Dean Jones, Company's Original Bobby, Has Died

Dean Jones, an actor known for starring in several Disney films including The Love Bug, died from Parkinson’s disease on September 1 in Los Angeles. He was 84 years old.

Jones was born and raised in Decatur, Alabama. Following graduation from Decatur's Riverside High School, he went on to attend the Christian Liberal Arts school Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky (though Jones did not graduate from college, the university awarded him an honorary degree in 2002) and served in the United States Navy during the Korean War.

Jones' theater career began in earnest after he was discharged from the military, when he began performing at the Bird Cage Theater at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California. In the late '50s, Jones landed many small roles on both stage and screen, including the 1957 Elvis film Jailhouse Rock. His Broadway debut came in 1960, when he starred opposite Jane Fonda in Daniel Taradash's There Was a Little Girl. That role was quickly followed by another Broadway performance the same year, in the Lawrence Roman play Under the Yum-Yum Tree.

Over the next decade, Jones experienced success onscreen including the title role on the NBC sitcom Ensign O'Toole (1962-1963), on which he played a lower-ranking officer on the destroyer Appleby. He also appeared in a 1963 film version of Under the Yum Yum Tree. In the mid '60s, Disney signed Jones on for a string of Disney films that went on through the '70s.

The first film Disney made with Jones was 1965's That Darn Cat!, costarring Hayley Mills. The company went on to use him in many movies, including The Ugly Dachshund (1966), Blackbeard's Ghost (1968), and most famously, as racecar driver Jim Douglas in the The Love Bug (1968).

In 1970, Jones returned to Broadway as Robert in the original production of Stephen Sondheim's Company. Though Jones left the production shortly after opening night (being replaced by Larry Kert, who became the only cast replacement in history to be nominated for a Tony Award), his voice can be heard on the cast album. He didn't return to Broadway until 1986 when he appeared in the musical Into the Light, by Jeff Tambornino, Lee Holdridge, and John Forster. Jones' final Broadway appearance was as Robert in a two-night reunion revival of Company in 1993.

Following his Disney success, Jones' screen career went on to include roles in the NBC television movie When Every Day Was the Fourth of July (1978) as well as such films as Other People's Money (1991), Beethoven (1992), and Clear and Present Danger (1994). He also appeared in the Herbie, the Love Bug television series in 1982 and the made-for-TV movie The Love Bug in 1997.

Jones is survived by his wife, Lory Patrick Jones, and three children.