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Born in Texas in 1903, there is some dispute about how he got his name, but it is what is listed for the man. Chill Wills got started in his show business career singing with his brothers in Texas, and then went on to Vaudeville.

He appeared with his group “His Avalon Boys” in a Hopalong Cassidy film, “The Bar 20 Rides Again” and in six pictures with George O’Brien in 1938 and 1939.

Wills also appeared in “Boom Town” with Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy. He played in the TV series “Frontier Circus” and “The Rounders” plus big movies like Rio Grande, Giant, The Alamo, (in which he was nominated for a supporting role Oscar) and McLintock, like the movie “Alamo” where he was again teamed with John Wayne. He died in California in 1978.

 

Singing Cowboy:   Born in Georgia in 1901, Ray Whitley’s main claim to fame was that he wrote the original version of the song “Back in the Saddle Again” which became Gene Autry’s theme song.   Gene Autry “rewrote” the song, so he is listed on the sheet-music as co-writer.

Whitley had a singing group, the Six Bar Cowboys who were signed by RKO in 1937, and he made approximately 24 of the 15-minute musical shorts.

He also made several pictures with George O’Brien and Tim Holt, but in spite of his talent and good looks, he never made it above just playing supporting roles.

 

Movie Cowboy:   Max Terhune was also known as “Lullabye” for the character in the “The Three Mesquiteers” (the other two being Robert Livingston, and Ray “Crash” Corrigan) when he replaced Syd Saylor from the original series.

Terhune was a ventriloquist who was on radio, and a former baseball player in the American association.

He met Gene Autry and Smiley Burnette on the National Bran Dance, and Autry brought him to Hollywood, where his first film was “Ride, Ranger, Ride” in 1936, with both Gene Autry and Smiley Burnette.

He eventually made 21 films with the “Mesquiteers” and starred in other series with John Wayne, and some movies with Johnny Mack Brown.

Also he appeared in some big movies such as; Giant, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and Rawhide. He died in Arizona in 1973.

Movie Cowboy:  Born in 1908 in Virginia, he was a popular comic “sidekick” in Westerns. Taylor grew up in Oklahoma City, and played the Vaudeville circuit before playing in Westerns. His first movie role was in 1938 and his first Western was with Wild Bill Elliott in 1939-1941. He appeared with Tex Ritter, Charles Starrett, and with Jimmy Wakely in a singing-cowboy series of 15 films.

He featured a “slapstick” style of comedy and appeared in a couple of TV series. He also appeared in some big-time movies like; Bonnie and Clyde, A Man Called Horse, Support Your Local Gunfighter, and The Hallelujah Trail.

He became known as “Cannonball” in the movie “Taming of the West” in 1939, in what was known as the Wild Bill Elliot series.

 

Movie Cowboy:  Born Al St. John in 1892, he first developed the character “Fuzzy Q. Jones” when he co-stared with singing cowboy Fred Scott.

St. John started his career in “Law of the 45s” (1935) which introduced the “Three Mesquiteers.”

His parents were in vaudeville, and his first movie appearances were in Keystone Cops films. From 1935 to 1951 he was in Westerns as a “sidekick” for Tom Mix, Big Boy Williams, William Boyd, Bob Steel, John Wayne, Rex Bell, Jack Randall, Tex Ritter, Johnny Mack Brown, and Buster Crabbe, among others.

(March 28 1903 – March 22 1986)

Movie Cowboy:  One of Charles Starrett’s claims to fame is that he appeared in more “B” Westerns that anyone else, 131 between 1935 and 1952.

In over 60 films he starred as the “Durango Kid” who was a masked avenger, somewhat in the mold of the Lone Ranger. While on the Darmouth football team, in 1926, he was hired to play a football extra in the 1926 film “The Quarterback”.

In 1930 he played the romantic lead in “Fast and Loose”, which also featured such stars as Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard and Frank Morgan. He was active for the next two years but his roles were unremarkable. He later appeared in four Broadway plays prior to moving to Hollywood.

Among one of Starrett’s most important accomplishments was that he, along with 17 other film actors in 1933, helped to found the Screen Actors Guild.

