
Gordon Jones
Personal Info
Known for
Acting
Gender
Male
Birthday
1911-04-05
Day of Death
1963-06-20 (52 years old)
Place of Birth
Alden, Iowa, USA
Gordon Jones
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.
Known For
Acting
(2011)
The Abbott and Costello Show: Who's On First?
as Mike the Cop (archive footage)
(1963)
McLintock!
as Matt Douglas
(1961)
Master of the World
as Talkative Townsman
(1961)
Everything's Ducky
as Conroy
(1960)
The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond
as Police Sgt. Joe Cassidy
(1959)
The Shaggy Dog
as Captain Scanlon, Police Chief
(1959)
Battle of the Coral Sea
as Torpedoman Bates
(1959)
Battle Flame
as Sgt. McKelvey
(1958)
The Perfect Furlough
as MP "Sylvia"
(1958)
Live Fast, Die Young
as Pop Winters
(1957)
Shoot-Out At Medicine Bend
as Will Clegg
(1957)
The Monster That Challenged the World
as Sheriff Josh Peters
(1957)
Spring Reunion
as Jack Frazer
(1955)
Smoke Signal
as Corporal Rogers
(1955)
Treasure of Ruby Hills
as Jack Voyle
(1954)
The Outlaw Stallion
as Wagner
(1953)
Island in the Sky
as Walrus
(1953)
Take the High Ground!
as Moose (uncredited)
(1953)
Woman They Almost Lynched
as Yankee Sergeant
(1952)
Big Jim McLain
as Olaf
(1952)
The Winning Team
as George Glasheen
(1952)
Sound Off
as Crockett
(1952)
Wagon Team
as Marshal Sam Taplin
(1952)
The Ghost of Crossbone Canyon
as Curly Wolf
(1952)
Gobs and Gals
as CPO Mike Donovan
(1951)
Corky of Gasoline Alley
as Elwood Martin
(1951)
Heart of the Rockies
as Splinters McGonigle
(1951)
Spoilers of the Plains
as Splinters
(1950)
Trigger, Jr.
as Splinters
(1950)
Big Timber
as Jocko
(1950)
Trail of Robin Hood
as Splinters McGonigle
(1950)
North of the Great Divide
as Splinters McGonagle
(1950)
The Palomino
as Bill Hennessey
(1950)
The Arizona Cowboy
as I.Q. Barton
(1950)
Sunset in the West
as Splinters
(1950)
Belle of Old Mexico
as Tex Barnet
(1949)
Tokyo Joe
as Idaho
(1949)
Easy Living
as Bill 'Holly' Holloran
(1949)
Mr. Soft Touch
as Muggles (Uncredited)
(1949)
Dear Wife
as Taxi Cab Driver
(1949)
Black Midnight
as Roy
(1948)
A Foreign Affair
as Military Police
(1948)
Sons of Adventure
as Andy Baldwin
(1948)
The Untamed Breed
as Happy Keegan
(1948)
Black Eagle
as Benjy Laughton
(1947)
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
as Tubby Wadsworth
(1947)
The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap
as Jake Frame
(1947)
Whispering City
as Reporter
(1944)
Youth Runs Wild
as Truck Driver (uncredited)
(1942)
Flying Tigers
as Alabama Smith
(1942)
My Sister Eileen
as 'The Wreck' Loomis
(1942)
Highways by Night
as 'Footsy' Fogarty
(1941)
The Feminine Touch
as Rubber-Legs Ryan
(1941)
The Blonde from Singapore
as 'Waffles' Billings
(1941)
You Belong to Me
as Robert Andrews
(1941)
Among the Living
as Bill Oakley
(1940)
The Green Hornet
as Britt Reid / The Green Hornet
(1940)
The Texas Rangers Ride Again
as Ranger Radio Man (uncredited)
(1940)
The Doctor Takes a Wife
as O'Brien
(1940)
Up in the Air
as Tex Barton
(1940)
I Take This Oath
as Steve Hanagan
(1940)
Girl from Havana
as Tubby Waters
(1939)
Disputed Passage
as Bill Anderson
(1939)
Big Town Czar
as Chuck Hardy
(1939)
The Long Shot
as Jeff Clayton
(1939)
Invitation to Happiness
as Dutch Arnold (uncredited)
(1939)
Henry Goes Arizona
as Tug Evans (uncredited)
(1939)
Pride of the Navy
as Joe Falcon
(1938)
I Stand Accused
as Blackie
(1938)
Rich Man, Poor Girl
as Tom Grogan
(1938)
Out West with the Hardys
as Ray Holt
(1937)
Quick Money
as Bill Adams
(1937)
China Passage
as Joe Dugan
(1937)
Sea Devils
as Puggy
(1937)
We Who Are About to Die
as Slim Tolliver
(1937)
Fight for Your Lady
as Mike Scanlon
(1937)
There Goes My Girl
as Dunn
(1937)
The Big Shot
as Chester Scott
(1937)
They Wanted to Marry
as Jim Tyler
(1936)
Strike Me Pink
as Butch Carson
(1936)
Walking on Air
as Joe
(1936)
Night Waitress
as Martin Rhodes
(1936)
Devil's Squadron
as Tex
(1936)
Don't Turn 'em Loose
as Joe Graves
(1935)
Red Salute
as Michael (Lefty) Jones
(1935)
Let 'em Have It
as Tex
(1932)
Wild Girl
as Vigilante (uncredited)