[3] He served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War, and after his discharge worked at the Bird Cage Theater at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California.

[5] In 1960, he also played Dave Manning in the Broadway comedy Under the Yum-Yum Tree, a role he repeated in the 1963 film version starring Jack Lemmon and Carol Lynley.

After working in film and television, Jones was set to return to Broadway as the star of Stephen Sondheim's musical Company in 1970.

Director Harold Prince agreed to replace him with Larry Kert if Jones would open the show and record the cast album.

He agreed, and his performance is preserved on the original cast album, although it was Kert who received the Tony nomination for Best Actor in a Musical.

[7] He had far more success touring in the one-man show St. John in Exile as the last surviving Apostle of Jesus Christ, reminiscing about his life while imprisoned on the Greek island of Patmos.

Jones began as a contract performer for MGM, beginning with a small role as a soldier in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) and he later played disc jockey Teddy Talbot in the Elvis Presley film Jailhouse Rock (1957).

He gave a powerful performance as an ex-con trying to reform (with Joe's help) on Bonanza Season 3 Episode 8 "The Friendship" which aired 11/11/1961.

Jones' signature Disney role would be as race car driver Jim Douglas in the successful Herbie series.

In a dramatic turn, in the NBC television film When Every Day Was the Fourth of July (1978) he portrayed Ed Cooper, an attorney in the 1930s who agrees to defend a man who has been accused of murder, accepting the case only after urging from his daughter.

He employed method acting for the first time in his career and did not break character off-set throughout the film's shooting period much to the surprise of cast members as well as family and friends who had never seen him so immersed in a role.

He also appeared in a small role as Director of Central Intelligence Judge Arthur Moore in the film adaptation of Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger (1994), which starred Harrison Ford.