
Gordon Jones
Actor · 1911 – 1963 · 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.
Movies24
Movie6.6WesternComedyAging 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 · 266 votes
Movie6.8ComedyFantasyWalter 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 · 142 votes
Movie6.0Science FictionAdventureA mad genius tries to bomb the world into peace.
Master of the World
1961 · 86 votes
Movie7.1ComedyDramaIn occupied Berlin, an army captain is torn between an ex-Nazi café singer and the US congresswoman investigating her.
A Foreign Affair
1948 · 165 votes
Movie6.3ComedyFamilyThrough 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 · 100 votes
Movie5.6HorrorScience FictionGiants Mollusks are released from the earth by an earthquake and start killing people.
The Monster That Challenged the World
1957 · 55 votes
Movie6.2AdventureDramaA 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 · 74 votes
Movie6.2DramaA spinster finally finds the right man when she returns to her alma mater after 15 years for a class reunion.
Spring Reunion
1957 · 5 votes
Movie6.3ActionDramaJim 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 · 59 votes
Movie6.1CrimeHistoryJack 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 · 26 votes
Movie6.7ComedyRomanceA love-starved soldier stationed at an Arctic base wins a furlough in Paris, but a pretty, no-nonsense military psychologist is ordered to accompany him as chaperone to keep him out of trouble.
The Perfect Furlough
1958 · 23 votes
Movie6.6WesternLed 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 · 24 votes
Movie6.2WesternSalomy 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 · 12 votes
Movie6.2ComedyDramaSgt. Thorne Ryan, who once fought bravely in Korea, now serves as a hard-nosed drill instructor to new Army recruits at Fort Bliss, Texas. But is he really the man he is often described as? His fellow instructor, and friend helps him to face the ghosts of his past experiences in Korea. One night in a bar across the border in Juarez, Mexico, Sgt. Ryan meets a lady who begins to turn his life around. Will this be enough to help him deal with the past? Or will he continue to be so hard on his troops?
Take the High Ground!
1953 · 13 votes
Movie6.9WesternCapt. Harper's cavalry patrol returns to the fort to find it besieged by Ute Indians. The apparent cause is the recapture of Army traitor Brett Halliday, who deserted to the Utes in a previous war; but Brett has a different story. With capture imminent, the only chance for the surviving men (and one woman) is to boat down a wild, uncharted river, where Harper and Halliday must pull together, like it or not.
Smoke Signal
1955 · 16 votes
Movie6.2ComedyWesternChester Wooley and Duke Egan are travelling salesmen who make a stopover in Wagon Gap, Montana while enroute to California. During the stopover, a notorious criminal is murdered, and the two are charged with the crime.
The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap
1947 · 20 votes
Movie9.0WesternTwo episodes of the TV series "Wild Bill Hickok" edited together and released as a feature.
The Ghost of Crossbone Canyon
1952 · 1 votes
Movie6.1DramaThrillerAn 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 · 45 votes
Movie8.5DocumentaryComedyJerry 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 · 2 votes
Movie6.1ComedyRomanceA playboy marries a woman doctor then grows jealous of her male patients.
You Belong to Me
1941 · 17 votes
Movie5.8ComedyMysteryA none-too-popular (nor good) radio singer, Rita Wilson is murdered while singing on the air in a radio studio. Radio page boy, Frankie Ryan, and his janitor pal, Jeff, solve the mystery for the none-too-sharp police.
Up in the Air
1940 · 5 votes
Movie5.7DramaA football halfback has a heart condition, a nagging wife and a team secretary who loves him.
Easy Living
1949 · 21 votes
Movie6.0WesternIn 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 · 12 votes
Movie6.7ComedyJudge Hardy goes to his friend's Arizona ranch to help her in a legal dispute, and he takes his family with him.
Out West with the Hardys
1938 · 9 votes
Series24
TV7.7MysteryDramaThe cases of master criminal defense attorney Perry Mason and his staff who handled the most difficult of cases in the aid of the innocent.
Perry Mason
1957 · 139 votes
TV7.0ComedyWesternThe Maverick boys - Bret, Bart, Beau and Brent - are a clan of well-dressed dandies, gamblers who'd much rather make their money playing cards than messing up their fine clothing with actual work. Sly and clever, none of the Mavericks are much for acts of derring do, but they can be courageous when the situation calls for it. Most often, however, they live by their wits and considerable charm.
Maverick
1957 · 43 votes
TV7.1Action & AdventureWesternThe Rifleman is an American Western television program starring Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas McCain and Johnny Crawford as his son, Mark McCain. It was set in the 1880s in the town of North Fork, New Mexico Territory. The show was filmed in black-and-white, half-hour episodes. "The Rifleman" aired on ABC from September 30, 1958 to April 8, 1963 as a production of Four Star Television. It was one of the first prime time series to have a widowed parent raise a child.
The Rifleman
1958 · 54 votes
TV6.3Action & AdventureDramaLassie is the pet of Jeff Miller, an 11-year-old farm boy. The two become best friends and enjoy family adventures in the American countryside, teaching each other about love, nature and commitment.