Columbia Pictures signed Starrett in 1935 to replace top cowboy star, Tim McCoy, who had quit. He ended up starring in 115 movies in the following 16 years with Columbia. The first film in which he played his famous alter-ego, “The Durango Kid”, was released in 1940 but for some reason, Columbia did not want to continue with the series at that time.

The Durango Kid was then revived in 1944 and it lasted through 1952. Dub Taylor, as “Cannonball”, worked with Starrett until 1946. and Smiley Burnette, who had been a popular sidekick to Gene Autry, was brought in to replace Taylor upon his departure. The Durango Kid films combined wonderful action sequences with spectacular stuntwork performed by Jock Mahoney. Each film featured a singing group, and Burnette’s musical abilities (singing and playing) added to their popularity. In all, Starrett did 56 films with Smiley Burnette. Starrett’s last Western was released in 1952.

Starrett, who was independently wealthy, ended his acting career at age 48 when the Durango Kid series had halted production. Starrett died in Borrego Springs, California, six days short of his 83rd birthday.

 

TV Co-Star:  American American:  Certainly not a cowboy, but nonetheless, important in this section on show biz is Jay Silverheels, who shall forever be remembered for his role as the Indian “Tonto” in “The Lone Ranger” Television series.

Silverheels was a Mohawk who was a top lacrosse player in the 1930s and a Golden Gloves boxer.

He moved to the U.S. from the Six Nations Indian Reservation in Ontario, Canada. Silverheels also appeared in a number of non-western themed movies including “Key Largo”.

 

Movie Cowboy: He was born Randolph Crane in 1898 and he went off to WW1 at 14 when he lied about his age.

Scott eventually attended Georgia Tech and the University of North Carolina where he got a degree in engineering.

He was Gary Cooper’s dialogue coach in the 1929 film “The Virginian”. His break came he starred as Hawkeye in “The Last of the Mohicans” in 1936 and he gained stardom in 1941 in the film “Western Union” after doing a number of WWII combat films.

Scott made 42 westerns in all; his last was “Ride the High Country” in 1962 with director Sam Peckinpah, staring as an over-the-hill former lawman.

 

Vaudeville Star/Cowboy/Writer:   Will Rogers was born in 1879 and gained fame from movies, personal appearances and his newspaper columns. he was known as the “Cowboy Philosopher” for his wit and wisdom from the Roaring 20’s through the Great Depression and beyond.

He was the son of a rancher who learned rope tricks, performed in vaudeville and Wild West Shows.

Rogers ran away from his wealthy father and became a cowboy on the Texas Panhandle then sailed to Argentina in 1902 and South Africa where he performed in Jack’s Wild West Circus as “The Cherokee Kid”, a rope artist and bronco buster. He returned to the U.S. in 1904.

He also appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies from 1916-25 at different times then moved to Hollywood where he became a star. His daily newspaper column was syndicated to 350 outlets and he wrote political commentary.

He died in a plane crash up in Alaska while traveling to Russia for a tour.

 

A top Singing Cowboy:   Roy Rogers’ real name was Leonard Franklin Slye. He lived in Ohio with his family up until the time he became intrigued with California after visiting his newly married sister there.

Roy had already become a proficient yodeler and practiced endlessly (he was a fan of Jimmie Rodgers). He worked as a truck driver and migrant farm worker. He entered an amateur program and sang and played banjo and mandolin with his cousin.

Roy was then invited to sing in the group “Rocky Mountaineers” which was appearing on a radio station. But, he wanted to do duets and thus advertised for another yodeler to join the group. Singers Bob Nolan and Bill “Slumber” Nichols joined with him and pretty soon they became the first trio of yodelers. Nolan was later replaced by Tim Spencer but the group broke up in 1933 then reformed a while later as “The Sons of the Pioneers”.

The group performed successfully on a Los Angeles radio station from 1934-36. In 1937, when he heard Republic was auditioning singers to replace Gene Autry who was having contract disputes, Roy sneaked onto the studio after a guard wouldn’t let him enter. He was rescued by a producer who recognized the young singer and signed to a contract that began his career. His name was immediately changed to Roy Rogers, although Rogers himself did not legally change it until 1942.

