Jay J. Armes obit

El Paso icon Jay J. Armes dead at 92 

He was not on the list.

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- El Paso icon Jay J. Armes has died. His son, Jay J. Armes III posted the news on social media today.

"With a heavy heart, I post this message to my family, friends, and others," the younger Armes wrote. "Although I always knew that someday I would have to do this, the difficulty of this moment has not fully set in. My father, Jay J. Armes Sr. has been called to be with our Lord. He passed peacefully and was surrounded by his family."

Jay J. Armes Sr. lived many roles throughout his lifetime. He was an actor, a private investigator, city councilman, author, and successful business owner.

Widely regarded as a real-life action hero, Jay J. Armes had an action figure modeled after him. El Pasoans also know him for his former extravagant Lower Valley house, which housed exotic animals such as tigers.

"Everyone believes that their father is a superhero," Armes' son shared online. "My father actually was one. On one occasion, I had the pleasure of spending some time with our friend Stan Lee of Marvel Comics fame. Stan told me something that I never forgot. Stan said, 'Jay, all the superheroes that I created received their superpowers from a tragic accident. Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider, the Hulk was exposed to gamma radiation, and Daredevil was blinded by chemicals. Your father was changed by an explosion as a young boy, and he became a super sleuth. That's really incredible! He is going to be my first, real-life superhero!' I never looked at my father's accident that way, but it took Stan Lee to truly put things into perspective for me. Although my father will be missed, his impact on others and this world will last for many years to come."

He was known for his prosthetic hands and a line of children's action figures based on his image.

Armes was born Julian Armas to Mexican-American parents Pedro and Beatriz in Ysleta, a low-income area near El Paso, Texas, now a southeast El Paso neighborhood. His father was a grocer. At the age of eleven, he and his friend Dick Caples, seven years his senior, broke into a Texas & Pacific Railroad section house and stole railway torpedoes. Armes rubbed two torpedo sticks together, detonating them and causing the mangling of both hands. Caples, who was standing nearby, was not injured. Armes was taken to Hotel Dieu Hospital in El Paso, where his hands were amputated two inches above both wrists.

Armes had a contract to work with Twentieth Century Fox in Hollywood from 1949 to 1955. While Armes claimed to have appeared in 39 movies and 28 television shows, the only verifiable credit is an appearance in an episode of Hawaii Five-O.

In 1956, he became the operations director of Goodwill Industries in El Paso, Texas. In 1958, after briefly working as an actor in California and returning to his native El Paso, Armes started his private investigative agency, The Investigators. He worked with an assistant, James Cheu, and would visit El Paso area high schools to talk about their work. During his time as an investigator, he was involved in a kidnapping case involving the son of Marlon Brando. He collected around $25,000, plus expenses, for that case. He was also allegedly involved in a jailbreak that later inspired the movie Breakout.

In 1976, Armes published his autobiography, Jay J. Armes, Investigator; ISBN 0-02-503200-3. In 1976, the Ideal Toy Corp. also launched the Jay J. Armes Toy Line, which featured a Jay J. Armes action figure with detachable prosthetics, various gadgets, and a Mobile Investigation Unit.

In 1978, Armes and Ideal Toy Corp. launched an Investigative Course for Children which was introduced to a number of school districts throughout the United States. The same year, Armes authored a comprehensive correspondence-based investigative training course, and founded The Investigators Training Academy.

Armes played the villain in the Hawaii Five-O episode, "Hookman" (September 11, 1973). The updated series, Hawaii Five-0, remade the episode with the same scenes and title on February 4, 2013; Peter Weller remade the role and directed the episode.

Armes' rescue of Marlon Brando's son was described on a season 7 episode of the Travel Channel show Mysteries at the Museum.

In the 1960s, Armes had a small private zoo in his home in the North Loop area. He raised German Shepherds, big cats and owned a chimpanzee. Later permits allowed him to keep the dogs and chimpanzee, own a cheetah, cougar, tapir, and several monkeys. Armes learned to drive, fly a jet plane and scuba dive.

He and his wife, Linda Chew, had three children.