Walter Emanuel Jones (born November 30, 1970) is an American actor known for playing the role of Zack Taylor, the Black Ranger on the hit television series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

[edit] Life and career

Jones played the character of Zack Taylor, the original Black Ranger in the Power Rangers universe. He was written out of the series midway through the second season, apparently due to disagreements over wages and fee, and was replaced by Johnny Yong Bosch. Jones returned to Power Rangers in the Lost Galaxy season (1999) where he played the voice of Hexuba's Nightmare Monster in the episode "Dream Battle"; he also acted in an important episode of Power Rangers: Wild Force (2002) entitled Forever Red in which many previous Red Rangers teamed up. Again, he did not appear as his original character, Zack, but rather provided the voice for one of the antagonists, a general in the Machine Empire named Gerrok. He was also one of the special commentators, along with fellow co-star Amy Jo Johnson, on the "1993" episode of I Love the '90s. He also reunited with Austin St. John (with whom he formed a close friendship during their time together on the show) as co-host for a special airing of the original pilot episode of Power Rangers called "The Lost Episode".

Jones was the very first actor to do voicework for any character other than a Ranger (mainly for monsters or villains) on a Power Rangers show after having a role as a Ranger himself. Other former Rangers who would do voicework after Jones included Archie Kao, Catherine Sutherland, Jason Faunt, Valerie Vernon, and Sean Cw Johnson.

Jones had major roles in the independent movies, The Dogwalker and Backyard Dogs. He has appeared in other well-known productions, including a small part in Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the season 4 episode "Fear, Itself" and the Disney Channel Original Movie, Brink!. He also appeared as Harlan Band in the Nickelodeon series Space Cases, his second role as a main character and as a teenager. He guest starred in an episode of Family Matters as Kissel, and portrayed a supporting character in the first season of The Shield named Rondell Robinson, a drug dealer. He also had a small role in the film Suckers in which he played a character named Clay. Additionally, he also played a small role in the film House of the Dead 2 as "locker zombie".

Jones also had a major role in the backyard wrestling movie Backyard Dogs, which spent time as the lowest-rated movie on the Internet Movie Database. As of July 2007 it is no longer on the list as it was straight-to-video. Jones provided the voice of a main character in the video game Freedom Fighters; he played a character known as The Kid.

Most recently, he appeared briefly as a salsa dance instructor on Age of Love.

[edit] External links

• His Official Website
• Walter Jones at the Internet Movie Database
• His Myspace page