Buck Jones Biography

Fast Facts

• A Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, Calif․, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him in 1997
• The infamous Cocoanut Grove fire of 1942 claimed his life, along with 491 others
• Started his film career making $5 a day as an extra in westerns
• Before acting, his jobs included working as a real-life cowboy and serving as a test driver for race cars
• In his youth, he was a soldier and an aviator for the U․S․ government
• Appeared in an average of eight pictures a year for 20 years, often atop his white horse Silver
• Starred in many B-western motion pictures in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s
• Endorsed such products as Post Grape-Nuts Flakes cereal
• Daisy released a Buck Jones model pump action air rifle which had a compass and a sundial in the stock, features which author Jean Shepherd later incorrectly attributed to the Daisy Red Ryder BB Gun in his film "A Christmas Story․"
• There were an estimated 5,000,000 young members of the Buck Jones Rangers Club