Gordon Jones

Acting · 1.1 popularity

Age

115

Movies

Born: April 5, 1911 – June 20, 1963
From: Alden, Iowa, USA

Biography

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.

Works

90 films

McLintock!

19636.6

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

19476.8

The Shaggy Dog

19596.3

A Foreign Affair

19487.1

Tokyo Joe

19496.1

The Ghost of Crossbone Canyon

19529.0

Spring Reunion

19576.2

Flying Tigers

19426.2

The Monster That Challenged the World

19575.6

Treasure of Ruby Hills

19555.0

Master of the World

19616.0

The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap

19476.3

The Blonde from Singapore

19415.8

The Perfect Furlough

19586.8

Shoot-Out At Medicine Bend

19576.0

The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond

19606.1

Island in the Sky

19536.2

Girl from Havana

19407.5

The Green Hornet

19406.0

Corky of Gasoline Alley

19518.0

Wild Girl

19326.2

Night Waitress

19366.4

My Sister Eileen

19426.8

When Tomorrow Comes

19395.4

Big Jim McLain

19525.0

Invitation to Happiness

19397.0

Take the High Ground!

19536.2

Woman They Almost Lynched

19536.6

Mr. Soft Touch

19496.8

Live Fast, Die Young

19585.8

Fight for Your Lady

19375.6

I Take This Oath

19405.8

Gobs and Gals

19527.0

Battle of the Coral Sea

19595.8

The Arizona Cowboy

195010.0

Smoke Signal

19556.9

The Texas Rangers Ride Again

19405.6

Trail of Robin Hood

19506.3

The Winning Team

19526.1

The Doctor Takes a Wife

19406.8

Strike Me Pink

19366.6

The Long Shot

19396.0

Red Salute

19356.0

You Belong to Me

19416.0

Among the Living

19416.1

Heart of the Rockies

19517.0

Highways by Night

19427.3

Abbott and Costello Meet Jerry Seinfeld

19948.5

We Who Are About to Die

19377.0

Out West with the Hardys

19386.7

Up in the Air

19405.8

North of the Great Divide

19508.0

Youth Runs Wild

19444.5

Easy Living

19495.7

Dear Wife

19496.3

Let 'em Have It

19357.6

The Untamed Breed

19486.5

Trigger, Jr.

19505.3

Big Town Czar

19397.0

The Feminine Touch

19415.1

Rich Man, Poor Girl

19386.1

They Wanted to Marry

19375.8

Black Eagle

19486.5

Quick Money

19375.5

Wagon Team

19526.3

The Outlaw Stallion

19547.3

Sunset in the West

19507.4

Sea Devils

19376.0

Walking on Air

19366.3

Don't Turn 'em Loose

19365.0

Henry Goes Arizona

19396.2

There Goes My Girl

19377.5

Three Rogues

193110.0

The Palomino

195010.0

The Big Shot

19376.5

Sound Off

19529.0

Spoilers of the Plains

19518.0

Disputed Passage

19397.0

Whispering City

19474.8

Everything's Ducky

19616.5

Devil's Squadron

19367.0

Belle of Old Mexico

19509.0

Big Timber

195010.0

Battle Flame

19597.0

China Passage

19376.3

Sons of Adventure

19489.0

I Stand Accused

19389.0

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

20118.0

Pride of the Navy

19397.0

Black Midnight

19496.5