I'd had a nervous breakdown over Sharon Tate's death. I had done three pictures in a row in Europe, and had so many love affairs I was exhausted. I was tired, man. (Jones explaining his walking away from the movie industry in a 1996 interview) I never took the resemblance and comparisons to [James] Dean too seriously, I felt that I had talent in my own right. I adored movies. Everything was so clean and uncomplicated in the movies. All those important people in their big houses. That was my ideal. I wanted to be a movie star. The movies kept me going for a long time. They kept me going until I learned in New York three years ago that there is no ideal, that there are very few people who aren't hypocrites. (1966 magazine interview)