Ike Jones was a producer, actor, screenwriter and second-unit director best known as being the "secret" husband of movie star Inger Stevens, whom he claimed he had married in Mexico in 1961 after Stevens' apparent suicide in 1970. The marriage supposedly was kept secret in order not to damage Stevens career, as she was white and he was black. Sammy Davis Jr.'s romance with Kim Novak in the late 1950s had been terminated by the intervention of Columbia Pictures production chief Harry Cohn (Novak's boss), who used his mob connections to threaten Davis. When Davis married May Britt in 1960, her once promising career stalled, so such concerns were legitimate. Since the marriage had been secret, Jones had to battle in court for his rights to Stevens' estate (worth an estimated $110,000 (approximately $800,000 in 2022 dollars). His claim was supported by Stevens' brother. Born Isaac Lolette Jones in Santa Monica, California, on December 23, 1929 he was the first African American graduate from the UCLA film school when he took his diploma in 1952. He also became the first African American to produce an A-List Hollywood movie when he produced A Man Called Adam (1966) in 1966. He would also be the first person to receive the Oscar Micheaux Award, named after the trail-blazing African American producer, director and writer, by the Producers Guild of America in 1995. Ike had played college football at UCLA and was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in 1953, but he was set on making a career in the movies. He made his debut as an actor in '53 in The Kid from Left Field (1953) and also appeared in The Joe Louis Story (1953), on which he also toiled as an assistant director. His acting career was over by 1960 (though it revived briefly in the period 1973-75), as he became the head of Nat 'King' Cole's Kell-Cole Productions. He has made his bones as an executive working at the Hill-Hecht-Lancaster production company in the 1950s and then as vice president of Harry Belafonte's Harbel Productions.[5] He made cinema history when Sammy Davis, Jr. hired him to produce A Man Called Adam (1966). He only produced one more production, the 1978 TV movie A Woman Called Moses (1978) starring Cicely Tyson as Harriet Tubman, and served as an executive producer on the 1981 TV movie The Oklahoma City Dolls (1981).
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Biography from IMDb.
- December 23, 1929 (96)
- Santa Monica, California, USA
- Producer and actor
- 4 on MovieCove
What are Ike Jones' films like?
Across a limited sample of 4 MovieCove titles with a thematic analysis, their films lean Survival and Bonds.
Themes
What they feel like to watch
Ironic 0 · Wry 0 · Earnest 3
Light 0 · Serious 1 · Dark 2
Grounded 3 · Stylized 0 · Heightened 0
Gentle 0 · Charged 2 · Intense 1
Steady 0 · Shifting 3 · Whiplash 0
Straight-faced 3 · Some laughs 0 · Funny 0
Slow burn 2 · Even-paced 1 · Relentless 0
A split, not a type: Casual 1 · Engaged 2 · Full focus 0
Easy watch 0 · Affecting 1 · Heavy 2
Resolved 2 · Open-ended 1 · Ambiguous 0
Moods and endings
AI-generated from each title's plot synopsis and cast list, with extra plot summaries, reviews and Parents Guide notes for titles the model may not know, and the model's own knowledge of the ones it recognizes. Only analyzed titles count, so this covers part of the filmography; the feel axes count films only for now.
Where can I watch Ike Jones' films?
As of October 24, 2026, 3 of their 4 MovieCove titles stream on a subscription or free service.
Subscription and free streaming for Ike Jones' titles on MovieCove; rent and buy are not counted. Titles are listed by Midcredits score, highest first, at most 12 per service; a dashed chip is a producer credit or a minor one, such as a thanks. A service opens the browse page, which counts movies only, so its number can differ.
Filmography
4 credits, 4 with a MovieCove page.
A Woman Called Moses(1978)
Midcredits score: 68th percentile of all shows
The River Niger(1976)
Midcredits score: 45th percentile of all films
A Man Called Adam(1966)
Midcredits score: 66th percentile of all films
The Joe Louis Story(1953)
Midcredits score: 31st percentile of all films
Career shape
Across a limited sample of 4 MovieCove titles from 1953 to 1978.
How do Ike Jones' films land?
Their typical MovieCove film has a Midcredits score in the 45th percentile, the median of all 3; across a limited sample of 3 films with reception data, the typical film sits in the 48th percentile for acclaim.
- 50th to 74th2
- 25th to 49th2
Shape of the crowd
3 of their 4 titles are Mixed.
- Crowd Pleaser1
- Mixed3
Reviewers score the acting 67/100 in their films, across 3 reviewed titles; fans 75, detractors 48. The element that speaks to their work as an actor.
Percentiles are each film's standing among all films on MovieCove; the typical film is the median, so one outlier cannot drag it. Percentiles and reviewer scores count the films IMDb credits them on, for now; the Midcredits score bands, the shape of the crowd and the two cards count their MovieCove titles, shows included (a show ranked among shows), appearances as themselves left out. A descriptor is the shape of a title's IMDb rating distribution against the catalog; "most divisive" needs a spread wider than half of all titles, and a card names only a principal credit: a craft role, and on a show a crew role or a run of episodes, never a courtesy credit or a one-off guest spot.
Who does Ike Jones work with?
People who share at least 2 of Ike Jones' MovieCove titles; Cicely Tyson shares the most, 3.
- Cicely TysonShared titles: A Woman Called Moses (1978), The River Niger (1976), A Man Called Adam (1966)See all 3 shared titles with Cicely Tyson
- Charles WeldonShared titles: A Woman Called Moses (1978), The River Niger (1976)See all 2 shared titles with Charles Weldon
