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