T. C. Jones Family, Real Name, Spouse, Profession, Eye Color, body stats, Feet Size, Wiki

T. C. Jones Family, Real Name, Spouse, Profession, Eye Color, body stats, Feet Size, Wiki

Thomas Craig "T. C." Jones (October 26, 1920 â€" September 25, 1971)

was an American female impersonator, actor, and dancer who from the

mid-1940s to the late 1960s performed on stage, in nightclubs, films,

and on television. He was known chiefly in the entertainment industry

for his imitations in full costume of many famous actresses and other

women, including Tallulah Bankhead, Mae West, Judy Garland, Katharine

Hepburn, Bette Davis, Édith Piaf, and Carmen Miranda. In 1959, the

American magazine Time described Jones as "probably the best female

impersonator since vaudeville's late famed Julian Eltinge".T. C. Jones

was born in 1920 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Prior to his entertainment

career, he attended Bethany College in West Virginia to study for the

Campbellite ministry, but midway through his education there he was

"bitten by the acting bug" after spending one summer performing in

plays in a stock company. That stage experience convinced him to leave

Bethany and return to Pennsylvania to enroll in drama school at

Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh. Soon, with the outbreak of World War II,

Jones joined the United States Navy and served as a pharmacist's mate

at naval hospitals in Philadelphia and in Jacksonville, Florida.After

his discharge from naval service, Jones moved to New York City in the

fall of 1943, hoping to resume his plans for a stage career. He

secured a job as a "chorus boy" in Willie Howard's Broadway musical My

Dear Public before obtaining more substantial parts in the productions

Jackpot and Sadie Thompson. During times when he was not being cast in

additional plays, Jones served as an assistant stage manager, a

position that afforded him many opportunities to observe and study

closely the speech patterns, mannerisms, and costume choices of a

variety of actresses. Soon he began imitating those performers and

impressing his theatre colleagues with his talent for mimicry, so much

so that they encouraged him to display those abilities to audiences.

By 1946 Jones began working professionally in New York as a female

impersonator, first with the Provincetown Players in Greenwich

Village. Cast as "Fat Fanny", he performed his first impersonations on

stage in the Players' production of E. E. Cummings' play Him. He later

recalled how simply his performance specialty started at that time:

"One night...another of the players brought me some...material that

was hilarious. The only catch was that it more or less required a

woman to deliver it. He suggested I do an impersonation." Public

reaction to his performance was so positive that it led Jones to

develop a nightclub act featuring his female characters.Jones next

moved to the Jewel Box Revue in Miami, where he presented and refined

his impersonations of stars such as Tallulah Bankhead, Katherine

Hepburn, Édith Piaf, Claudette Colbert, and Bette Davis. Jones's

performances, especially his portrayal of Bankhead, attracted the

attention of theatrical producer Leonard Sillman, who cast him in New

Faces of 1956, a revue directed by Paul Lynde. Although some people

had strongly advised Sillman not to cast Jones, the producer stated,

"I never think of T.C. as a female impersonator, as a man imitating a

woman. T.C. on stage is simply an extraordinarily talented woman."

Jones in the revue entered the stage by descending a staircase to the

tune "Isn't She Lovely" and, as Bankhead, acted as mistress of

ceremonies. The show proved to be a hit, running for 220 performances.

The following year Jones starred in Mask and Gown, another Broadway

revue. Jones toured with Mask and Gown nationally and internationally,

but it was unsuccessful.
T. C. Jones Family, Real Name, Spouse, Profession, Eye Color, body stats, Feet Size, Wiki


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