Dean Jones (actor)

Dean Carroll Jones (born January 25, 1931, died September 1, 2015) was an American actor. Jones is best known for his light-hearted leading roles in several Walt Disney movies between 1965 and 1977.

Early years
Jones was born in Decatur, Alabama to Andrew Guy Jones and his wife Nolia Elizabeth White. His father was a traveling construction worker. Jones served in the United States Navy during the Korean War, and after his discharge worked at the Bird Cage Theater at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California.

Stage
After appearing in minor film and television roles, Jones made his Broadway debut (along with Jane Fonda) in the 1960 play There Was a Little Girl. He stepped into the role in Boston on only one day's notice. Later that year, he played Dave Manning in the Broadway comedy Under the Yum-Yum Tree, a role he repeated in the 1963 movie version starring Jack Lemmon.

After achieving success in film and television, Jones was set to return to Broadway as the star of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's new musical Company. But during out-of-town previews, Jones was uncomfortable with the negative reaction to his character he received from the audience and asked to withdraw from the show. Director Harold Prince agreed to replace him with Larry Kert if Jones would open the show and record the cast album. Jones agreed and his performance is preserved on the original cast album (although it was Larry Kert who received the Tony nomination for Best Actor in a Musical).

In 1986, Jones, by then having become a Christian, starred in Into the Light, a musical about scientists and the Shroud of Turin, which closed four days after it opened. He had far more success touring in the one-man show St. John in Exile. In this production, Jones portrayed St. John, the last surviving Apostle of Jesus Christ, reminiscing about his life while imprisoned on the Greek island of Patmos. A performance was filmed in 1986. He made one more Broadway appearance, in 1993, at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, in a special two-day concert staging of Company featuring most of the original Broadway cast.

Television and film
Jones played disc jockey Teddy Talbot in the 1957 Elvis Presley smash hit, Jailhouse Rock. He portrayed soldiers in 1957's Imitation General with Glenn Ford and 1959's Never So Few with Frank Sinatra.

He then moved to television, starring in the NBC television sitcom Ensign O'Toole from 1962–63, produced by Four Star Television, portraying an easy-going very green officer on a US Navy destroyer. His co-stars included Jack Mullaney, Jack Albertson, Jay C. Flippen, Harvey Lembeck, and Beau Bridges. He also recorded a singing album, Introducing Dean Jones, for Valiant Records.

He became also known for a string of Disney films he made in the 1960s and 1970s, beginning with That Darn Cat! (actress Hayley Mills' last film at Disney). His performance was so well-received that Disney used him for future movies including The Ugly Dachshund, Blackbeard's Ghost and Snowball Express. Jones' signature Disney role would be as race car driver "Jim Douglas" in the highly successful Love Bug series. He appeared in two feature films (The Love Bug and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo), plus a short-lived television series produced in 1982 and a made-for-TV movie in 1997.

In 1991, Jones co-starred with Gregory Peck and Danny DeVito as the president of Peck's company, which was fighting a hostile takeover by DeVito in ''Other People's Money.

He then appeared as the evil veterinarian, "Herman Varnick," in the family film Beethoven in 1992. He did the voice of "George Newton" in TV version of Beethoven. He also appeared in a small role as Director of Central Intelligence Judge Arthur Moore in 1994's film adaptation of Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger starring Harrison Ford.

Personal life
Jones' first marriage to Mae Entwisle ended in divorce in the 1970s. He has two children from that union. He has been married since 1973 to actress Lory Patrick Jones and has a third child from that marriage.

Dean Jones became a devout born-again Christian in 1973–1974, before his father's death in 1979. He had since appeared in several Christian films. A noted conservative, Jones also testified in favor of an amendment to the United States Constitution that would define marriage between one man and one woman.

In 1998 Jones founded the Christian Rescue Committee (CRC), an organization that helps provide a "way of escape to Jews, Christians, and others persecuted for their faith."

Death
Jones died from Parkinson's disease in Los Angeles, California on September 1, 2015, aged 84. His body was cremated.

Filmography

 * Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)
 * These Wilder Years (1956)
 * Tea and Sympathy (1956)
 * The Opposite Sex (1956)
 * The Rack (1956)
 * The Great American Pastime (1956)
 * Slander (1956)
 * Ten Thousand Bedrooms (1957)
 * Designing Woman (1957)
 * Until They Sail (1957)
 * Jailhouse Rock (1957)
 * Handle with Care (1958)
 * Imitation General (1958)
 * Torpedo Run (1958)
 * Night of the Quarter Moon (1959)
 * Never So Few (1959)
 * Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963)
 * The New Interns (1964)
 * Two on a Guillotine (1965)
 * That Darn Cat! (1965)
 * The Ugly Dachshund (1966)
 * Any Wednesday (1966)
 * Monkeys, Go Home! (1967)
 * Blackbeard's Ghost (1968)
 * The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit (1968)
 * The Love Bug (1969)
 * Mr. Superinvisible (1970)
 * The Million Dollar Duck (1971)
 * Snowball Express (1972)
 * The Shaggy D.A. (1976)
 * Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977)
 * When Everyday was the Fourth of July (1978)
 * Born Again (1978)
 * St John In Exile (1986)
 * Other People's Money (1991)
 * Beethoven (1992)
 * Saved by the Bell: Hawaiian Style (1992)
 * Clear and Present Danger (1994)
 * Beethoven (voice)
 * Getting Around in Time (1996)
 * Acts (1996)
 * That Darn Cat (1997)
 * The Love Bug (1997)
 * Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero (1998) (voice) (direct-to-video)
 * Scrooge and Marley (2001) (TV)
 * Lavinia's Heist (2007)
 * You Know the Face (2008) (documentary)
 * Mandie and the Secret Tunnel (2008)

Broadway appearances

 * There Was a Little Girl (February 29 – March 12, 1960)
 * Under the Yum Yum Tree (November 16, 1960 – April 15, 1961)
 * Company (April 26, 1970 – January 1, 1972) (replaced by Larry Kert on May 29, 1970)
 * Into the Light (October 22–26, 1986)
 * Company (Concert Staging) (April 11–12, 1993)