Dean Jones(1931-2015)

He was introduced into the Disney Legends Hall of Fame in 1995. Dean was one of Disney's biggest stars in the 1960s and 70s. He appeared in 10 films for the company, including That Darn Cat! (1965), Blackbeard's Ghost (1968) and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977).

[after being asked on he became involved with Disney Pictures] I made a picture for Columbia called Under the Yum-Yum Tree, and I was told that Walt Disney had ordered a print of that to run in his projection room. I think maybe that was it, or, one day at lunch Walt told me that Ensign O'Toole on NBC, that I had some great endings on that show. I thought to myself, What a funny thing...to say it had great endings, but his show, The Wonderful World of Disney, followed Ensign O'Toole on Sunday nights on NBC. So, I thought maybe he was warming up his television set and watching the end of my show before his show, The Wonderful World of Disney, so that might have been another way I got involved. At any rate, he called one day and said he had a script called That Darn Cat, and would I be interested in reading it. I told him I was, and I subsequently did the picture, and that started off a string of films, including The Love Bug. This answers another one of your questions. I think it was because of the success of the films I was doing there that they had me do more and more. I think if I had a big flop, that probably it would have ended the string at Disney, but it didn't (laughs). Every film was a success. So that's why I think they thought of me when The Love Bug came along. They didn't write Jim Douglas for me. They may have, because I had done two or three pictures at the time, we did The Love Bug.