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Dean Carroll Jones is an American actor. Jones is best known for his light-hearted leading roles in several Walt Disney movies between 1965 and 1977, most notably The Love Bug. He is known chiefly as one of Disney's two main stars in the 60s & 70s
Early years
Dean Carroll Jones was born in Decatur, Alabama to Andrew Guy Jones, a traveling construction worker, and Nolia Elizabeth White Jones. As a student at Decatur's Riverside High School Jones had his own local radio show, Dean Jones Sings.
US Navy
The Korean War prompted Jones to join the Naval Air Corps. Jones served in the United States Navy during the Korean War Stationed in San Diego, California, he entertained the men at the base with variety shows and performed on the local TV show "Liberty Calls." In January 1954, he married beauty queen Mae Entwistle, with whom he had two daughters. He was discharged in July 1954.
College
Jones attended Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, as a member of its Class of 1953 but did not graduate because of joining the navy. However, the university awarded him an honorary degree in 2002, and he spoke at the ceremony for the dedication of Asbury's Andrew S. Miller Center for Communications Arts on March 4, 2011.
After his service ended, Jones remained in California to pursue a career in the entertainment industry and his first job was at the Bird Cage Theater at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California. After hearing him sing there, film composer Vernon Duke introduced Jones to connections at MGM Studios in Hollywood.
Hollywood and Stage
Between 1956 and 1960, Jones appeared in minor roles in several feature films, including Tea and Sympathy (1956) and the Elvis Presley film Jailhouse Rock (1957). In 1960, his film career was put on hold as he headed for New York to star in the Broadway plays There Was a Little Girl and Under the Yum Yum Tree. He stepped into the role in Boston, Massachusetts on only one day's notice. In 1960 he also played Dave Manning in the Broadway comedy Under the Yum-Yum Tree, a role which 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's new musical Company. Shortly after opening night, Jones 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. 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 as 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 started his film career by signing a contract at MGM, beginning with a small role as a soldier in Somebody Up There Likes Me and he later played disc jockey Teddy Talbot in the 1957 Elvis Presley film Jailhouse Rock. He portrayed a soldier in both Imitation General (1957) and Never So Few (1959).
On November 22, 1960, Jones had a major role in the episode "Red Sand" of ABC's Stagecoach West.
Jones subsequently starred in the NBC television sitcom Ensign O'Toole from 1962-1963, 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.Disney signed Jones on for a string of Disney films 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 racecar 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 the short-lived Herbie, the Love Bug television series produced in 1982 and the made-for-TV movie The Love Bug in 1997.
In 1978 Jones took a dramatic turn, portraying Ed Cooper in the NBC television movie When Every Day Was the Fourth of July. The film received critical acclaim and in 1980, Jones reprised the role of Ed Cooper in the ABC television sequel The Long Days of Summer.
In 1991 Jones appeared in Other People's Money.
Jones then appeared as Dr. Herman Varnick, the evil veterinarian in the family film Beethoven in 1992.
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.
On July 25, 1994, Jones was a guest on 100 Huntley Street.
Continued to act and do voice overs since 1994. His last acting was in 2009 On the movie "Mandie and the Secret Tunnel.
Personal life
Jones' first marriage to Mae Entwisle ended in divorce in 1970. He has two children from that union. He has been married since 1973 to actress Lory Patrick and has a child from that marriage.
Dean Jones became a devout born-again Christian in 1973-1974, before his father's death in 1979. He had a history of suffering from depression. His wife Lory said, "One night he got down on his knees and prayed that God would free him from the miserable moods that he had always suffered. He told me that in an instant it was gone and he felt peace and joy flood into his heart."Jones has appeared in several Christian films.
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."
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