Dean Carroll Jones was an American actor and singer who participated in numerous live-action Disney films between 1965 and 1977.
Jones starred in the NBC television sitcom Ensign O'Toole from 1962–1963, produced by Four Star Television, portraying an easy-going and inexperienced officer on a U.S. Navy destroyer. He also recorded a singing album, Introducing Dean Jones, for Valiant Records.
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. They signed him on for a string of Disney films in the 1960s and 1970s, beginning with That Darn Cat! (Hayley Mills' last film with Disney). His performance was so well-received that they used him for future movies including The Ugly Dachshund, Blackbeard's Ghost, and Snowball Express. He and Suzanne Pleshette were frequently paired in Disney's gimmick comedies.
Jones' signature Disney role would be as race car driver Jim Douglas in the highly successful The Love Bug series. He appeared in two feature films (The Love Bug and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo), as well as a short-lived Herbie television series produced in 1982, and the made-for-TV movie The Love Bug in 1997.
Jones died on September 1, 2015, at the age of 84 after suffering from Parkinson's disease.
Disney Filmography
- The Love Bug
- That Darn Cat!
- The Shaggy D.A.
- Blackbeard's Ghost
- The Million Dollar Duck
- The Ugly Dachshund
- Monkeys, Go Home!
- The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit
- Snowball Express
- Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo
- Kraft Salutes Walt Disney World's 10th Anniversary
- That Darn Cat (1997)
- The Love Bug (1997)
- The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1995)
Gallery
