Dickie Jones
Birthday:
25 February 1927, Snyder, Texas, USA
Birth Name:
Richard Percy Jones
Height:
171 cm
American actor who achieved some success as a child and as a young adult, especially in B-Westerns and in television. The son of a Texas newspaper editor, Jones was a prodigious horseman from infancy, billed at the age of four as the World's Youngest Trick Rider and Trick Roper. At the age of six, he was hired to perform riding and lariat tric...
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American actor who achieved some success as a child and as a young adult, especially in B-Westerns and in television. The son of a Texas newspaper editor, Jones was a prodigious horseman from infancy, billed at the age of four as the World's Youngest Trick Rider and Trick Roper. At the age of six, he was hired to perform riding and lariat tricks in the rodeo owned by western star Hoot Gibson. Gibson convinced young Jones and his parents that there was a place for him in Hollywood, and the boy and his mother went west. Gibson arranged for some small parts for the boy, whose good looks, energy, and pleasant voice quickly landed him more and bigger parts, both in low-budget Westerns and in more substantial productions. In 1940, he had one of his most prominent (although invisible) roles, as the voice of Pinocchio (1940) in Walt Disney's animated film of the same name. Jones attended Hollywood High School and, at 15, took over the role of Henry Aldrich on the hit radio show "The Aldrich Family." He learned carpentry and augmented his income with jobs in that field. He served in the Army in Alaska during the final months of World War II. Gene Autry, who before the war had cast Jones in several Westerns, put him back to work in films and particularly in television, on programs produced by Autry's company. Now billed as Dick Jones, the handsome young man starred as Dick West, sidekick to the Western hero known as The Range Rider (1951), in a TV series that ran for 76 episodes in 1951 (and for decades in syndication). Then Autry gave Jones his own series, Buffalo Bill, Jr. (1955)', which ran for 40 episodes. Jones continued working in films throughout the 1950s, then retired and entered the business world. Show less «
[Hoot Gibson's advice after seeing him as young rodeo rider] Hoot told my mother the famous words: "That kid ought to be in pictures". She s...Show more »
[Hoot Gibson's advice after seeing him as young rodeo rider] Hoot told my mother the famous words: "That kid ought to be in pictures". She said, "Whoopee!: and away we went to Hollywood. Show less «
[on first meeting Walt Disney in 1939] That's where he asked me the famous question: "Would you like to do the voice of Pinocchio?" And in m...Show more »
[on first meeting Walt Disney in 1939] That's where he asked me the famous question: "Would you like to do the voice of Pinocchio?" And in my mind I'm thinking, "What the heck do you think I'm here for?" I didn't say that. I said: "Oh boy, oh boy, yeah, I really would. I really want to do that". I was acting. Show less «
[about the song "When You Wish Upon A Star" from Pinocchio (1940)] Cliff Edwards' version is the best. A lot of really great singers have do...Show more »
[about the song "When You Wish Upon A Star" from Pinocchio (1940)] Cliff Edwards' version is the best. A lot of really great singers have done that song, but no one has ever come close to his. Show less «
[on Gregg Barton] What a great guy he was, how much fun he was to work with. We had a lot of fun doing The Range Rider (1951) and Buffalo Bi...Show more »
[on Gregg Barton] What a great guy he was, how much fun he was to work with. We had a lot of fun doing The Range Rider (1951) and Buffalo Bill, Jr. (1955). He was a good fight routine man. We had a lot of fun tearing the sets apart. He did all of his own fights. He was dependable. He didn't phony it up by looking back to where he was gonna go and staggering to it . . . getting down on one knee and then the next knee when he took a fall. He did it like a true athlete. He worked it out. When he was gonna go back over a table, he knew where the table was and he went over it just like you would actually do it. Show less «
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Pinocchio