list_text=          When Dean Jones began his motion picture career in 1956, he was just biding his time until he got his real break. The former crooner-turned-actor once recalled, "I wish I could say I had this master plan for a career, but I always thought acting was something I'd just do until I had a hit record."
          While Dean's hit record proved elusive, he scored a number of hit movies while under contract with The Walt Disney Studios. By 1975, Variety named six of his Disney features all-time box-office champions, including "The Love Bug," "That Darn Cat," "Snowball Express," "The Ugly Dachshund," "The $1,000,000 Duck" and "Blackbeard's Ghost."
          Dean's clean-cut appeal and good-natured hi-jinks made his name synonymous with Disney motion pictures. As former president of Walt Disney Pictures David Vogel once said, "When you think of Disney, you think of Dean Jones."
          Born in Decatur, Alabama, Dean liked to fish in the nearby Tennessee River and sing, accompanied on the guitar by his father, a railroad worker. At 15, he left home to pursue a singing career, picking up odd jobs as a coal loader, cotton picker and dishwasher. He began singing in a New Orleans club that paid three dollars a night, plus dinner. After four months, however, the club folded and Dean beat a path back to Decatur to complete his high school education.
          A year of voice study at Kentucky's Asbury College was followed by a four-year hitch with the Navy, which took Dean to San Diego, California. Whenever he had a day off, Dean headed to Hollywood to audition for orchestras, eventually winning a screen test and contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Instead of singing for the cameras, however, he starred in mostly straight, dramatic roles.  Among his early films were Vincent Minnelli's "Tea and Sympathy," "Torpedo Run," with Glenn Ford and "Jailhouse Rock," with Elvis Presley.
          In 1960, Dean found fame in Broadway's "Under the Yum Yum Tree," followed by Steven Sondheim's "Company" in 1970. While starring in television's "Ensign O'Toole," he was tapped by Walt Disney to become the Studio's leading man, appearing in such films as "Monkeys, Go Home!" "The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit," "The Shaggy D.A." and "Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo."
          Over the years, Dean has appeared in a number of Disney television specials including "Disney's Greatest Dog Stars”" in 1976. He starred in the first of a number of Disney remakes - "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" - in 1995, followed by "That Darn Cat" and the ABC television movie "The Love Bug."&