Dick Jones (actor)

Dickie Jones
Jones (right) as Henry Aldrich with Jackie Kelk on The Aldrich Family, circa 1943–44.
Born	Richard Percy Jones (1927-02-25)February 25, 1927 Snyder, Texas, U.S.
Died	July 7, 2014(2014-07-07) (aged 87) Northridge, California, U.S.
Other names	Dicky Jones Dickie Jones
Education	Hollywood High School
Occupation	Actor, singer
Years active	1934–1965
Notable work	Original voice of Pinocchio in Disney's Pinocchio (1940)
Spouse(s)	Betty Jones (m. 1948; his death 2014)
Children	4

Richard Percy Jones (February 25, 1927 – July 7, 2014), known as Dick Jones or Dickie Jones, was an American actor and singer who achieved success as a child performer and as a young adult, especially in B-Westerns. In 1938, he played Artimer "Artie" Peters, nephew of Buck Peters, in the Hopalong Cassidy film, The Frontiersman. He may be best known as the voice of Pinocchio in the 1940 second Walt Disney film, Pinocchio.

Richard Percy "Dickie" Jones was born on Friday, February 25, 1927 in Snyder, some ninety miles south of Lubbock, Texas. The son of a newspaper editor, Jones was a prodigious horseman from infancy, having been 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, who convinced young Jones and his parents that he should come to Hollywood. Jones and his mother moved there, and 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 as well as in more substantial productions.

Among his early film roles are Little Men (1934) and A Man to Remember (1938). Jones appeared as a bit player in several of Hal Roach's Our Gang (Little Rascals) shorts. In 1939, Dickie Jones appeared as a troublesome kid named 'Killer Parkins' in the film Nancy Drew... Reporter. In the film he did a good imitation of Donald Duck. The same year he appeared with Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington as Senate page Richard (Dick) Jones. In 1940, he had one of his most prominent (though invisible) roles, as the voice of Pinocchio in Disney's 2nd animated film of the same name. Jones attended Hollywood High School and at fifteen 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 the Alaska Territory during the final months of World War II.