O-Lan Jones

Jones is an alumna of New Dramatists. In addition to her acting Jones is a writer, musician, composer, and lyricist. She is the artistic director of Overtone Industries, a company she founded in 1980 dedicated to creating and developing new works for opera and musical theater. In 2003, she married her long-time boyfriend Haldor Enard.

In 1969, Jones and Shepard were married. She went on to star in a number of his plays, including Suicide in B♭ and Angel City among others. Jones gave birth to their son Jesse Mojo Shepard in 1970. Jones and Shepard divorced in 1984 after he left her for actress Jessica Lange.

Jones was born in Los Angeles, California. Her first name comes from the heroine of the novel The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. Her father left the family when she was a child. Her mother Scarlett Johnson, a self-described "free spirit", moved their family for a year to a remote Mayan village in the Yucatán jungle when Jones was 15 years old.. In 1966 they relocated to Greenwich Village, New York City, where Jones began her acting career. It was in New York that Johnson married comedian and actor Johnny Dark, while Jones dated Dark's best friend, playwright Sam Shepard. Shepard wrote the role of "Oolan" for Jones in his 1967 play Forensic & The Navigators.