Any good Little Johnny Jones stories. He was my best friend...

Johnny was a great guy. I used to spend a lot of time with him during the annual Collectors Weekend in Chicago. Always dapper and a wonderful storyteller about his experiences with some of the greats of the past. He's missed!

Johnny would always dress to the nines. I never saw him without a coat and tie. I remember how mad he got when people had said he had passed on. I think he lived another ten years. He always had his camera and wanted his picture taken with some one.

I remember Dorny and him in the Bill Baird room of the old Magic Carpet in Colon telling stories about the old days and the "sawing a woman in half" craze. Mike Cavney was elsewhere in town but hustle over when he got wind of this conversation. Remember Dorny and Johnny both trying to talk at the same time. Finally Dorny said "Johnny, I wish you would stop talking when I am trying to interupt!"

I remember sitting at a banquet with Johnny ( think it was Collector's in Chicago) and he pulled out a flask and offered to "sweeten up my water a bit".

He was one of a kind.

Hi Richard!
I first met Johnny at an Abbott GTG. I think it was the year that he worked one of the night show. He was a gentleman of the old school, and as you noted, he reminded me of the old ads in "Variety" and/or "Billboard", which, in looking for talent for a show, would state: "...dresses well--on and off...". As a teen, I had seen a picture in the old "Conjuror's Magazine" (mid '40s)of Johnny and Will Rogers. I was thrilled to meet him.


We got acquainted, and when we met at the GTG, we would have a drink together. Like Dorny, Johnny would tell me stories of his early years. Delightful.

I stopped at his home in Bsngor, Michigan, when I was touring for Betty Carlson. He and his dear wife made me most welcome. She was a lovely lady. Some years later,in the early '90s, when he had moved to Menomonee Wisconsin, I visited again. We sat down stairs in his den. He poured me a drink that I sipped very slowly (!). It was scotch, with just a splash of water! (I had to drive that night!)

A few years later, touring Wisconsin,again, I stopped to see him in a Nursing home. It was the first time that I had ever seen him without a coat and tie!