This tall, sandy-haired, mustachioed actor from Texas, born Justus McQueen, adopted the name of the character he portrayed in his first film,
Battle Cry (1955). Jones, with his craggy, gaunt looks, first appeared in minor
character roles in plenty of WWII films including The Young Lions (1958), The Naked and the Dead (1958),
Hell Is for Heroes (1962) and Battle of the Coral Sea (1959). However, 1962 saw him team up with maverick
director Sam Peckinpah for the first of Jones' five appearances in his films.
Ride the High Country (1962) saw Jones play one of the lowlife Hammond brothers. Next he
appeared alongside Charlton Heston in Major Dundee (1965), then Peckinpah cast him, along
with his real-life friend Strother Martin, as one of the scummy, murderous
bounty hunters in The Wild Bunch (1969). Such was the chemistry between Jones and
Martin that Peckinpah teamed them again the following year in The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970),
and Jones' final appearance in a Peckinpah film was in another western,
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973). Two years later Jones directed the cult post-apocalyptic film
A Boy and His Dog (1975) starring a young Don Johnson. He has continued to work in
Hollywood, and as the lines on his craggy face have deepened, he turns
up more frequently as crusty old westerners, especially in multiple TV
guest spots. He turned in an interesting performance as a seemingly
good ol' boy Nevada cowboy who was actually a powerful
behind-the-scenes player in state politics who leaned on Robert De Niro's Las
Vegas mob gambler in Martin Scorsese's violent and powerful
Casino (1995).
