Gordon Jones (actor)

Gordon Jones (actor)
Gordon Wynnivo Jones (April 5, 1912 – 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.
Career
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. In 1956 Jones appeared as C. R. Tatum in the western TV series Cheyenne on the episode titled "The Last Train West." 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.
Selected filmography
Cimarron (1931) - Teamster (uncredited)
Wild Girl (1932) - Vigilante (uncredited)
The Monkey's Paw (1933) - Soldier (uncredited)
Car 99 (1935) - Mechanic (uncredited)
Let 'Em Have It (1935) - Tex
Red Salute (1935) - Michael (Lefty) Jones
Strike Me Pink (1936) - Butch Carson
Captain Calamity (1936) - Henchman (uncredited)
Devil's Squadron (1936) - Tex
Walking on Air (1936) - Joe
Don't Turn 'Em Loose (1936) - Joe Graves
Night Waitress (1936) - Martin Rhodes
We Who Are About to Die (1937) - Slim Tolliver
They Wanted to Marry (1937) - Jim
Sea Devils (1937) - Puggy
China Passage (1937) - Joe Dugan
There Goes My Girl (1937) - Reporter Dunn
Forlorn River (1937) - Lem Watkins (uncredited)
The Big Shot (1937) - Chester 'Chet' Scott
Fight for Your Lady (1937) - Mike Scanlon
Quick Money (1937) - Bill Adams
Night Spot (1938) - Riley
Rich Man, Poor Girl (1938) - Tom Grogan
I Stand Accused (1938) - Blackie
Out West with the Hardys (1938) - Ray Holt
Long Shot (1939) - Jeff Clayton
Pride of the Navy (1939) - Joe Falcon
Big Town Czar (1939) - Chuck Hardy (uncredited)
Invitation to Happiness (1939) - Dutch Arnold (uncredited)
Grand Jury Secrets (1939) - Billy Hargraves (uncredited)
When Tomorrow Comes (1939) - Radio Technician (uncredited)
Disputed Passage (1939) - Bill Anderson
Henry Goes Arizona (1939) - Tug Evans (uncredited)
The Green Hornet (1940, Serial) - Britt Reid / The Green Hornet
The Doctor Takes a Wife (1940) - O'Brien
I Take This Oath (1940) - Steve Hanagan
Up in the Air (1940) - Tex
Girl from Havana (1940) - Tubby Waters
Texas Rangers Ride Again (1940) - Ranger Radio Man (uncredited)
Reaching for the Sun (1941) - Sailor (uncredited)
The Blonde from Singapore (1941) - 'Waffles' Billings
You Belong to Me (1941) - Robert Andrews
The Feminine Touch (1941) - Rubber-Legs Ryan
Among the Living (1941) - Bill Oakley
True to the Army (1942) - Pvt. Dugan
To the Shores of Tripoli (1942) - Military Policeman at Main Gate (uncredited)
They All Kissed the Bride (1942) - Taxi Driver (uncredited)
My Sister Eileen (1942) - 'The Wreck' Loomis
Highways by Night (1942) - 'Footsy' Fogarty
Flying Tigers (1942) - Alabama Smith
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
Buffalo Bill (1944) - Trooper (uncredited)
Youth Runs Wild (1944) - Truck Driver (uncredited)
Wanderer of the Wasteland (1945) - Sheriff (uncredited)
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) - Tubby Wadsworth
The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap (1947) - Jake Frame
A Foreign Affair (1948) - Military Policeman
Sons of Adventure (1948) - Andy Baldwin
Black Eagle (1948) - Benjy Laughton
The Untamed Breed (1948) - Happy Keegan
Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949) - Senator Catcher (uncredited)
Mr. Soft Touch (1949) - Muggles (uncredited)
Easy Living (1949) - Bill Holloran
Black Midnight (1949) - Roy
Tokyo Joe (1949) - Idaho
Dear Wife (1949) - Taxi Cab Driver
Bodyhold (1949) - Pat Simmons
Belle of Old Mexico (1950) - Tex Barnet
The Palomino (1950) - Bill Hennessey
The Arizona Cowboy (1950) - I.Q. Barton
Trigger, Jr. (1950) - Splinters McGonagle
Big Timber (1950) - Jocko
Sunset in the West (1950) - Splinters McGonagle
North of the Great Divide (1950) - Splinters McGonigle
Trail of Robin Hood (1950) - Splinters McGonigle
Spoilers of the Plains (1951) - Splinters McGonigle
Heart of the Rockies (1951) - Splinters McGonigle
Corky of Gasoline Alley (1951) - Elwood Martin
Yellow Fin (1951) - Breck
The Marrying Kind (1952) - Steve (uncredited)
Gobs and Gals (1952) - CPO Mike Donovan
Sound Off (1952) - Sgt. Crockett
The Winning Team (1952) - George Glasheen
Big Jim McLain (1952) - Olaf
Wagon Team (1952) - Marshal Sam Taplin
Woman They Almost Lynched (1953) - Yankee Sergeant
Island in the Sky (1953) - Walrus
Take the High Ground! (1953) - Moose (uncredited)
The Outlaw Stallion (1954) - Wagner
Treasure of Ruby Hills (1955) - Jack Voyle
Smoke Signal (1955) - Cpl. Rogers
Spring Reunion (1957) - Jack Frazer
Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend (1957) - Pvt. Wilbur 'Will' Clegg
The Monster That Challenged the World (1957) - Sheriff Josh Peters
Live Fast, Die Young (1958) - Pop Winters
The Perfect Furlough (1958) - 'Sylvia', MP #1
The Shaggy Dog (1959) - Captain Scanlon, Police Chief
Battle Flame (1959) - Sgt. McKelvey
The Big Fisherman (1959) - Minor Role (uncredited)
Battle of the Coral Sea (1959) - Torpedoman Bates
The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960) - Sgt. Joe Cassidy
Master of the World (1961) - Talkative Morgantown townsperson (uncredited)
The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) - Rutland Coach (uncredited)
Son of Flubber (1963) - Rutland Coach (uncredited)
McLintock!'' (1963) - Matt Douglas (final film role)
References
Notes
External links
1912 births
1963 deaths
Male actors from Iowa
People from Hardin County, Iowa
20th-century American male actors
American male film actors
American male telenovela actors
RKO Pictures contract players
UCLA Bruins football players