Jock Mahoney

Jacques Joseph OMahoney known professionally as Jock Mahoney was an American actor and stuntman He starred in two Western television series The Range Rider and Yancy Derringer He played Tarzan in two feature films and was associated in various capacities with several other Tarzan productions He was sometimes credited as Jack OMahoney or Jock OMahoney Jock entered the University of Iowa in Iowa City and excelled at swimming and diving but dropped out to enlist in the United States Marine Corps when World War II began He served as a pilot flight instructor and war correspondent After his discharge from the Marine Corps Mahoney moved to Los Angeles and for a time was a horse breeder However he soon became a movie stuntman doubling for Gregory Peck Errol Flynn and John Wayne Most of Mahoneys films of the late 1940s and early 1950s were produced by Columbia Pictures Like many Columbia contract players Mahoney worked in the studios tworeel comedies Beginning in 1947 he starred with the Three Stooges in their films Out West Squareheads of the Round Table and its remake Knutzy Knights Fuelin Around and Punchy Cowpunchers Beginning in 1950 Columbia management gave him starring roles in adventure serials Mahoney contributed so much to this series that he was awarded featured billing and major supporting roles as well first as villains and then as sympathetic characters By 1952 Columbia was billing him as Jack Mahoney Cowboy star Gene Autry then working at Columbia hired Mahoney to star in a television series Autrys Flying A Productions filmed 79 halfhour episodes of the syndicated The Range Rider from 1951 to 1953 For the 1958 television season he starred in the somewhat Western Yancy Derringer series for 34 episodes which aired on CBS Yancy Derringer was a gentleman adventurer living in New Orleans Louisiana after the American Civil War He had a Pawnee Indian companion named Pahoo Katchewa Wolf Who Stands in Water who did not speak played by X Brands Pahoo had saved the life of Derringer and thereafter was responsible for Derringers life In 1962 Mahoney became the 13th actor to portray Tarzan when he appeared in Tarzan Goes to India shot on location in India A year later he again played the role in Tarzans Three Challenges shot in Thailand Dysentery and dengue fever plagued Mahoney during the shoot in the Thai jungles and he plummeted to 175 pounds He needed a year and a half to regain his health Owing to his health problems and the fact that producer Weintraub had decided to go for a younger look for the apeman his contract was mutually dissolved In the 1980s Mahoney made guest appearances on the television series B J and the Bear and The Fall Guy During the final years of his life he was a popular guest at film conventions and autograph shows Mahoney died of a second stroke at age 70 two days after being involved in an automobile accident in Bremerton Washington His ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean