L. Q. Jones
Encyclopedia
L.Q. Jones is an American
character actor
and film director
, known for his work in the films of Sam Peckinpah
.
, the son of Jessie Paralee (née
Stephens) and Justice Ellis McQueen, who was a railroad worker. He made his film debut in 1955's Battle Cry
, with Van Heflin
, under his birth name. His character was named L.Q. Jones, and when it was suggested to him by film producers that he change his screen name for future pictures, he decided that the name of his debut character would be a memorable one.
Jones appeared in numerous memorable films in the 1960s and 1970s. He became a member of Sam Peckinpah
's stock company
of actors, appearing in his Klondike
television series (1960–1961), Ride the High Country
(1962), Major Dundee
(1965), The Wild Bunch
(1969), The Ballad of Cable Hogue
(1970), and Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid
(1973). He was frequently cast alongside his close friend, Strother Martin
, most memorably in The Wild Bunch. Jones also appeared in television, as recurring characters on such western programs as Cheyenne (1955), Gunsmoke
(1955), Laramie
, Two Faces West
(1960–1961), and 25 times on The Virginian
(1962) as ranch hand Andy Belden. He was cast once in the syndicated
military drama Men of Annapolis
.
He directed, was the executive producer, and adapted the screenplay for A Boy and His Dog
(1975), with Don Johnson
and Jason Robards
. Other films include Men in War
(1957), The Naked and the Dead
(1958), Flaming Star
(1960), Cimarron
(1960), Hell Is for Heroes
(1962), Hang 'Em High
(1968), Stay Away, Joe
(1968), The Brotherhood of Satan
(1971) (which he co-produced and wrote, and cast Strother Martin again in the lead role), Lone Wolf McQuade
(1983), Casino
(1995), The Edge (1997), The Mask of Zorro
(1998), and A Prairie Home Companion
(2006).
Jones also appeared in the Season 4 episode of The A-Team
entitled "Cowboy George".
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
and film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
, known for his work in the films of Sam Peckinpah
Sam Peckinpah
David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was an American filmmaker and screenwriter who achieved prominence following the release of the Western epic The Wild Bunch...
.
Life and career
Jones was born Justus Ellis McQueen in Beaumont, TexasBeaumont, Texas
Beaumont is a city in and county seat of Jefferson County, Texas, United States, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city's population was 118,296 at the 2010 census. With Port Arthur and Orange, it forms the Golden Triangle, a major industrial area on the...
, the son of Jessie Paralee (née
Married and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Stephens) and Justice Ellis McQueen, who was a railroad worker. He made his film debut in 1955's Battle Cry
Battle Cry (film)
Battle Cry is a 1955 CinemaScope film, starring Van Heflin, Aldo Ray, James Whitmore, Tab Hunter, Anne Francis, Dorothy Malone, Raymond Massey, and Mona Freeman...
, with Van Heflin
Van Heflin
Emmett Evan "Van" Heflin, Jr. was an American film and theatre actor. He played mostly character parts over the course of his film career, but during the 1940s had a string of roles as a leading man...
, under his birth name. His character was named L.Q. Jones, and when it was suggested to him by film producers that he change his screen name for future pictures, he decided that the name of his debut character would be a memorable one.
Jones appeared in numerous memorable films in the 1960s and 1970s. He became a member of Sam Peckinpah
Sam Peckinpah
David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was an American filmmaker and screenwriter who achieved prominence following the release of the Western epic The Wild Bunch...
's stock company
Stock company
Stock company can refer to:*Joint stock company *Stock company - referring to a group of actors...
of actors, appearing in his Klondike
Klondike (TV series)
Klondike is a 17-episode half-hour Western television series that aired on NBC. The series premiered on October 10, 1960 and ran until February 13, 1961. It faced stiff competition from The Danny Thomas Show on CBS and the second half of the first-season detective series Surfside 6 starring Troy...
television series (1960–1961), Ride the High Country
Ride the High Country
Ride the High Country is a noted 1962 American Western film. It stars Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, Ron Starr, Edgar Buchanan and Mariette Hartley. It was written by N.B...
(1962), Major Dundee
Major Dundee
Major Dundee is a 1965 Western film written by Harry Julian Fink and directed by Sam Peckinpah. It starred Charlton Heston and Richard Harris as officers from opposing sides in the American Civil War who band together to hunt down a band of Apaches....
(1965), The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch
The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah about an aging outlaw gang on the Texas-Mexico border, trying to exist in the changing "modern" world of 1913...
(1969), The Ballad of Cable Hogue
The Ballad of Cable Hogue
The Ballad of Cable Hogue is a 1970 Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Jason Robards, Stella Stevens and David Warner.Set in the desert of Arizona during the transitional period when the frontier was closing, the movie follows three years in the life of Cable Hogue, a failed...
(1970), and Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a 1973 Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson. Co-star Bob Dylan composed multiple songs for the movie's score and the album Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid was released the same year.The film was noted for...
(1973). He was frequently cast alongside his close friend, Strother Martin
Strother Martin
Strother Martin was an American actor in numerous films and television programs. Martin is perhaps best known as the prison "captain" in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, where he uttered the line, "What we've got here is...failure to communicate."-Early life:Strother Martin Jr. was born in Kokomo,...
, most memorably in The Wild Bunch. Jones also appeared in television, as recurring characters on such western programs as Cheyenne (1955), Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
(1955), Laramie
Laramie (TV series)
Laramie is an American Western television series that aired on NBC from 1959 to 1963. Laramie was a Revue Studios production which originally starred John Smith as Slim Sherman, Robert Fuller as Jess Harper, Hoagy Carmichael as Jonesy and Robert Crawford, Jr...
, Two Faces West
Two Faces West
Two Faces West is a 39-episode half-hour syndicated television western series set in Gunnison in southwestern Colorado, which aired from October 17, 1960, to July 31, 1961. It stars Scottish native Charles Bateman in the dual roles of twin brothers, Rick January, M.D., and Marshal Ben January...
(1960–1961), and 25 times on The Virginian
The Virginian (TV series)
The Virginian is an American Western television series starring James Drury and Doug McClure, which aired on NBC from 1962 to 1971 for a total of 249 episodes. Filmed in color, The Virginian became television's first 90-minute western series...
(1962) as ranch hand Andy Belden. He was cast once in the syndicated
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
military drama Men of Annapolis
Men of Annapolis
Men of Annapolis is a 41-episode half-hour syndicated drama television series in anthology format which aired from 1957–1958 and was hosted by the voice of Art Gilmore. Darryl Hickman appeared four times on the program as Dusty Rhodes, a fictitious midshipman at the United States Naval Academy in...
.
He directed, was the executive producer, and adapted the screenplay for A Boy and His Dog
A Boy and His Dog
A Boy and His Dog is a cycle of narratives and films including or stemming from works of science fiction author Harlan Ellison.Ellison began the cycle with the 1969 short story of the same title, and a revised and expanded novella-length version was published in Ellison's story collection The Beast...
(1975), with Don Johnson
Don Johnson
Donnie Wayne "Don" Johnson is an American actor known for his work in television and film. He played the lead role of James "Sonny" Crockett in the 1980s TV cop series, Miami Vice, which led him to huge success. He also played the lead role in the 1990s cop series, Nash Bridges...
and Jason Robards
Jason Robards
Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
. Other films include Men in War
Men in War
Men in War is a war film about the Korean War directed by Anthony Mann. It stars Robert Ryan and Aldo Ray as the leaders of a small detachment of American soldiers cut off and desperately trying to rejoin their division. The events of the film take place on one day; 6 September 1950...
(1957), The Naked and the Dead
The Naked and the Dead (film)
The Naked and the Dead is a 1958 widescreen film based on Norman Mailer's World War II novel The Naked and the Dead. Directed by Raoul Walsh and filmed in Panama the screenplay attributed to the Sanders Brothers adds a strip tease and larger action scenes to Mailer's original narrative...
(1958), Flaming Star
Flaming Star
Flaming Star is a 1960 western film starring Elvis Presley, based on the book Flaming Lance by Clair Huffaker. Critics agreed that Presley gave one of his best acting performances as the mixed-blood "Pacer Burton", a dramatic role. The film was directed by Don Siegel, and had a working title of...
(1960), Cimarron
Cimarron
Cimarron is the title of a novel published by popular historical fiction author Edna Ferber in 1929. The book was adapted into a critically acclaimed film in 1931 through RKO Pictures. In 1960, the story was again adapted for the screen to meager success by MGM...
(1960), Hell Is for Heroes
Hell Is for Heroes (film)
Hell Is for Heroes is a 1962 war film directed by Don Siegel and starring Steve McQueen. It tells the story of a squad of American soldiers, who in the fall of 1944 must hold off an entire German company for approximately 48 hours along the Siegfried Line until reinforcements reach them.-Plot:Squad...
(1962), Hang 'Em High
Hang 'Em High
Hang 'Em High is a 1968 American Western film directed by Ted Post and produced and co-written by Leonard Freeman. It stars Clint Eastwood as Jed Cooper, an innocent man who survives a lynching, Inger Stevens as a widow who helps him, Ed Begley as the leader of the gang that lynched him, and Pat...
(1968), Stay Away, Joe
Stay Away, Joe
Stay Away, Joe is a 1968 comedy-drama western film with musical interludes set in modern times and starring Elvis Presley, Burgess Meredith and Joan Blondell. The film was based on the 1953 novel by Dan Cushman, a satirical farce...
(1968), The Brotherhood of Satan
The Brotherhood of Satan
The Brotherhood of Satan is a 1971 low-budget horror film written, produced and starring L. Q. Jones It was directed by Bernard McEveety and also stars Strother Martin.-Plot:...
(1971) (which he co-produced and wrote, and cast Strother Martin again in the lead role), Lone Wolf McQuade
Lone Wolf McQuade
Lone Wolf McQuade is a 1983 action film, starring Chuck Norris, David Carradine, Barbara Carrera, and Robert Beltran, and is directed by Steve Carver. The film score was written by Francesco De Masi and borrows heavily from Ennio Morricone's score for Once Upon a Time in the West...
(1983), Casino
Casino (film)
Casino is a 1995 crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Nicholas Pileggi, who also co-wrote the screenplay for the film with Scorsese...
(1995), The Edge (1997), The Mask of Zorro
The Mask of Zorro
The Mask of Zorro is a 1998 American swashbuckler film based on the Zorro character created by Johnston McCulley. It was directed by Martin Campbell and stars Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Stuart Wilson...
(1998), and A Prairie Home Companion
A Prairie Home Companion (film)
A Prairie Home Companion is a 2006 ensemble comedy elegy directed by Robert Altman, and was his final film, released just five months before his death...
(2006).
Jones also appeared in the Season 4 episode of The A-Team
The A-Team
The A-Team is an American action adventure television series about a fictional group of ex-United States Army Special Forces personnel who work as soldiers of fortune, while on the run from the Army after being branded as war criminals for a "crime they didn't commit". The A-Team was created by...
entitled "Cowboy George".
Further reading
- Names You Never Remember, With Faces You Never Forget, by Justin Humphreys. BearManor Media, Albany, 2006. ISBN # 1-59393-041-0.