Gordon Jones
Acting • Born 1911-04-05 – Died 1963-06-20
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.
Filmography
119 credits
Belle of Old Mexico
Movie • 1950
Tex Barnet
My Sister Eileen
Movie • 1942
'The Wreck' Loomis
The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap
Movie • 1947
Jake Frame
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Movie • 1947
Tubby Wadsworth
Island in the Sky
Movie • 1953
Walrus
Wild Girl
Movie • 1932
Vigilante (uncredited)
Flying Tigers
Movie • 1942
Alabama Smith
Among the Living
Movie • 1941
Bill Oakley
The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond
Movie • 1960
Police Sgt. Joe Cassidy
McLintock!
Movie • 1963
Matt Douglas
Battle of the Coral Sea
Movie • 1959
Torpedoman Bates
Mr. Soft Touch
Movie • 1949
Muggles (Uncredited)
Tokyo Joe
Movie • 1949
Idaho
The Monster That Challenged the World
Movie • 1957
Sheriff Josh Peters
Take the High Ground!
Movie • 1953
Moose (uncredited)
Trigger, Jr.
Movie • 1950
Splinters
The Feminine Touch
Movie • 1941
Rubber-Legs Ryan
Up in the Air
Movie • 1940
Tex Barton
Sound Off
Movie • 1952
Crockett
Easy Living
Movie • 1949
Bill 'Holly' Holloran
Highways by Night
Movie • 1942
'Footsy' Fogarty
The Winning Team
Movie • 1952
George Glasheen
Strike Me Pink
Movie • 1936
Butch Carson
Spoilers of the Plains
Movie • 1951
Splinters
The Arizona Cowboy
Movie • 1950
I.Q. Barton
Sea Devils
Movie • 1937
Puggy
Trail of Robin Hood
Movie • 1950
Splinters McGonigle
The Palomino
Movie • 1950
Bill Hennessey
Treasure of Ruby Hills
Movie • 1955
Jack Voyle
Spring Reunion
Movie • 1957
Jack Frazer
Shoot-Out At Medicine Bend
Movie • 1957
Pvt. Wilbur Clegg
Rich Man, Poor Girl
Movie • 1938
Tom Grogan
A Foreign Affair
Movie • 1948
Military Police
I Take This Oath
Movie • 1940
Steve Hanagan
North of the Great Divide
Movie • 1950
Splinters McGonagle
Sunset in the West
Movie • 1950
Splinters
The Perfect Furlough
Movie • 1958
MP "Sylvia"
Fight for Your Lady
Movie • 1937
Mike Scanlon
Gobs and Gals
Movie • 1952
CPO Mike Donovan
Live Fast, Die Young
Movie • 1958
Pop Winters
Corky of Gasoline Alley
Movie • 1951
Elwood Martin
Let 'em Have It
Movie • 1935
Tex
They Wanted to Marry
Movie • 1937
Jim Tyler
Quick Money
Movie • 1937
Bill Adams
There Goes My Girl
Movie • 1937
Dunn
I Stand Accused
Movie • 1938
Blackie
Walking on Air
Movie • 1936
Joe
Everything's Ducky
Movie • 1961
Conroy
Smoke Signal
Movie • 1955
Corporal Rogers
The Doctor Takes a Wife
Movie • 1940
O'Brien
We Who Are About to Die
Movie • 1937
Slim Tolliver
The Big Shot
Movie • 1937
Chester Scott
The Shaggy Dog
Movie • 1959
Captain Scanlon, Police Chief
The Long Shot
Movie • 1939
Jeff Clayton
Devil's Squadron
Movie • 1936
Tex
Invitation to Happiness
Movie • 1939
Dutch Arnold (uncredited)
Woman They Almost Lynched
Movie • 1953
Yankee Sergeant
Henry Goes Arizona
Movie • 1939
Tug Evans (uncredited)
Girl from Havana
Movie • 1940
Tubby Waters
Night Waitress
Movie • 1936
Martin Rhodes
You Belong to Me
Movie • 1941
Robert Andrews
The Untamed Breed
Movie • 1948
Happy Keegan
The Green Hornet
Movie • 1940
Britt Reid / The Green Hornet
Red Salute
Movie • 1935
Michael (Lefty) Jones
Pride of the Navy
Movie • 1939
Joe Falcon
The Blonde from Singapore
Movie • 1941
'Waffles' Billings
Heart of the Rockies
Movie • 1951
Splinters McGonigle
The Texas Rangers Ride Again
Movie • 1940
Ranger Radio Man (uncredited)
Don't Turn 'em Loose
Movie • 1936
Joe Graves
Wagon Team
Movie • 1952
Marshal Sam Taplin
The Ghost of Crossbone Canyon
Movie • 1952
Curly Wolf
Big Jim McLain
Movie • 1952
Olaf
Disputed Passage
Movie • 1939
Bill Anderson
Black Eagle
Movie • 1948
Benjy Laughton
Black Midnight
Movie • 1949
Roy
Sons of Adventure
Movie • 1948
Andy Baldwin
The Outlaw Stallion
Movie • 1954
Wagner
China Passage
Movie • 1937
Joe Dugan
Big Town Czar
Movie • 1939
Chuck Hardy
Master of the World
Movie • 1961
Talkative Townsman
Battle Flame
Movie • 1959
Sgt. McKelvey
The Abbott and Costello Show: Who's On First?
Movie • 2011
Mike the Cop (archive footage)
Out West with the Hardys
Movie • 1938
Ray Holt
Dear Wife
Movie • 1949
Taxi Cab Driver
Whispering City
Movie • 1947
Reporter
Youth Runs Wild
Movie • 1944
Truck Driver (uncredited)
Big Timber
Movie • 1950
Jocko
Abbott and Costello Meet Jerry Seinfeld
Movie • 1994
Self (archive footage)
When Tomorrow Comes
Movie • 1939
Radio Technician (uncredited)
Three Rogues
Movie • 1931
Teamster (uncredited)
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
TV • 1959
77 Sunset Strip
TV • 1958
Cheyenne
TV • 1955
Surfside 6
TV • 1960
Perry Mason
TV • 1957
Deputy Gillis
Lassie
TV • 1954
Hawaiian Eye
TV • 1959
Dennis the Menace
TV • 1959
Have Gun, Will Travel
TV • 1957
The Gene Autry Show
TV • 1950
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
TV • 1955
Richard Diamond, Private Detective
TV • 1957
Mike Gower
The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok
TV • 1951
Curly Wolf
The Adventures of Jim Bowie
TV • 1956
The Rifleman
TV • 1958
Sugarfoot
TV • 1957
Wasco Wolters
Laramie
TV • 1959
Racket Squad
TV • 1951
Cavalcade of America
TV • 1952
Lt. Treusch
I'm the Law
TV • 1953
Dangerous Assignment
TV • 1952
Maverick
TV • 1957
Sugarfoot
TV • 1957
Sheriff
Richard Diamond, Private Detective
TV • 1957
Joel Finlay
The Lucy Show
TV • 1962
Charlie Vantassel
The Case of the Dangerous Robin
TV • 1960
Nels Bergstrom
The Abbott and Costello Show
TV • 1952
Mike Kelly
The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse
TV • 1953
The Wonderful World of Disney
TV • 1954
Captain Scanlon - Chief of Police