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Pardner Jones
by Mike
Cox
"Jones was the go-to guy for shooting hats off actor’s heads
or cigars out of their mouths. A la William Tell, he also could make
instant apple sauce, albeit with a bullet instead of an arrow."
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“He
is seldom heard of himself,” the Associated Press reported in 1927,
“but twelve hundred times he has held the life of some screen star
or featured player within the crook of his trigger finger.”
One reason that this interesting but virtually forgotten Texan could
be labeled as “seldom heard of” even at the height of his Hollywood
career lay in the fact that at birth he had been saddled with the
most common of surnames – Jones.
Hundreds of thousands if not millions of fine people have the last
names of Jones, but from the standpoint of a self-promoter or researcher,
a person could hardly have a worse surname. Keeping up with the Joneses
is tough.
If Edward Jones had been branded with a more distinctive handle,
it would be a lot easier to learn about him today. As it is, of all
the billions of web pages out there in Cyber Space, only one semi-substantial
reference to Jones surfaces in an Internet search. Back when the information
highway was just a dirt road, the showman in Jones must have realized
he needed to enhance his name a bit for better recognition. What he—or
someone—came up with was “King Fisher” or “Pardner”
Jones.
Jones’ use of “King Fisher” is not too surprising. Jones was born
in Del Rio, not
far from the South Texas range of outlaw-lawman John “King” Fisher.
Fisher and former Austin city marshal Ben Thomas were gunned down
in San Antonio in 1884,
probably about the year of Jones’ birth. King Fisher, unlike most
Texans named Jones, had strong name recognition in late 19th century
and early 20th century Texas.
How long Jones stayed in Texas before he headed west is one of many
unknowns connected to his life, but he claimed that he grew up in
New Mexico and Arizona. That’s where he learned to shoot, which led
to his unusual way of making a living. Known as the “gunman of Hollywood,”
Jones did stunt shooting for Western filmmakers, often using real
bullets.
In 1923, Jones worked as technical advisor during the filming of a
screenplay based on Emerson Hough’s “The Covered Wagon,” the first
Western epic. Produced by James Cruze and shot in Utah, the film rejuvenated
the Western, restoring the genre to life from one of its many near-death
experiences over the years.
Cruze sought and achieved realism in his movie, and Jones helped make
that happen. The Texan also provided a little Old West reality off
screen.
During the filming of a buffalo hunt, a cantankerous bison charged
the horses pulling a wagon containing chief cameraman Karl Brown and
his camera. The wagon overturned, dumping Brown in the path of an
infuriated buffalo.
As Photoplay Magazine later reported: “Old Ed Jones, a movie actor,
a puncher and a dead shot, calmly…shot between horses, men, cameras
and wagon—a space about a foot in diameter—and brought down
the buffalo. It saved Brown’s life probably and that’s how they had
buffalo meat the first day in camp.”
When “talkies” put the writers of subtitles out of business in 1927,
the principal sound associated with an appearance by Jones was the
crack of gunfire.
“When a director wants realism in a sequence where bullets are supposed
to be flying perilously close to the principal characters he calls
on Pardner Jones,” the Associated Press said.
Indeed, Jones was the go-to guy for shooting hats off actor’s heads
or cigars out of their mouths. A la William Tell, he also could make
instant apple sauce, albeit with a bullet instead of an arrow. His
crowning achievement came when actor Tom Mix let Jones “smash with
a bullet the works of a watch he carried over his heart.”
In addition to shooting, Jones also handled bit parts, his filmography
listing 37 movies, from “The Man from the East” in 1914 to “The Arizona
Wildcat” in 1939. Jones also facilitated horseback scenes and wrangled
horses and cattle on location. During that 25-year career, movies
went from silent black-and-white one-reelers to sophisticated color
films with sound.
No matter his common name and lack of star status, Jones must have
made good copy for Hollywood press agents, the screen magazines and
the tabloids. Unfortunately, whatever else was written about him contemporarily
remains to be rediscovered.
One thing is for sure about Ed “King Fisher” or “Pardner” Jones –
he was a Texan who could shoot.
© Mike Cox
"Texas Tales"
- December
12, 2004 Column
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