LQ Jones, the “Wild Bunch” actor and member of Peckinpah’s Posse, has died at age 94.

LQ Jones, the “Wild Bunch” actor and member of Peckinpah’s Posse, has died at age 94.

LQ Jones, a colorful actor who has worked on dozens of westerns, including the Sam Peckinpai classic. wild bunch s Walk in the high country As a member of the famous film director’s permanent gang, he died. He was 94 years old.

Jones died Saturday of natural causes at his home in the Hollywood Hills, said his granddaughter Erte de Garces. the hollywood reporter.

Jones played rancher Andy Belden for 25 episodes on NBC virgo For eight years, he was one of the thugs who put a ring around Clint Eastwood’s neck. Hang it up (1968) and played the sheriff on NBC’s primetime soap opera from 1983-84. yellow RoseWith Sam Elliott, Sybil Shepherd and Chuck Connors.

The Texan also played Clark County Commissioner Pat Webb, Robert De Niro’s nemesis, in the Martin Scorsese film. casino (1995) and country singer Chuck Akers in Robert Altman Prairie House Companion (2006), his last credit.

In a career that has spanned more than five decades, Jones is perhaps best known for his role as a bounty hunter in TC. wild bunch (1969). He and Strother Martin, like Coffer, “bring their depraved characters to life with childlike energy; they really enjoy turning it into a killing competition, vying for who has the most kills after each bloody encounter.” This is how the Warner Bros. website, which promotes the film, describes it.

Jones first worked with Peckinpah in 1960 on the short-lived NBC Western. Klondike. He played one of four ruthless brothers fighting alongside Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott. Walk in the high country (1962) and was a Confederate soldier (and brother of Warren Oates) in St. Great Dundee (1965).

He also played villainous characters who meet their untimely end in Peckinpah. Cable Hogg’s Ballad (1970) and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973).

“Sam was a genius and I loved him, but he was in a basket. It drove everyone crazy,” Jones said in a 2017 interview with Nick Thomas.

On the other side of the camera, Jones directed, co-wrote and produced A boy and his dog. (1975), an iconic black comedy set in the post-apocalyptic year 2024 starring Don Johnson and Jason Robards and based on a novel by science fiction legend Harlan Ellison.

Judge Ellis McQueen Jr. was born on August 19, 1927, in Beaumont, Texas, the son of a railroad worker. When he was young, his mother Jessie died in a car accident and he was raised by his relatives.

“I had a horse when I was 8 or 9 and I grew up surrounded by rough rodeo people – my uncle did it with ropes – so Western was easy and fun,” he said.

He served in the United States Navy and studied law at the University of Texas, where his future partner Daniel Boon Star Fess Parker. After college, he bought a farm in Nicaragua to earn money growing beans, corn, and dairy, but it didn’t turn out as he had hoped.

Parker moved to Hollywood and appeared in several films when he sent the college a copy of Leon Uris’ novel. battle cry, which would become a big-budget war film for Warner Bros., directed by Raoul Walsh. Parker played a soldier in the adaptation.

“Fess encouraged me to go out and drew a map on the back of my laundry shirt showing how to get to the studio,” he recalls. “Two days after my arrival, I got the role [Pvt.] joined LQ Jones battle cry And I would probably never be in this business if it weren’t for Fez.

McQueen liked the character’s name so much that he decided to adopt his stage name.

The newly formed LQ Jones has been very busy ever since, performing at shows like Cheyenne, gun smoke, Laramie, train wagon, Girl, raw skin, Johnny Ringo, big field s perry mason – Sometimes he does two or three series a week – and between them in movies zero target (1955) – his first of many pairings with Martin, another Peckinpa regular – Elvis Presley love me strong (1956) and Fire star (1960), by Don Sigel Hell is for heroes. (1962) and Walsh naked and dead (1958).

He said Stanley Kubrick offered him the role of Major TJ “King Kong”, which went to Slim Pickens. Dr. Strangelove o: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb (1964), but he was “tied to another image” and had to pass.

Working on a Peckinpah film can be a challenge, he noted in an extensive Camera in the Sun interview.

“If you’re not in the same place Sam has imagined a thousand times a year, and he hasn’t told anyone what it’s about, but if you’re not in that particular place, he’s mad you didn’t. this.” don’t do your job in your opinion. “The fact that he didn’t say anything doesn’t matter,” he said. “And it doesn’t matter if you’re Bill Holden or an extra. Those of us who worked with him will realize he he had a group that worked with him throughout his career, we just learned where to be, thinking the way Sam would think.

In the mid-1960s, he and actor Alvie Moore formed the production company LQ/JAF and made four films: devil’s room (1964), directed by Jones; Mage (1969); brotherhood of satan (1971), of which he co-authored; s A boy and his dog.who according to him was the inspiration of George Miller road warrior.

“After doing A boy and his dog.He had a lot of directing offers and more money than he was worth to make the movie, for God’s sake,” he said. “But I couldn’t see the time and all the effort to make it. So I kept saying, “No,” and finally I was like, “Damn,” and I stopped and kept acting, because up until then I could really choose what I wanted to do.

Also surviving are their children, Randy, Steve and Mindy.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

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