Imagine this: A fictional round on the popular game show, “Jeopardy!”
The contestants listen closely as host Alex Trebek says:
“During the middle 1960s, he was one of the most recognizable faces on network television.”
A contestant responds: “Who is Roy Barnes Jones, of Dade City, Florida?”
Indeed.
(Courtesy of the Scott Rollins Film and TV Trivia Blog)
Who is this man — whose face was familiar to millions, but whose name remains relatively unknown?
Roy Barnes Jones was born on March 18, 1906.
Records online with ancestry.com show that his parents were married in Dade City, and that his older sister, Nannie Louise Jones, was born there in 1904.
“It might be difficult to confirm that Roy was born in Dade City, but it seems likely,” according to Jeff Miller, webmaster for the Pasco County history website fivay.org.
“Some sources say he was born in Tampa, but maybe that’s because Tampa is better known,” Miller said.
He adds: “Roy’s father was a true Pasco pioneer, shown as living at Cedar Tree in 1870, before there was a Pasco County.”
While those same genealogical records document Jones as the youngest of six children in his family, not even the digital collections of the Dade City Banner— online at the University of Florida — make any mention of Jones’ 40-year career as a character actor. During those four decades, Jones appeared in more than 900 productions on stage and screen.
According to the Internet Broadway Database for theatre productions, Jones began his acting career on the stage as Roy Roberts, first appearing in such plays as “Old Man Murphy” in 1931, followed by “Twentieth Century” in 1932, “The Body Beautiful” in 1935 and “My Sister Eileen” in 1942.
“Roy was a cousin on the Tait side of my family and visited our home here in Dade City for family reunions when I was a kid,” recalls Darwin Croft, co-owner of Croft Farms in Pasco County.
Additional sources from the Internet Movie Database report that Roberts made his motion picture debut in “Gold Bricks,” a 1936 two-reel comedy short released by the film studios at 20th Century Fox.
By 1943, he had successfully switched to the silver screen, debuting as a Marine officer in “Guadalcanal Diary” with William Bendix. He appeared in 1953 as the crooked business partner (and first victim) in Vincent Price’s “House of Wax.”
When he started recurring appearances on television, he was not known necessarily by name. But, the stocky character — portrayed with silvery hair and a perfectly trimmed mustache — reminded fans and actors of the “Mr. Monopoly” character from the classic board game.
“I remember being so thrilled that Roy was my distant cousin,” recalls Polly Hamm of Dade City.
Roberts made famous a take-charge demeanor when he played the no-nonsense Admiral Rogers on “McHale’s Navy” and the steely railroad president Norman Curtis on CBS’ “Petticoat Junction.”
The same thing could be said when he was cast as Darren Stephens’ father on “Bewitched” and as the father of Rob Petrie on the “Dick Van Dyke Show.”
From 1956 to 1960, Roberts guest-starred in the western series, “My Friend Flicka,” which became the first television series filmed by 20th Century Fox, and as a Texas cattle baron in “The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.”
Roy Roberts appeared on four episodes of the CBS legal drama, “Perry Mason,” including the role of murderer Arthur Janeel in the 1961 episode, “The Case of the Malicious Mariner.”
In the 1963 comedy hit, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” Blu-ray editions have restored Roberts’ small role as a police officer that was cut from the original film to reduce running time in movie theaters.
Roberts was the assured banker on both “Gunsmoke” and “Bonanza,” but perhaps one of his most familiar roles was as banker John Cushing in “The Beverly Hillbillies.”
Here’s an example of one his gruff reactions when dealing with the Clampett family, from the 1965 episode entitled “Clampett’s Millions”:
Jed Clampett: “Did you get our 45 million from Mr. Drysdale’s bank?”
John Cushing: “Every cent of it. It’s all safe and sound, right in my bank.”
Jed Clampett: “That’s dandy. We’d like to see it…in cash.”
John Cushing: (Exasperated) “I haven’t got it!?”
Jed Clampett: Well, Granny?”
Daisy Moses: “Dogged, if he didn’t go through it quicker than Mr. Drysdale.”
Jed Clampett: “I think we’d be better off, back with him.”
In his last television appearance, Roberts played a veterinarian on the Jan. 21, 1974 CBS broadcast of “Here’s Lucy.”
Although he had a familiar face to viewers, he never had a leading role in Hollywood.
Roy Barnes Jones died of a heart attack in Los Angeles on May 28, 1975. He is buried with his wife Lillian Moore at Greenwood Memorial Park in Fort Worth, Texas. (Lillian Moore had her own film credits. She starred in the Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy movies, “Sons of the Desert” and the “Devil’s Brother,” both produced by Hal Roach and released by the MGM studios in 1933.)
Doug Sanders has a penchant for unearthing interesting stories about local history. His sleuthing skills have been developed through his experiences in newspaper and government work. If you have an idea for a future history column, contact Doug at .
Published July 19, 2017
