Gordon Jones

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gordon Wynnivo Jones (April 5, 1911 – June 20, 1963) was an American character actor, a member of John Wayne's informal acting company best known for playing Lou Costello's TV nemesis "Mike the Cop" and appearing as The Green Hornet in the first of two movie serials based on that old-time radio program.

Iowa-born Jones had been a student athlete and star football guard ("Bull" Jones) at University of California, Los Angeles, and had also played a few seasons of professional football. He started out playing small roles in Wesley Ruggles' and Ernest B. Schoedsack's The Monkey's Paw (1933), his first credited role in Sam Wood's Let 'Em Have It (1935), and Sidney Lanfield's Red Salute (1935). By 1937, he had moved on to a contract at RKO Radio Pictures. In 1940, Jones had the title role in The Green Hornet but did not reprise the role in the sequel.

Jones held a reserve commission in the army and was called into the service after filming his roles as "The Wreck" in My Sister Eileen (1942) and "Alabama Smith" in Flying Tigers (1942), a John Wayne vehicle that was one of the most popular action films of the war. This picture began Jones' 20-year onscreen association with Wayne, who was also a former football player at the University of Southern California.

Jones remained associated with the service after the war, encouraging college students to consider the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. After resuming his acting career in the late 1940s, Jones appeared in prominent roles in the John Wayne features Big Jim McLain (1952) and Island in the Sky (1953).

By the end of the 1940s, Jones had aged into a beefier screen presence and into very physical character roles. He was no longer a leading man but he had developed a comic villain persona which meshed with the work of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Jones' association with the duo began in The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap (1947) with the role of the film's heavy, Jake Frame, and continued through their television series The Abbott and Costello Show. Jones played "Mike the Cop", Costello's hulking, loud-voiced antagonist. The program was produced for only two seasons, but ensured continued recognition for Jones via frequent reruns and a 21st Century DVD release.

Jones also remained busy in films and on television throughout the 1950s, in pictures that ranged from the sci-fi chiller The Monster That Challenged the World to the Tony Curtis/Janet Leigh sex comedy The Perfect Furlough, and on TV series ranging from The Real McCoys to The Rifleman. Jones also appeared in two very successful Disney movies during the early '60s, The Absent-Minded Professor and Son of Flubber. He played harried school coaches in both pictures. He also starred with Mitzi Green and Virginia Gibson in the short-lived TV sitcom So This Is Hollywood (1955), and had a recurring role as neighbor Butch Barton during the early years of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet

Jones returned to the John Wayne stock company portraying Douglas, the bureaucrat antagonist to Wayne's G.W. McLintock in the Western comedy McLintock! (1963). Jones unexpectedly succumbed to a heart attack on June 12, 1963, five months before the release of that movie.

Jones has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on the West side of the 1600 block of Vine Street.

McLintock!

6.6

A Foreign Affair

7.0

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

6.7

Perry Mason

7.7

The Shaggy Dog

6.1

Master of the World

5.9

Lassie

6.1

Island in the Sky

6.2

The Monster That Challenged the World

5.6

Flying Tigers

6.3

The Rifleman

7.1

The Lucy Show

7.1

Have Gun, Will Travel

7.4

Tokyo Joe

6.1

Maverick

6.8

Dennis the Menace

6.7

Among the Living

6.1

Big Jim McLain

5.0

77 Sunset Strip

6.7

Battle of the Coral Sea

5.6

Cheyenne

5.8

My Sister Eileen

6.7

The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond

5.8

Woman They Almost Lynched

6.2

Easy Living

5.9

The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp

6.7

The Abbott and Costello Show

7.3

The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap

6.1

Laramie

6.4

You Belong to Me

5.8

The Perfect Furlough

7.1

The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis

5.9

Mr. Soft Touch

6.8

Take the High Ground!

5.7

The Colgate Comedy Hour

7.0

Wild Girl

6.0

Smoke Signal

6.5

The Green Hornet

5.5

Whispering City

4.8

Shoot-Out At Medicine Bend

6.1

Youth Runs Wild

4.2

Hawaiian Eye

5.2

Rich Man, Poor Girl

5.9

The Doctor Takes a Wife

6.5

The Feminine Touch

5.1

Strike Me Pink

6.6

The Winning Team

5.5

Red Salute

5.8

Out West with the Hardys

6.3

Sunset in the West

7.8

Walking on Air

5.8

Sugarfoot

4.8

Trigger, Jr.

4.6

Up in the Air

5.5

Trail of Robin Hood

5.2

Spring Reunion

5.8

Let 'em Have It

7.0

We Who Are About to Die

6.8

The Long Shot

5.8

Don't Turn 'em Loose

4.8

The Gene Autry Show

4.8

Richard Diamond, Private Detective

6.2

The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok

4.5

Sea Devils

5.7

I Take This Oath

4.3

Fight for Your Lady

4.3

Live Fast, Die Young

5.7

They Wanted to Marry

5.0

Quick Money

4.0

Night Waitress

5.8

The Blonde from Singapore

5.0

The Texas Rangers Ride Again

5.5

China Passage

5.5

The Adventures of Jim Bowie

3.7

Racket Squad

6.0

Cavalcade of America

3.5

Highways by Night

6.0

Everything's Ducky

7.5

Henry Goes Arizona

6.0

Wagon Team

6.0

Disputed Passage

5.5

Black Midnight

6.0

Surfside 6

5.0

I'm the Law

5.0

Dangerous Assignment

3.5

Spoilers of the Plains

6.0

Treasure of Ruby Hills

4.0

The Big Shot

5.0

Devil's Squadron

6.0

Girl from Havana

5.0

The Untamed Breed

5.0

Heart of the Rockies

6.0

Black Eagle

6.0

The Outlaw Stallion

5.0

Battle Flame

6.0

The Abbott and Costello Show: Who's On First?

8.0

Dear Wife

6.0

Belle of Old Mexico

0.0

Sound Off

0.0

The Arizona Cowboy

0.0

The Palomino

0.0

North of the Great Divide

0.0

Gobs and Gals

0.0

Corky of Gasoline Alley

0.0

There Goes My Girl

0.0

I Stand Accused

0.0

Invitation to Happiness

0.0

Pride of the Navy

0.0

The Ghost of Crossbone Canyon

0.0

Sons of Adventure

0.0

Big Town Czar

0.0

Big Timber

0.0

The Case of the Dangerous Robin

0.0