Birthday: 1911-04-05
Deathday: 1963-06-20
Birthplace: Alden, Iowa, USA
Gender: Male
Owned By: Unowned
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.
Year | Title | Character | |
---|---|---|---|
2011-02-01 | The Abbott and Costello Show: Who's On First? | Mike The Cop | |
1963-11-12 | McLintock! | Matt Douglas | |
1961-12-20 | Everything's Ducky | Conroy | |
1961-05-01 | Master of the World | Talkative Townsman | |
1960-02-03 | The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond | Police Sgt. Joe Cassidy | |
1959-11-01 | Battle of the Coral Sea | Torpedoman Bates | |
1959-07-26 | Battle Flame | Sgt. McKelvey | |
1959-03-19 | The Shaggy Dog | Captain Scanlon, Police Chief | |
1958-11-30 | The Perfect Furlough | MP "Sylvia" | |
1958-04-01 | Live Fast, Die Young | Pop Winters | |
1957-06-14 | The Monster That Challenged the World | Sheriff Josh Peters | |
1957-05-04 | Shoot-Out At Medicine Bend | Will Clegg | |
1957-03-01 | Spring Reunion | Jack Frazer | |
1955-03-01 | Smoke Signal | Corporal Rogers | |
1955-01-23 | Treasure of Ruby Hills | Jack Voyle | |
1954-07-03 | The Outlaw Stallion | Wagner | |
1953-10-30 | Take the High Ground! | Moose (uncredited) | |
1953-09-05 | Island in the Sky | Walrus | |
1953-03-20 | Woman They Almost Lynched | Yankee Sergeant | |
1952-11-01 | The Ghost of Crossbone Canyon | Curly Wolf | |
1952-09-29 | Wagon Team | Marshal Sam Taplin | |
1952-08-30 | Big Jim McLain | Olaf | |
1952-06-20 | The Winning Team | George Glasheen | |
1952-05-15 | Sound Off | Crockett | |
1952-05-01 | Gobs and Gals | CPO Mike Donovan | |
1951-09-17 | Corky of Gasoline Alley | Elwood Martin | |
1951-03-29 | Heart of the Rockies | Splinters McGonigle | |
1951-02-02 | Spoilers of the Plains | Splinters | |
1950-12-15 | Trail of Robin Hood | Splinters McGonigle | |
1950-11-15 | North of the Great Divide | Splinters McGonagle | |
1950-09-25 | Sunset in the West | Splinters | |
1950-09-10 | Big Timber | Jocko | |
1950-06-30 | Trigger, Jr. | Splinters | |
1950-04-01 | The Arizona Cowboy | I.Q. Barton | |
1950-03-18 | The Palomino | Bill Hennessey | |
1950-03-01 | Belle of Old Mexico | Tex Barnet | |
1949-11-15 | Dear Wife | Taxi Cab Driver | |
1949-10-26 | Tokyo Joe | Idaho | |
1949-10-08 | Easy Living | Bill 'Holly' Holloran | |
1949-10-01 | Black Midnight | Roy | |
1949-07-28 | Mr. Soft Touch | Muggles (Uncredited) | |
1948-10-20 | The Untamed Breed | Happy Keegan | |
1948-09-16 | Black Eagle | Benjy Laughton | |
1948-09-01 | Sons of Adventure | Andy Baldwin | |
1948-08-20 | A Foreign Affair | Military Police | |
1947-11-20 | Whispering City | Reporter | |
1947-10-08 | The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap | Jake Frame | |
1947-09-01 | The Secret Life of Walter Mitty | Tubby Wadsworth | |
1944-09-01 | Youth Runs Wild | Truck Driver (uncredited) | |
1942-10-08 | Flying Tigers | Alabama Smith | |
1942-10-02 | Highways by Night | 'Footsy' Fogarty | |
1942-09-24 | My Sister Eileen | 'The Wreck' Loomis | |
1941-12-12 | Among the Living | Bill Oakley | |
1941-10-22 | You Belong to Me | Robert Andrews | |
1941-10-15 | The Blonde from Singapore | 'Waffles' Billings | |
1941-10-01 | The Feminine Touch | Rubber-Legs Ryan | |
1940-12-13 | The Texas Rangers Ride Again | Ranger Radio Man (uncredited) | |
1940-09-11 | Girl from Havana | Tubby Waters | |
1940-09-09 | Up in the Air | Tex Barton | |
1940-05-20 | I Take This Oath | Steve Hanagan | |
1940-04-25 | The Doctor Takes a Wife | O'Brien | |
1940-01-08 | The Green Hornet | Britt Reid / The Green Hornet | |
1939-12-08 | Henry Goes Arizona | Tug Evans (uncredited) | |
1939-10-25 | Disputed Passage | Bill Anderson | |
1939-06-07 | Invitation to Happiness | Dutch Arnold (uncredited) | |
1939-05-03 | Big Town Czar | Chuck Hardy | |
1939-01-23 | Pride of the Navy | Joe Falcon | |
1939-01-06 | The Long Shot | Jeff Clayton | |
1938-11-25 | Out West with the Hardys | Ray Holt | |
1938-10-29 | I Stand Accused | Blackie | |
1938-08-12 | Rich Man, Poor Girl | Tom Grogan | |
1937-12-10 | Quick Money | Bill Adams | |
1937-11-05 | Fight for Your Lady | Mike Scanlon | |
1937-07-23 | The Big Shot | Chester Scott | |
1937-05-21 | There Goes My Girl | Dunn | |
1937-03-12 | China Passage | Joe Dugan | |
1937-02-19 | Sea Devils | Puggy | |
1937-02-05 | They Wanted to Marry | Jim Tyler | |
1937-01-08 | We Who Are About to Die | Slim Tolliver | |
1936-12-18 | Night Waitress | Martin Rhodes | |
1936-09-18 | Don't Turn 'em Loose | Joe Graves | |
1936-09-11 | Walking on Air | Joe | |
1936-04-30 | Devil's Squadron | Tex | |
1936-01-24 | Strike Me Pink | Butch Carson | |
1935-09-12 | Red Salute | Michael (Lefty) Jones | |
1935-05-15 | Let 'em Have It | Tex | |
1932-11-09 | Wild Girl | Vigilante (uncredited) |