A great TV series that was shown each week on BBC Television in England – with Jack Mahoney as The Range Rider and Dick Jones as his sidekick

Each episode ran for barely half an hour, in which time we had packed in a story, plenty of action, fights, chases usually on horseback, falls and escapes. The show was produced by Gene Autry’s Flying A Productions

ABOVE – Jack Mahoney and Dick Jones

Jack – or Jock – as he is often billed had been a stuntman of some repute standing in for the likes of Errol Flynn and Dick Jones had been a Rodeo Rider before getting into films. So they could – and did – give us action by the bucket loads.

I hadn’t realised that after ‘The Range Rider’ Dick Jones starred as ‘Buffalo Bill Jr’ which ran for forty or more episodes – another Gene Autry production

After leaving this series Jack Mahoney – quite a few years later – took on the role of ‘Tarzan’ in three big budget productions – one filmed in India – ‘Tarzan Goes to India’ and the last one was ‘Tarzan’s Thre Challenges’ filmed in Thailand during which Jack Mohoney contracted Dystentry and Dengue fever and had a monumental job to actually finish the film – but he did, and it then took him about a year to recover his health and the weight that he had lost.

When looking up Jack Mahoney, he pays tribute to a veteran actor who helped him a lot – Tom London.

I had no knowledge of this actor but was he busy in his career

He says of Tom London that he was ‘ The most underrated actor in town. The most patient, most professional actor I’ve ever known, as well as a kind, giving man. He’s one I feel lucky to be able to call a close friend.‘

Tom was a character actor and veteran of hundreds of Hollywood Westerns, Tom London seemed to be born in the saddle. As a trick rider he performed riding specialties in a number of films. His career started in the teens and through the 1920s he alternated between good guy and bad. 

He is credited with having made more films than any other actor.

Dick Jones retired from TV and Films in 1966 and went into business in propery. He was a family man with four children. He died in 2014

He was the voice of ‘Pinocchio’ for Walt Disney

Dick Jones was 10 years old and already a veteran actor in Hollywood when Walt Disney cast him as the voice of Pinocchio in 1939.

The young actor, whose screen name was “Dickie” Jones, had already appeared in nearly 40 films including Stella Dallas with Barbara Stanwyck, Wonder Bar with Al Jolson and Dick Powell, and Daniel Boone with George O’Brien and John Carradine.

He later recalled,

“At the time, Pinocchio was just a job. Who knew it would turn out to be the classic that it is today? I count my lucky stars that I had a part in it.”

Born February 25, 1927, in McKinney, Texas, Dick had been discovered by western film star Hoot Gibson by age three. Gibson was appearing in a rodeo in the youngster’s hometown. “Hoot told my mother I ought to be in pictures and sponsored our trip to Hollywood,” said Dick, who went on to work with practically every cowboy actor including Buck Jones, Ken Maynard, and Bill Elliott
Among his memories of Pinocchio, Dick recalled donning a puppet costume and acting out scenes for a live-action film study to which animators could refer. And when there was a lull in recording lines, remembered Dick, “Mr. Disney would take an old storyboard drawing, pin it up on a four-by-eight celotex sheet, and start a dart game with me using pushpins. He was good at throwing pushpins, underhand, and making them stick with fantastic accuracy. He always won the game.”

During the 19 months Dick worked on Pinocchio, he also managed to complete roles in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Destry Rides Again, both starring James Stewart, as well as other features

In 1944 he was drafted into World War II. By the time he finished training, the war was over. After his Christmas Day discharge in 1946, Dick appeared in a few more films; his favorite was Rocky Mountain, starring Errol Flynn. As he once pointed out, the film “marks the first time in motion picture history the United States Cavalry arrived too late—we all died.”

In 1949, he debuted in television when Gene Autry hired him as a stuntman for his Flying A Productions. During this time, Dick played Jock Mahoney’s sidekick in The Range Rider, a western series, which led to his own series, Buffalo Bill, Jr. He went on to guest star on other television shows, including Gunsmoke, Annie Oakley, and The Lone Ranger. In all, Dick worked on nearly 100 films and more than 200 television episodes.

By 1959, he retired from show business and began a new career in real estate. In 1992, Dick founded his own agency, White Hat Realty.

He was installed as a Disney Legend