Former Santa Monica journalist dies
By Daily Press staff
Bill Jones, a former Santa Monica newspaper reporter who cut his teeth here covering the entertainment industry has died. He was 63.
When Jones was a cub reporter in Santa Monica, urban sprawl and road rage were unknown. But Hollywood was burgeoning with talented young actors, writers and directors.
Jones would eventually interview them all. He also painted watercolors of many movie stars, and had several one-man shows combining his interviews with his portraits.
In his career’s beginning during the late 1960s and early ’70s, Jones walked the beat as police reporter and entertainment writer for the now defunct Santa Monica Evening News. He cut his reviewer’s teeth at studio screenings, crafting lively articles about the actors, directors and screenwriters of the last half of the 20th Century. Subjects ranged from Jimmy Stewart and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., to Fred Astaire and Lillian Gish. Later interviews featured Dustin Hoffman, Shirley MacLaine, Warren Beatty, Robert DeNiro, Barbra Streisand, Meryl Streep and all the up-and-coming “young turks.” He particularly enjoyed his interviews with directors, including Robert Altman, Sam Peckinpah and Martin Scorsese. And he interviewed major entertainment figures, including Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Sammy Davis Jr. and Cher.
After a two-year battle with esophageal cancer, William Dennis “Bill” Jones died Nov. 12 at his home on the desert in Phoenix.
Born June 11, 1942, Jones called California his adopted home for seven-plus years. His oldest son, Christopher, was born in Santa Monica, and Jones fondly recalled the charms and excitement of Hollywood and Santa Monica of nearly 40 years ago. He was raised in Phoenix, the only son of Marshall Woodrow Jones and Katie Price Jones, and middle child between sisters Marcia and Karen.
As Jones and his writing matured, he began making regular trips to the Los Angeles area. He penned his first novel there. During his long tenure as chief film critic of the southwest’s largest newspaper, he made weekly jaunts to California and New York, filing 200 movie reviews per year for the Phoenix Gazette and Arizona Republic, and becoming an adept watercolor and oil painter.
After high school in Phoenix, he joined the U.S. Army Airborne and served two and a half years mostly in Korea, where his good looks and height garnered him honor guard status and an appointment as driver for the general’s wife.
After leaving the LA area, Jones completed college at Clarion State University in Pennsylvania. He and wife Donna Walter returned to Phoenix where a second son, Jason, was born.
Besides his stint at the Santa Monica paper, Jones’ prolific career included arts reporting at the Mesa Tribune and many years at both the Phoenix Gazette and Arizona Republic, from which he retired in 1997. Jones traveled the world with his final wife, Christene Cosgriffe Meyers, and the two wrote many articles for national magazines and newspapers. He had a string of one-man painting shows in Arizona and Montana, his second home. His art hangs in private and public collections, and his sports portraits are owned by both the Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks.
He is survived by his musician and writer wife, Christene, “Cookie” Meyers; his two sons and their wives, Jason and Katie Jones and Christopher and Carole Jones; and two grandchildren, Rowan Christopher Jones and Haley Elizabeth Jones; sisters-and brothers-in-law Marcia and Victor Burnett and Karen and Bob Link; nephews, and mother-in-law Ellen Cosgriffe of Montana.
Two memorial celebrations are planned for family, friends and colleagues on Saturday, Dec. 3, at the couple’s home in Ahwatukee on the desert preserve, and June 11, his birthday, at High Chaparral, in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana.
Several Hollywood writers and directors including filmmaker Joe Rassulo will be at the services.
Memorials may be made in Jones’ name to Actors Theater, P.O. Box 1924, Phoenix, Ariz., 85001.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 22, 2005. Read the original PDF.