suffered a heart attack two months before the start of production. That film ultimately won the 1979 Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, which he shared with Salt and Nancy Dowd. Jones was surprised by the win and stated that going on stage to receive the award marked the first time he met Salt and Dowd. He was then the co-screenwriter for Being There (1979), which his daughter said he rewrote. Although he was originally granted credit by the studio (United Artists–Lorimar Productions), the Writers Guild reversed that in an arbitration decision and awarded credit only to Jerzy Kosiński, the author of the book that the movie was based on. Jones believed that his "writing career would have been a whole lot different if [he] had gotten screen credit" and that "it was a dark day in my life". He consequently focused on editing for the remainder of his career. The final film Jones edited was Unconditional Love, released in 2002. After retiring from the film industry, he became a professor at the School of Cinematic Arts of the University of Southern California (USC), serving in that capacity for 15 years. He was presented with the American Cinema Editors Career Achievement Award in February 2014. Personal life Jones was married to Sylvia Hirsch Jones, a professor of psychology, for 59 years until his death. Together, they had two daughters: Hayley and Leslie, who followed her father's footsteps and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing. She assisted Jones during the early part of her career on films like See No Evil, Hear No Evil and The Babe. Jones died on February 1, 2021, at his home in Los Angeles. He was 84, and suffered from Lewy body dementia in the time leading up to his death. Filmography The director for each film is indicated in parentheses. Writer Being There (Uncredited) (Hal Ashby – 1979) Coming Home (Hal Ashby – 1978). Academy Award and Writers Guild Award for Best Screenplay. Editor 2000s Unconditional Love (P. J. Hogan – 2002) 1990s Crazy in Alabama (Antonio Banderas – 1999) Bulworth (Warren Beatty – 1998) City Hall (Harold Becker – 1996) Love Affair (Glenn Gordon Caron – 1994) The Babe (Arthur Hiller – 1992) Beyond the Law (Larry Ferguson – 1992) Married to It (Arthur Hiller – 1991) Days of Thunder (Tony Scott – 1990) 1980s