Dean Jones (actor)

Jones was born on January 25, 1931, in Decatur, Alabama, to Andrew Guy Jones, a traveling construction worker, and the former Nolia Elizabeth Wilhite. As a student at Riverside High School in Decatur, Jones had his own local radio show, Dean Jones Sings. He served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War, and after his discharge worked at the Bird Cage Theater at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California. Jones attended Asbury College in Wilmore near Lexington, Kentucky. A member of its Class of 1953, he did not graduate, but the university in 2003 awarded him an honorary degree. On March 4, 2011, he addressed the community during the dedication ceremony of Asbury's Andrew S. Miller Center for Communications Arts. ==Stage==

After appearing in minor film and television roles, Jones made his Broadway debut in the 1960 play There Was a Little Girl. He stepped into the role in Boston, with only one day's notice. In 1960, he also played Dave Manning in the Broadway comedy Under the Yum-Yum Tree, a role he repeated in the 1963 film version starring Jack Lemmon and Carol Lynley. After working in film and television, Jones was set to return to Broadway as the star of Stephen Sondheim's musical Company in 1970. Shortly after opening night, he withdrew from the show, due to stress that he was undergoing from ongoing divorce proceedings. Director Harold Prince agreed to replace him with Larry Kert if Jones would open the show and record the cast album. He agreed, and his performance is preserved on the original cast album, although it was Kert who received the Tony nomination for Best Actor in a Musical. In 1986, Jones, by then having become a fervent born-again Christian, starred in Into the Light, a musical about scientists and the Shroud of Turin, which closed after only six performances.He had far more success touring in the one-man show St. John in Exile as the last surviving Apostle of Jesus Christ, reminiscing about his life while imprisoned on the Greek island of Patmos. One 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==

'', "Who Killed Julie Greer?" Standing, from left: Ronald Reagan, Nick Adams, Lloyd Bridges, Mickey Rooney, Edgar Bergen, Jack Carson, Ralph Bellamy, Kay Thompson, Dean Jones. Seated, from left, Carolyn Jones and Dick Powell. Jones began as a contract performer for MGM, beginning with a small role as a soldier in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) and he later played disc jockey Teddy Talbot in the Elvis Presley film Jailhouse Rock (1957). He portrayed a soldier in both Imitation General (also 1957) with Glenn Ford and Never So Few (1959) with Frank Sinatra. He gave a powerful performance as an ex-con trying to reform (with Joe's help) on Bonanza Season 3 Episode 8 "The Friendship" which aired on November 11, 1961. Jones subsequently starred in the NBC television sitcom ''Ensign O'Toole'' (1962–63), produced by Four Star Television, portraying an easygoing and inexperienced officer on a U.S. Navy destroyer. His costars included Jack Mullaney, Jack Albertson, Jay C. Flippen, Harvey Lembeck, and Beau Bridges. As ''Ensign O'Toole'' was the lead-in show on NBC to Walt Disney's The Wonderful World of Color, Disney ordered a print of Jones' latest film Under the Yum Yum Tree to study. Away from Disney, Jones costarred with Broadway-era co-star Jane Fonda in the romantic comedy Any Wednesday (1966). In a dramatic turn, in the NBC television film When Every Day Was the Fourth of July (1978) he portrayed Ed Cooper, an attorney in the 1930s who agrees to defend a man who has been accused of murder, accepting the case only after urging from his daughter. He reprised the role of Ed Cooper in the ABC television sequel The Long Days of Summer (1980). He appeared with Gregory Peck and Danny DeVito as Bill Coles, the president of Peck's company, which was fighting a hostile takeover by DeVito, in ''Other People's Money'' (1991). Jones, who was known for playing pleasant characters, took on the role of Dr. Herman Varnick, the evil veterinarian in the family film Beethoven (1992). He employed method acting for the first time in his career and did not break character off-set throughout the film's shooting period much to the surprise of cast members as well as family and friends who had never seen him so immersed in a role. He maintained his relationship to the Beethoven franchise by providing the voice of George Newton in the animated television version of Beethoven. He also appeared in a small role as Director of Central Intelligence Judge Arthur Moore in the film adaptation of Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger (1994), which starred Harrison Ford. He also played Kelly Kapowski's grandfather Harry Bannister in the 1992 film Saved By The Bell: Hawaiian Style. Jones also appeared in two episodes of the Angela Lansbury series Murder, She Wrote in 1984 and 1988. ==Personal life==

Jones was married to Mae Entwisle from 1954 to 1971; the couple had two daughters. Death Jones died of Parkinson's disease in Los Angeles on September 1, 2015, at age 84. His remains were cremated. ==Filmography==

Film Television ==Stage productions==