Jock Mahoney

Biography

Jacques Joseph O'Mahoney, 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 O'Mahoney or Jock O'Mahoney. 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 Mahoney's films of the late 1940s and early 1950s were produced by Columbia Pictures. Like many Columbia contract players, Mahoney worked in the studio's two-reel 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. Autry's Flying A Productions filmed 79 half-hour 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 Derringer's 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 Tarzan's 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.

Known For

Commander Harold 'Alan' Roberts

The Land Unknown

Away All Boats

Alvick

Away All Boats

Coy Banton

Tarzan the Magnificent

Self

When the West Was Fun: A Western Reunion

Maj. Frank Moore

Battle Hymn

Immerman

A Time to Love and a Time to Die

Tarzan

Tarzan's Three Challenges

Tarzan

Tarzan Goes to India

Sgt. Berry

Tom

Smiley

The Glory Stompers

'Silver' Ward Hogan

Money, Women and Guns

Jim Trask

Showdown at Abilene

Tulsa Jack Blake

The Doolins of Oklahoma

Tex Kinnane

The Kangaroo Kid

Cedric the Blacksmith

Squareheads of the Round Table

Guard

Fuelin' Around

Elmer

Punchy Cowpunchers

John Bolan / Lt. Peter Stevens

I've Lived Before

Cedric the Blacksmith

Knutzy Knights

Marshal Allan Burnett

A Day of Fury

Brad Ellison

The Last of the Fast Guns

Duke Wallace

Three Blondes In His Life

The Stranger

Joe Dakota

Ross Granger

Overland Pacific

Jefferson Stark

Moro Witch Doctor

Self

The Making of the Stooges

Duke Fisher

The Texas Rangers

Arizona Kid

Out West

Slim Carter (Hugh Mack)

Slim Carter

Big Jack Mahoney

The Rough, Tough West

Jack Mahoney

Pecos River

Stoney Rhodes

Hoedown

Self (archive footage)

Salamat sa Alaala

Stoner

Bandolero!

Jack Mahoney

Smoky Canyon

Lieutenant Peck (uncredited)

Frontier Outpost

Lt. Jim Sorenson

Intramuros

The Colonel

Tarzan's Deadly Silence

Sandy

The Nevadan

Waco (uncredited)

The Fighting Frontiersman

Henchman Tensleep (uncredited)

The Stranger From Ponca City

Full-House Patterson

The Blazing Trail

Jack Mahoney

The Hawk of Wild River

Tim Starling (uncredited)

Bandits of El Dorado

Jack Mahoney

The Kid from Broken Gun

Swift Eagle

Laramie Mountains

Don Michael O'Casey

California

Tod Jeffreys

Cow Town

Jim Archer

Cody of the Pony Express

Jim Grant

Roar of the Iron Horse

Randy Minola

Runaway Girl

Jack Mahoney

Junction City

Bill Beck

Texas Dynamo

Bill Grant

Horsemen of the Sierras

Lieutenant Hunter

Renegades of the Sage

Rob Saunders

Lightning Guns

Crake

Santa Fe

Pete Reagan

Rim of the Canyon

Joe Ward

Gunfighters of the Northwest

Tavern Troublemaker

The Lady and the Bandit

Captain Kenley (uncredited)

Son of the Guardsman

Tarzan (Archive Footage)

Tarzan: Lord of the Movies

Tarzan (archive footage)

Tarzan at the Movies, Part 2: The Many Faces of Tarzan

Driver

The Love Bug