Jack Charlton, Norman Hunter, Ron "Chopper" Harris, etc) and advice from the man himself on how to intimidate opponents — which resulted in a £20,000 fine and a (suspended) six-month ban for "bringing the game into disrepute". This image has followed him into his second career in which he is often typecast as a violent criminal or thug — even in this educational video
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From 1994 to 2019, Jones was married to his childhood friend Tanya Terry. In 2013 the pair were both diagnosed with melanoma (skin cancer) and while Jones was able to successfully have it removed and recover, his wife's tragically spread to other areas of her body in 2015 and 2018note , with her passing in 2019 with her family by her side. In 2020 Jones appeared on Piers Morgan's Life Stories where he revealed that he always carries around the last love letter she wrote for him and that he has decided he will never remarry. He is also a spokesperson for Melanoma Research Foundation.
Works with Vinnie Jones:
Film
- The Bleeding
- The Condemned
- Escape Plan
- Euro Trip
- Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties
- Gone in 60 Seconds (2000)
- Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
- Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
- Mean Machine
- The Midnight Meat Train
- Mysterious Island
- She's the Man
- Snatch.
- Swordfish
- X-Men: The Last Stand
- Year One
Television
- Arrow
- Chuck
- Elementary
- Extras
- Galavant
- Law & Order: Organized Crime
- Psych
- The Masked Singer Australia
