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.
Acted in
The Abbott and Costello Show: Who's On First?
2011
as Mike The Cop
McLintock!
1963
as Matt Douglas
The Lucy Show
1962
as Charlie Vantassel
Everything's Ducky
1961
as Conroy
Master of the World
1961
as Talkative Townsman
The Case of the Dangerous Robin
1960
as Nels Bergstrom
Surfside 6
1960
The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond
1960
as Police Sgt. Joe Cassidy
Battle of the Coral Sea
1959
as Torpedoman Bates
Hawaiian Eye
1959
Dennis the Menace
1959
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
1959
Laramie
1959
Battle Flame
1959
as Sgt. McKelvey
The Shaggy Dog
1959
as Captain Scanlon, Police Chief
The Perfect Furlough
1958
as MP "Sylvia"
77 Sunset Strip
1958
The Rifleman
1958
Live Fast, Die Young
1958
as Pop Winters
Maverick
1957
Perry Mason
1957
as Deputy Gillis
Sugarfoot
1957
as Wasco Wolters
Sugarfoot
1957
as Sheriff
Have Gun, Will Travel
1957
Richard Diamond, Private Detective
1957
as Mike Gower
Richard Diamond, Private Detective
1957
as Joel Finlay
The Monster That Challenged the World
1957
as Sheriff Josh Peters
Shoot-Out At Medicine Bend
1957
as Will Clegg
Spring Reunion
1957
as Jack Frazer
The Adventures of Jim Bowie
1956
Cheyenne
1955
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
1955
Smoke Signal
1955
as Corporal Rogers
Treasure of Ruby Hills
1955
as Jack Voyle
Lassie
1954
The Outlaw Stallion
1954
as Wagner
Take the High Ground!
1953
as Moose (uncredited)
Island in the Sky
1953
as Walrus
Woman They Almost Lynched
1953
as Yankee Sergeant
I'm the Law
1953
The Abbott and Costello Show
1952
The Ghost of Crossbone Canyon
1952
as Curly Wolf
Cavalcade of America
1952
as Lt. Treusch
Wagon Team
1952
as Marshal Sam Taplin
Big Jim McLain
1952
as Olaf
The Winning Team
1952
as George Glasheen
Sound Off
1952
as Crockett
Gobs and Gals
1952
as CPO Mike Donovan
Dangerous Assignment
1952
Corky of Gasoline Alley
1951
as Elwood Martin
Racket Squad
1951
The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok
1951
as Curly Wolf
Heart of the Rockies
1951
as Splinters McGonigle
Spoilers of the Plains
1951
as Splinters
Trail of Robin Hood
1950
as Splinters McGonigle
North of the Great Divide
1950
as Splinters McGonagle
Sunset in the West
1950
as Splinters
Big Timber
1950
as Jocko
The Colgate Comedy Hour
1950
as Self
The Gene Autry Show
1950
Trigger, Jr.
1950
as Splinters
The Arizona Cowboy
1950
as I.Q. Barton
The Palomino
1950
as Bill Hennessey
Belle of Old Mexico
1950
as Tex Barnet
Dear Wife
1949
as Taxi Cab Driver
Tokyo Joe
1949
as Idaho
Easy Living
1949
as Bill 'Holly' Holloran
Black Midnight
1949
as Roy
Mr. Soft Touch
1949
as Muggles (Uncredited)
The Untamed Breed
1948
as Happy Keegan
Black Eagle
1948
as Benjy Laughton
Sons of Adventure
1948
as Andy Baldwin
A Foreign Affair
1948
as Military Police
Whispering City
1947
as Reporter
The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap
1947
as Jake Frame
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
1947
as Tubby Wadsworth
Youth Runs Wild
1944
as Truck Driver (uncredited)
Flying Tigers
1942
as Alabama Smith
Highways by Night
1942
as 'Footsy' Fogarty
My Sister Eileen
1942
as 'The Wreck' Loomis
Among the Living
1941
as Bill Oakley
You Belong to Me
1941
as Robert Andrews
The Blonde from Singapore
1941
as 'Waffles' Billings
The Feminine Touch
1941
as Rubber-Legs Ryan
The Texas Rangers Ride Again
1940
as Ranger Radio Man (uncredited)
Girl from Havana
1940
as Tubby Waters
Up in the Air
1940
as Tex Barton
I Take This Oath
1940
as Steve Hanagan
The Doctor Takes a Wife
1940
as O'Brien
The Green Hornet
1940
as Britt Reid / The Green Hornet
Henry Goes Arizona
1939
as Tug Evans (uncredited)
Disputed Passage
1939
as Bill Anderson
Invitation to Happiness
1939
as Dutch Arnold (uncredited)
Big Town Czar
1939
as Chuck Hardy
Pride of the Navy
1939
as Joe Falcon
The Long Shot
1939
as Jeff Clayton
Out West with the Hardys
1938
as Ray Holt
I Stand Accused
1938
as Blackie
Rich Man, Poor Girl
1938
as Tom Grogan
Quick Money
1937
as Bill Adams
Fight for Your Lady
1937
as Mike Scanlon
The Big Shot
1937
as Chester Scott
There Goes My Girl
1937
as Dunn
China Passage
1937
as Joe Dugan
Sea Devils
1937
as Puggy
They Wanted to Marry
1937
as Jim Tyler
We Who Are About to Die
1937
as Slim Tolliver
Night Waitress
1936
as Martin Rhodes
Don't Turn 'em Loose
1936
as Joe Graves
Walking on Air
1936
as Joe
Devil's Squadron
1936
as Tex
Strike Me Pink
1936
as Butch Carson
Red Salute
1935
as Michael (Lefty) Jones
Let 'em Have It
1935
as Tex
Wild Girl
1932
as Vigilante (uncredited)