It's Two-fer Tuesday! Meaning, I have so many actors left that this Tuesday and next, you're getting two!
Today we have a popular pair matched up in
The Ugly Dachsund,
Blackbeard's Ghost, and
The Shaggy D.A. --
Dean Jones and Suzanne Pleshette.
Dean Jones (1931-2015) was in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War. He thought he would act until he got his break singing. His first scene in a credited role was with James Cagney in
These Wilder Years. He recalled Cagney coming in and saying, "Walk to your mark and remember your lines." Jones took the advice to heart, adding, "That’s all I’ve been doing for fifty years."
He was in the TV show
Ensign O'Toole, which brought him to Walt's attention as it aired immediately before
The Wonderful World of Disney. Jones then starred in ten Disney films. In addition to the three listed above, they were
That Darn Cat!,
Monkeys, Go Home!,
The Love Bug,
The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit,
The Million Dollar Duck,
Snowball Express, and
Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo. In the 1990s, he appeared in a film remake of
That Darn Cat and TV remakes of
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and
The Love Bug. He was named a Disney legend in 1995.
Jones became a devout born-again Christian in the mid 1970s. He founded the Christian Rescue Fund to help persecuted Jews and Christians around the world.
He died from Parkinson's disease.
Suzanne Pleshette (1937-2008) is probably best known as Bob Newhart's wife Emily Hartley on
The Bob Newhart Show of the 1970s and for Hitchcock's
The Birds. In addition to the three films with Dean Jones listed above, for Disney Pleshette also appeared in
The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin (1967) and did voice work in
Lion King II: Simba's Pride and Studio Ghibli's
Spirited Away.
Pleshette came to Walt's attention by co-starring with Tony Curtis in
40 Pounds of Trouble, a remake of
Little Miss Marker. That Universal film actually included extended location shooting at
Disneyland. (It was the only non-Disney theatrical film allowed to do location shooting at Disneyland during Walt's life.) Walt was impressed by her work on the film and she gained a Disney contract.
Pleshette quit acting in 2004. A longtime smoker, in the last couple of years of her life she suffered from lung cancer, and she died of respiratory failure.