Richard Percy "Dickie" Jones was born on February 25, 1927, in Snyder, some ninety miles south of Lubbock, Texas. The son of a newspaper Editor, Jones was a prodigious horseman from infancy, having been billed at the age of four as the "World's Youngest Trick Rider and Trick Roper". At the age of six, he was hired to perform riding and lariat tricks in the rodeo owned by western star Hoot Gibson, who convinced young Jones and his parents that he should come to Hollywood. Jones and his mother moved there, and Gibson arranged for some small parts for the boy, whose good looks, Energy, and pleasant voice quickly landed him more and bigger parts, both in low-budget westerns as well as in more substantial productions.