Lassie
1954 · 74 votes
TV7.3WesternAction & AdventureHave Gun – Will Travel is an American Western television series that aired on CBS from 1957 through 1963. It was rated number three or number four in the Nielsen ratings every year of its first four seasons. It was one of the few television shows to spawn a successful radio version. The radio series debuted November 23, 1958. The television show is presently shown on the Encore-Western channel. Have Gun – Will Travel was created by Sam Rolfe and Herb Meadow and produced by Frank Pierson, Don Ingalls, Robert Sparks, and Julian Claman. There were 225 episodes of the TV series, 24 written by Gene Roddenberry. Other contributors included Bruce Geller, Harry Julian Fink, Don Brinkley and Irving Wallace. Andrew McLaglen directed 101 episodes and 19 were directed by series star Richard Boone.
Have Gun, Will Travel
1957 · 44 votes
TV6.8DramaWesternThe Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp is a television western series loosely based on the life of frontier marshal Wyatt Earp. The half-hour black-and-white program aired for 229 episodes on ABC from 1955 to 1961 and featured Hugh O'Brian in the title role.
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
1955 · 21 votes
TV7.1ComedyThe Lucy Show is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from 1962–68. It was Lucille Ball's follow-up to I Love Lucy. A significant change in cast and premise for the 1965–66 season divides the program into two distinct eras; aside from Ball, only Gale Gordon, who joined the program for its second season, remained. For the first three seasons, Vivian Vance was the co-star. The earliest scripts were entitled The Lucille Ball Show, but when this title was declined, producers thought of calling the show This Is Lucy or The New Adventures of Lucy, before deciding on the title The Lucy Show. Ball won consecutive Emmy Awards as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for the series' final two seasons, 1966–67 and 1967–68.
The Lucy Show
1962 · 53 votes
TV6.2WesternDramaCheyenne Bodie was a big man, a former army scout who went west after the American Civil War and drifted from job to job, here a cowboy, there a lawman, and always a larger-than-life hero. CHEYENNE is an American western television series of 108 black-and-white episodes broadcast on ABC from 1955 to 1963. The show was the first hour-long western, and in fact the first hour-long dramatic series of any kind, with continuing characters, to last more than one season. It was also the first series to be made by a major Hollywood film studio which did not derive from its established film properties, and the first of a long chain of Warner Brothers original series produced by William T. Orr.
Cheyenne
1955 · 26 votes
TV5.6CrimeDramaPrivate Eyes Tom Lopaka and Tracy Steele are based out of Hawaiian Village Resort where they work both hotel security and are hired by others to look into various matters. They're helped by their trusty right-hand man Kazuo Kim who runs a taxi company and is always eager to help them.
Hawaiian Eye
1959 · 10 votes
TV6.3DramaSurfside 6 was an ABC television series which aired from 1960 to 1962. The show centered on a Miami Beach detective agency set on a houseboat and featured Troy Donahue as Sandy Winfield II; Van Williams as Kenny Madison; and Lee Patterson as Dave Thorne. Diane McBain co-starred as socialite Daphne Dutton, whose yacht was berthed next to their houseboat. Margarita Sierra also had a supporting role as Cha Cha O'Brien, an entertainer who worked at The Boom Boom Room, a popular Miami Beach hangout at the Fontainebleau Hotel, directly across the street from Surfside 6. Surfside 6 was in fact a real address in Miami Beach, where an unrelated houseboat was moored at the time; it can also be seen in the sweeping aerial establishing shot of the Fontainebleu in 1964's Goldfinger.
Surfside 6
1960 · 3 votes
TV5.1WesternSugarfoot is an American western television series that aired on ABC from 1957 to 1961. The series stars Will Hutchins as Tom Brewster, an Easterner who comes to the Oklahoma Territory to become a lawyer. Jack Elam is cast in occasional episodes as sidekick Toothy Thompson. Brewster was a correspondence-school student whose apparent lack of cowboy skills earned him the nickname "Sugarfoot", a designation even below that of a tenderfoot.
Sugarfoot
1957 · 8 votes
TV6.3ComedyThe Many Loves of Dobie Gillis is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from 1959 to 1963. The series and several episode scripts were adapted from a 1951 collection of short stories of the same name, written by Max Shulman, who had also written a feature film adaptation of his short stories for MGM in 1953, The Affairs of Dobie Gillis. The series revolved around the life of teenager/young adult Dobie Gillis, who, along with his best friend, beatnik Maynard G. Krebs, struggles against the forces of his life - high school, the military, college, and his parents - as he aspires to attain both wealth and dates with girls. The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis was produced by Martin Manulis Productions in association with 20th Century Fox Television. Creator Shulman also wrote the theme song in collaboration with Lionel Newman.
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
1959 · 18 votes
TV5.3WesternThe Adventures of Jim Bowie is an American Western television series that aired on ABC from 1956 to 1958. Its setting was the 1830s-era Louisiana Territory. The series was an adaptation of the book Tempered Blade, by Monte Barrett. The series stars Scott Forbes as the real-life adventurer Jim Bowie. The series initially portrayed Jim Bowie as something of an outdoors-man, riding his horse through the wilderness near his home in Opelousas, where he would stumble across someone needing his assistance. He was aided by the Bowie Knife, his ever-present weapon. He designed it in the first episode, The Birth of the Blade.
