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