Jack Ging, the well-known actor who returned on series such as Stories of Wells Fargo, Mannix, torrent and The A-Team and appeared in three films opposite Clint Eastwood, is deceased. He was 90.
Ging died of natural causes Friday at his home in La Quinta, California, his wife, Apache Ging, told News Kidda.
In rare protagonists, Ging played the love interest of Diane Baker’s character in a remake of Tess of the stormland (1960), a soldier and reluctant hero in the waning days of the Korean War in the drama Sniper’s Ridge (1961) and a clinical psychiatrist on the 1962-64 NBC . medical series the eleventh hour.
In addition to Eastwood portrayed Went in a Marshal hang them high (1968), a doctor in Play Misty for me (1971) and the doomed outlaw Morgan Allen in High Plains Drifter (1973).
In 1961, Went joined fellow Oklahoman Dale Robertson on NBC’s Stories of Wells Fargo during his sixth and final season as Special Agent Beau McCloud, and he appeared as Lt. Dan Ives, one of Joe Mannix’s (Mike Connors) go-to guys within the LAPD, on CBS’ Mannix from 1968-74.
In the mid-’80s, he played another cop, Ted Quinlan, on the NBC detective series torrent over three seasons and spent a year on NBC’s The A-Team as General Harlan “Bull” Fulbright, an adversary who realizes that the show’s fortunate soldiers were good guys, not bad.
Went continues The A-Team ended when Fulbright was shot in the back while on a rescue mission to save his daughter. “It was a children’s program,” he says. “They shot 10,000 machine guns from every roof and threw bombs and grenades, but no one was ever killed – except me,” he said with a laugh.
Jack Lee Went was born on November 30, 1931 in Alva, Oklahoma. He attended boarding school in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and served with the U.S. Marine Corps for four years, then played halfback at the University of Oklahoma for three seasons — helping the Sooners beat the top-ranked University of Maryland in the Orange Bowl from 1954 — and one for the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League.
Inspired by Tyrone Power, the 5-foot-10 Went decided to become an actor. He studied with Sanford Meisner in New York and appeared in 1958 episodes of Mackenzie’s Raiders and Highway Patrol and in the Leo McCarey directed movie Rally ‘Round the flag, guys!
He was hired for Stories of Wells Fargo when the series expanded to an hour and went from black and white to color, but he said he got very little to do.
“As it ended, I just held Dale Robertson’s horse,” he recalls. “Anyone could have done that, so I left the show and was banned for six months.” [for breaking his contract]. But I was being treated by MCA at the time, so they helped me get out of it.”
Ging did most of his work on television, guest starring on everything from Bat Masterson, The Roaring 20’s, the twilight zone, Perry Mason, gunsmoke, Bonanza and Hawaii Five-O until Fantasy Island, Barnaby Jones, The Greatest American Hero, The Autumn Man, Little house on the Prairie and wings.
His film resume also included Ghost of Drag Strip Hollow (1959), Raymond Burr’s Desire in the dust (1960), Fred Williamson’s that man bout (1973), sssss (1973), Where the red fern grows (1974) and Die sister, die! (1978).
In 1985 the Los Angeles Times noted that Went “routinely competed for sports and money. His opponents were golfers like Dean Martin and James Garner – and others whose bank accounts were much bigger than their names.”
He met Apache, also an Oklahoman, while filming Where the red fern grows in 1973 in the state, and they married in 1978. Survivors also include his children, Adam, Casey, Erin, Charlie, and Anna, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.