The Adventures of Jim Bowie
1956 · 6 votes
TV7.9Action & AdventureAnimationWalt Disney Productions has produced an anthology television series under several different titles since 1954. The original version of the series premiered on ABC, Wednesday night, October 27, 1954. The show, which was hosted by Walt Disney until his death and then from 1996 to 2002 by then-CEO Michael Eisner (with one-off hosts or no hosts during other periods) has since aired continually as either a weekly program or an irregular series of specials on several networks and streaming services, most recently on ABC and Disney+. The show is the second longest showing prime-time program on American television, behind its rival, Hallmark Hall of Fame. However, Hallmark Hall of Fame was a weekly program only during its first five seasons, while Disney remained a weekly program for more than forty years.
The Wonderful World of Disney
1954 · 36 votes
TV4.7WesternComedyThe Gene Autry Show is an American western/cowboy television series which aired for 91 episodes on CBS from July 23, 1950 until August 7, 1956, originally sponsored by Wrigley's Doublemint chewing gum.
The Gene Autry Show
1950 · 6 votes
TV7.2CrimeDramaStu Bailey and Jeff Spencer are the wisecracking, womanizing private-detective heroes of this Warner Brothers drama. They work out of an office located at 77 Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, California, right next door to a snazzy restaurant where Kookie works as a valet. The finger-snapping, slang-talking Kookie occasionally helps Stu and Jeff with their cases, and eventually becomes a full-fledged member of the detective agency. Rex Randolph and J.R. Hale also join the firm, and Suzanne is their leggy secretary.
77 Sunset Strip
1958 · 26 votes
TV6.6ComedyFamilyThis 1959-1963 television situation comedy series follows the lives of the Mitchell family, Henry, Alice, and their only child Dennis, an energetic, trouble-prone, mischievous, but well-meaning boy, who often tangles with his peace-and-quiet-loving neighbor George Wilson, a retired salesman, or, later, with George's brother John, a writer. Dennis is basically a good, well-intentioned boy who always tries to help people, but who winds up making situations worse – often at Mr. Wilson's expense.
Dennis the Menace
1959 · 33 votes
TV6.8CrimeDramaRichard Diamond, Private Detective is an American detective drama which aired on radio from 1949 to 1953, and on television from 1957 to 1960.
Richard Diamond, Private Detective
1957 · 5 votes
TV6.7WesternDramaLaramie is an American Western television series that aired on NBC from 1959 to 1963. A Revue Studios production, the program originally starred John Smith as Slim Sherman, Robert Fuller as Jess Harper, Hoagy Carmichael as Jonesy and Robert L. Crawford, Jr., as Andy Sherman.
Laramie
1959 · 18 votes
TV7.2ComedyBud and Lou are unemployed actors living in Mr. Fields’ boarding house. Lou’s girlfriend Hillary lives across the hall. Many situations arise leading to slapstick and puns.
The Abbott and Costello Show
1952 · 22 votes
TV5.3WesternThe Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok is an American Western television series which ran for eight seasons from 1951 through 1958. The Screen Gems series began in syndication, but ran on CBS from 1955 through 1958, and, at the same time, on ABC from 1957 through 1958.
The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok
1951 · 6 votes
TV4.6DramaCavalcade of America is an anthology drama series that was sponsored by the DuPont Company, although it occasionally presented a musical, such as an adaptation of Show Boat, and condensed biographies of popular composers. It was initially broadcast on radio from 1935 to 1953, and later on television from 1952 to 1957. Originally on CBS, the series pioneered the use of anthology drama for company audio advertising. Cavalcade of America documented historical events using stories of individual courage, initiative and achievement, often with feel-good dramatizations of the human spirit's triumph against all odds. This was consistent with DuPont's overall conservative philosophy and legacy as an American company dating back to 1802. The company's motto, "Maker of better things for better living through chemistry," was read at the beginning of each program, and the dramas emphasized humanitarian progress, particularly improvements in the lives of women, often through technological innovation.
Cavalcade of America
1952 · 5 votes
TV6.5DramaAction & AdventureRacket Squad is an American TV crime drama series starring Reed Hadley as Captain John Braddock, a fictional detective working for the San Francisco, California Police Department. The show aired in syndication for a season before being picked up by CBS for three seasons. The series was filmed at Hal Roach Studios in Culver City, California, and was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris, hence there was a pack of the sponsor's brand on Braddock's desk at the beginning and end of the episode, as well as occasional scenes of him or other characters "lighting up".
Racket Squad
1951 · 4 votes
- TV8.5Drama
The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse is an American dramatic anthology series that aired on ABC from 1953 to 1955, sponsored by Pepsi-Cola. The show was hosted by Arlene Dahl, Anita Colby, and, finally, Polly Bergen
The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse
1953 · 2 votes