The Love Bug star Dean Jones dead at 84

JAILHOUSE ROCK and THE LOVE BUG star DEAN JONES has lost his battle with Parkinson’s disease, aged 84.
The beloved actor, who featured in a string of popular Disney films, passed away on Tuesday (01Sep15).
Jones made his film debut alongside Paul Newman in 1956’s Somebody Up There Likes Me and followed that with a role in Elvis Presley’s Jailhouse Rock, but he’ll best be remembered for his run of Disney films, starring in family movies like That Darn Cat!, The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit, The Ugly Dachsund, Beethoven and 1969’s The Love Bug, which spawned a string of sequels and TV series Herbie: The Love Bug.
Jones also had success on Broadway in plays like There Was a Little Girl with Jane Fonda, Under the Yum-Yum Tree, and St. John in Exile. He starred in the latter two productions when they were adapted for the big screen and originated the role of Bobby in the 1970 production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company.
He reprised his role as Jim Douglas in The Love Bug when the film was revamped as a TV Movie in 1997. His final credits, both in 2009, were God Provides and Mandie and the Secret Tunnel.
A devout Christian, Jones founded the Christian Rescue Committee, an organisation committed to the rescue of “persecuted Christians and Jews”.