By Robert D. McFadden
Jack Jones, a captivating crooner known for enchanting concert audiences and viewers across stage, screen, and television over many decades with his romantic melodies and soft jazz performances, which even in grand venues conveyed the closeness of his esteemed nightclub shows, departed this life on Wednesday in Rancho Mirage, California. He was 86.
His spouse, Eleonora Jones, disclosed that the reason for his passing, occurring in a hospital, was leukemia.
Though his fame soared in the 1960s, Jones discovered a renewed following in later years when he performed the theme song for the successful television series “The Love Boat.” Yet, he consistently projected the essence of an earlier era, where tuxedos adorned those performing the beloved songs from Tin Pan Alley, reminding the nation of its romantic connections with the works of the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Sammy Cahn, and Jimmy Van Heusen.
He achieved two Grammy Awards and released numerous albums featuring favorites from the American Songbook that soared on Billboard’s charts due to his smooth vocal renditions. His performances graced distinguished venues including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the White House, and the London Palladium, and for over 60 years, he attracted audiences to cabarets and nightclubs worldwide.
At the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan in 2010, commemorating his 52 years in entertainment, Jones began and concluded a two-hour retrospective with Paul Williams’ “That’s What Friends Are For.” He serenaded a theater full of devoted fans:
Friends are like warm clothesIn the night air.Best when they’re oldAnd we miss them the most when they’re gone.
“Those lyrics summoned the fading breed of pop-jazz crooners, with Mr. Jones and Tony Bennett standing as the notable survivors,” Stephen Holden articulated in The New York Times. “Mr. Jones, then 72, attracted a similar well-dressed, sophisticated crowd that once frequented the annual performances at the now-defunct Michael’s Pub of his friend Mel Tormé, who passed away 11 years ago at 73.”
Holden characterized the performance as “a sort of master class in the art of traditional nightclub artistry: sophisticated yet intimate, alternating between self-assured and modest, appearing relaxed yet flawlessly professional,” further stating, “most of the classic songs resonated with Mr. Jones’ reflective perspective, which imbued everything with the essence of a man undergoing a moral examination of his life.”
Jones, the offspring of Hollywood actress Irene Hervey and Allan Jones, a tenor famed in the 1930s and ’40s who enjoyed playful moments with the Marx Brothers in “A Night at the Opera” and “A Day at the Races,” embarked on a father-and-son act in Las Vegas at 19, attempting to emulate his father’s robust style. This proved a misstep.
“My voice was not as developed as his,” Jones expressed to the Times in 1964. “We had a well-received act filled with references to home and mother. But after my parents’ divorce, it deflated the entire act. I ventured out independently, and while my earnings decreased, I felt more liberated.”
He transitioned to recording and performing in clubs, but with a novel approach: softly crooning the lyrics. This was a transformative evolution in his singing style and stage presence, resulting in a more laid-back demeanor that forged an emotional connection with audiences. It became his hallmark.
In the pop scene of the 1960s, Jones was somewhat of an outlier, eschewing rock ’n’ roll in favor of big-band orchestrations, romantic ballads, and the American Songbook.
He cut dozens of records on the Kapp label, such as “Dear Heart,” “Shall We Dance,” “She Loves Me,” “Call Me Irresponsible,” “I’ve Got a Lot of Livin’ to Do,” and “The Jack Jones Christmas Album.” He received Grammy Awards for best solo male vocal performance for “Lollipops and Roses” in 1962 and “Wives and Lovers” in 1964.
He sang title tracks for several films, including “Love With the Proper Stranger” (1963), “Where Love Has Gone” (1964), and “A Ticklish Affair” (1963). He performed at White House festivities during the tenures of Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald Reagan and entertained Queen Elizabeth II and her royal family on two occasions.
Jones ascended to the No. 1 position on the Billboard easy listening chart with “The Impossible Dream” (1966) and “Lady” (1967). He was a fixture on numerous television variety shows hosted by Dinah Shore, Ed Sullivan, Andy Williams, Carol Burnett, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Judy Garland, and Steve Allen. Additionally, millions heard him when tuning into “The Love Boat” on ABC from 1977 through 1985. (He was succeeded by Dionne Warwick in the final season of the show.)
John Allan Jones was born in Los Angeles on Jan. 14, 1938, and spent his early years residing in a movie colony bungalow in Palm Springs, California, where he was attended by hired help while his well-known parents traveled to Hollywood for film commitments. He had a half-brother, Ted Jones, and an adopted half-sister, Gail Jones, from a prior marriage of his father’s.
Known simply as Jack, he attended the Nellie Coffman School in Palm Springs and spent two years at the Principia School, a Christian Science boarding school in St. Louis. His father also arranged for private drama and singing tutors at home. Feeling self-conscious about his affluent upbringing, he enrolled at University High School in Los Angeles, graduating in 1956. Occasionally, his father would drop him off at school, but typically one or two blocks away.
Jack Jones, a resident of Indian Wells, California, was married six times, with all except his last marriage resulting in divorce.
His marriages included Katie Lee Nuckols (a model known as Lee Larance) from 1960 to 1966; actress Jill St. John from 1967 to 1969; Gretchen Roberts from 1970 to 1971; Kathryn Simmons from 1977 to 1982; and Kim Ely from 1982 to 2005. He wed Eleonora Donata Peters in 2009.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Crystal Thomas, from his marriage to Nuckols; another daughter, Nicole Ramasco, from his marriage to Ely; two stepdaughters, Nicole Whitty and Colette Peters, from his union with Peters; and three grandchildren.
