Classic Films

Yet he did so much more, appearing in everything from rodeos to radio to films such as Stella Dallas and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/dickie-jones-child-cowboy-who-became-the-voice-pinocchio-in-disney-film-dies-at-87/2014/07/08/a22918f4-06cc-11e4-a0dd-f2b22a257353_story.html[/url]

Despite more than 100 film and television credits, Dickie Jones was best known for a movie in which his face was never seen. As a child actor, he voiced the role of Pinocchio in the enduring 1940 animated film by Walt Disney.

Mr. Jones, who died July 7 at age 87, began performing when he was 4 and was billed as “the world’s youngest trick rider and trick roper” in his native Texas. He became a protege of the cowboy actor Hoot Gibson and had begun appearing in a series of low-budget westerns by the time he was 7.

After roles in the “Our Gang” serial and in the 1937 melodrama “Stella Dallas,” starring Barbara Stanwyck, Mr. Jones won an audition to become the voice of Pinocchio. He beat out 200 other child actors for the part.

“Pinocchio” was Disney’s second full-length animated feature, following “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937).

It seems that as a young boy he had a number of small, at times uncredited roles in classic movies -- Young Mr. Lincoln, Destry Rides Again, etc.

[url]http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0427934/[/url]



With Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington