New details have emerged about the relationship between Tommy Lee Jones and his daughter, Victoria, in the years before her death aged 34.
Victoria was found unresponsive at the Fairmont Hotel in the early hours of New Year’s Day. Her cause of death has not been confirmed, but police said no foul play is suspected.
In the weeks since, it has emerged that Jones sought a temporary conservatorship to protect his adult daughter from her own “life-threatening conduct” two years before her death, according to court documents. A conservatorship is a legal agreement where the government appoints someone to make decisions for a person who is unable to take care of themself.
The Oscar-winning actor successfully filed a petition to put Victoria under a conservatorship in August 2023, arguing that she needed drug rehabilitation. At the time, Victoria was under a 14-day involuntary hold at a hospital for posing a danger to herself or others, according to court records obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Jones’ petition stated that Victoria, who was 31 at the time, had appealed her hold at the hospital and instead asked to move to a rehabilitation facility.
“The proposed conservatee needs to recover and work towards sobriety. For these reasons, the proposed conservatee will suffer irreparable harm if her residence is not changed from a hospital to a rehab facility,” the petition said.
Jones asked in the petition that the request for conservatorship be kept from his daughter as well as other family members out of concern that if Victoria found out, she would “disappear once again.” He said that, at the time, his daughter could not “appreciate the consequences of her actions.”
The judge granted the request within days of the filing, and a woman named Margaret Caron Schmierer was named as her temporary conservator, according to the Chronicle. The conservatorship was later extended on a short-term basis before Jones asked the court to dismiss the conservatorship in December of that year.
Victoria was the second child of Jones and his second wife, Kimberlea Cloughley, whom he was married to from 1981 to 1966. The former couple’s first-born son, Austin, is 43.
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Growing up, Victoria followed in her actor father’s footsteps, appearing in Men in Black II and on a 2005 episode of One Tree Hill. In the last years of her life, she did not continue acting but appeared alongside Jones on red carpets.
Victoria’s family requested privacy in a statement after her death, saying: “We appreciate all of the kind words, thoughts and prayers. Please respect our privacy during this difficult time.”
