Gordon Jones

Acting

Gordon Jones

Born 1911-04-05 · Alden, Iowa, USA

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.

Acting credits

McLintock! poster
6.6

Aging rancher and self-made man, George Washington McLintock is forced to deal with numerous personal and professional problems. Seemingly everyone wants a piece of his enormous farmstead, including high-ranking government men and nearby Native Americans. As McLintock tries to juggle his various adversaries, his wife—who left him two years previously—suddenly returns. But she isn't interested in George; she wants custody of their daughter.

McLintock!

1963

A Foreign Affair poster
7.1

In occupied Berlin, an army captain is torn between an ex-Nazi café singer and the US congresswoman investigating her.

A Foreign Affair

1948

When Tomorrow Comes poster
5.4

A waitress destined for a better life falls in love with a handsome stranger, only to find that he is already married.

When Tomorrow Comes

1939

Abbott and Costello Meet Jerry Seinfeld poster
8.5

Jerry Seinfeld celebrates the lives and careers of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Featured are clips from their movies and TV shows, plus home movies, newsreel footage and their trademark "Who's on First?" routine, shown in its entirety.

Abbott and Costello Meet Jerry Seinfeld

1994

Master of the World poster
6.0

A mad genius tries to bomb the world into peace.

Master of the World

1961

The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond poster
6.1

Jack Diamond and his sickly brother arrive in prohibition New York as jewelry thieves. After a spell in jail, the coldly ambitious Diamond hits on the idea of stealing from thieves himself and sets about getting close to gangster boss Arnold Rothstein to move in on his booze, girls, gambling, and drugs operations.

The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond

1960

The Shaggy Dog poster
6.3

Through an ancient spell, a boy changes into a sheepdog and back again. It seems to happen at inopportune times and the spell can only be broken by an act of bravery....

The Shaggy Dog

1959

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty poster
6.8

Walter Mitty, a daydreaming writer with an overprotective mother, likes to imagine that he is a hero who experiences fantastic adventures. His dream becomes reality when he accidentally meets a mysterious woman who hands him a little black book. According to her, it contains the locations of the Dutch crown jewels hidden since World War II. Soon, Mitty finds himself in the middle of a confusing conspiracy, where he has difficulty differentiating between fact and fiction.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

1947

Flying Tigers poster
6.3

Jim Gordon commands a unit of the famed Flying Tigers, the American Volunteer Group which fought the Japanese in China before America's entry into World War II. Gordon must send his outnumbered band of fighter pilots out against overwhelming odds while juggling the disparate personalities and problems of his fellow flyers.

Flying Tigers

1942

Wild Girl poster
6.2

Salomy Jane, a California mountain girl, is sought after by a number of men in the nearby small town of Redwood City. She is affected when two criminals are pursued by authorities: one for killing a hypocritical mayoral candidate, the other for robbing the stagecoach.

Wild Girl

1932

The Ghost of Crossbone Canyon poster
9.0

Two episodes of the TV series "Wild Bill Hickok" edited together and released as a feature.

The Ghost of Crossbone Canyon

1952

Tokyo Joe poster
6.1

An American veteran returns to Tokyo to try to pick up the threads of his pre-World War II life there, but finds himself squeezed between criminals and the authorities.

Tokyo Joe

1949

The Doctor Takes a Wife poster
6.8

A best-selling author of women's issues and a medical academic find it is to their mutual advantage to falsely claim that they are married.

The Doctor Takes a Wife

1940

Shoot-Out At Medicine Bend poster
6.0

In Medicine Bend, a crooked businessman has the town mayor and sheriff in his pocket while his henchmen raid the wagon trains passing through the region.

Shoot-Out At Medicine Bend

1957

Island in the Sky poster
6.2

A C-47 transport plane, named the Corsair, makes a forced landing in the frozen wastelands of Labrador, and the plane's pilot, Captain Dooley, must keep his men alive in deadly conditions while awaiting rescue.

Island in the Sky

1953

Spring Reunion poster
6.2

A spinster finally finds the right man when she returns to her alma mater after 15 years for a class reunion.

Spring Reunion

1957

Big Jim McLain poster
5.0

House Un-American Activities Committee investigators Jim McLain and Mal Baxter come to post war Hawaii to track Communist Party activities even though belonging to the party was legal at the time. They are interested in everything from insurance fraud to the sabotage of a U.S. naval vessel.

Big Jim McLain

1952

The Feminine Touch poster
5.1

A college professor who believes there's no place for jealousy in modern marriage, John Hathaway (Don Ameche) moves with his wife, Julie (Rosalind Russell), to New York where he plans to publish a book on the subject. Meeting with publisher Elliott Morgan (Van Heflin), who falls head over heels for Julie, John is assigned to his assistant Nellie (Kay Francis), who only has eyes for her boss. Working closely with Nellie, who Julie thinks is after her husband, John continues his high-minded ways while his angry spouse schemes to make him so jealous he'll knock Elliott's block clean off.

The Feminine Touch

1941

The Winning Team poster
6.1

Poor health and alcoholism force Grover Cleveland Alexander out of baseball, but through his wife's faithful efforts, he gets a chance for a comeback and redemption.

The Winning Team

1952

My Sister Eileen poster
6.8

Sisters Ruth and Eileen Sherwood move from Ohio to New York in the hopes of building their careers. Ruth wants to get a job as a writer, while Eileen hopes to succeed on the stage. The two end up living in a dismal basement apartment in Greenwich Village, where a parade of odd characters are constantly breezing in and out. The women also meet up with magazine editor Bob Baker, who takes a personal interest in helping both with their career plans.

My Sister Eileen

1942

Live Fast, Die Young poster
5.8

A teenager finds her wayward sister running with thieves in San Francisco.

Live Fast, Die Young

1958

Strike Me Pink poster
6.6

Meek Eddie Pink becomes manager of an amusement park beset by mobsters.

Strike Me Pink

1936

Woman They Almost Lynched poster
6.6

Led by its female mayor, a neutral town on the Arkansas-Missouri border during the Civil War attempts to stay peaceful. A newcomer looking for her brother is pulled into the town’s violence.

Woman They Almost Lynched

1953

Night Waitress poster
6.4

Helen Roberts, who's on probation, goes back to work as a waitress at Torre's Fish Palace, a San Francisco waterfront dive. The customers are low characters trying to make time with Helen and ex-rum runners trying to make a dishonest dollar. Some of the latter, including Helen's unwelcome suitor Martin Rhodes, are after a mysterious, valuable hidden "cargo"; when violence erupts, Helen finds herself innocently involved, and is soon on the run from both cops and crooks.

Night Waitress

1936