He went from cowboy in early films to singing cowboy “Roy Rogers, in gaudy clothing, his horse Trigger, dog Bullet, and female lead Dale Evans. He and Dale Evans made 20 pictures together and they were married in 1947, a year after Roger’ first wife died after giving birth. Roy had his own radio show in 1944, another one in 1946 and another one in 1948 which lasted three years.

Then came his NBC radio show (1951-1954) in which he and Dale sang and Gabby Hayes, Pat Buttram and Pat Brady provided comic relief. Rogers’ TV show “The Roy Rogers Show” with its 30 minute episodes proved a great success. Trigger died in 1965 at the age of 33 and was stuffed and placed in Rogers’ Victorville, California museum. Rogers himself passed away in 1998.

 

Singing Cowboy:   Tex Ritter was born in Texas and was, in fact, a pre-law student before gaining fame as a singing cowboy.

He first gained attention by signing four western songs in the Broadway show “Green Grow the Lilacs” then made his way to a number of radio shows before being contracted with a producer-agent who got him work in movies.

He ultimately starred in 58 signing cowboy films between 1936-45.His first was in “Song of the Gringo”. But he was always in the shadow of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry throughout his career.

He recorded for Decca and Capital Records. One of his biggest recorded hits was “Do Not Forsake Me O My Darling”, the Academy Award winning theme of the movie “High Noon” (1952).

He later hosted his own syndicated TV show called “Tex Ritter’s Ranch Party” in 1957-58. Ritter was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1964. His son John Ritter was a famous comedian and TV star.

 

Movie/TV Cowboy:  Duncan Renaldo was born in Romania in 1904. He was most known for being “The Cisco Kid” on TV and in the films.

He first played this character in 1945 in “The Cisco Kid Returns”. At one point he had trouble with the immigration service who charged him with being an illegal alien but it was cleared up and he went on to sign with Monogram pictures and he made three Cisco Kid features with them.

He then got the series and starred with Leo Carrillo as Pancho and they made five Cisco films together between 1949-50.”The Cisco Kid” TV series began in the early 1950’s and the last episodes were in 1955.

 

Movie/TV Cowboy:  Slim Pickens started as a rodeo rider and changed his name from Louis Lindley so his father wouldn’t find out about his dangerous sport.

He was born in 1919 and his first film was in 1945 in “Smoky” with Fred MacMurray. He worked with Errol Flynn in “Rocky Mountain” before joining Republic Pictures in 1951 as the sidekick for Rex Allen.

Slim appeared in a number of westerns including “The Big Country” with Gregory Peck, the 1974 “Blazing Saddles” and was a regular on two TV series: “The Outlaws” and “Custer”.

Slim also was a regular on “Hee Haw”, noted for his incredibly twangy voice.His most famous role, however, was as Major King Kong in “Dr. Strangelove” where he rode a nuclear bomb like a bucking bronco.

He was inducted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.

 

TV Cowboy: Clayton Moore was TV’s “The Lone Ranger” from 1949-56 and starred in 221 episodes.

He missed one season when he was replaced by another actor after a studio salary dispute. His famous cry: “Hi, Ho, Silver” (the name of his horse – often as he sped away).

Moore also starred in a number of films for Republic Pictures as well as two “Lone Ranger” films in 1956 and 1958. He was born in 1914 in Chicago and was part of a flying trapeze act in a traveling circus. He moved to Hollywood in 1938, worked as a stuntman and extra and played the bad guy in some films with Roy Rogers and Gene Autry.

After the TV series ended, Moore remained under contract to portray the “masked man” for Dodge car commercials. Then in 1979 a court ordered him to stop wearing the trademark mask and Moore was forced to make special appearances in a pair of sunglasses. He is remembered for the deep resonant voice behind the mask.

 

Movie Cowboy:  Tom Mix was born in Pennsylvania in 1881 and became a major star of the silent era. He was a snappy dresser and sported two horses named Tony and Tony, Jr. which were trained to do a variety of tricks.

Mix trained at the Virginia Military Institute and served in the Spanish-American War, the Philippines, China and South Africa where he trained horses for the British during the Boer War. He competed and won in rodeos in 1909-11.

His first movie appearance was in 1910 in ‘Ranch Life in the great Southwest”. He had a film contract with Fox in 1918 and did his own stunts. His fan club in 1921 was two million strong.

When the silent era ended, Mix’s career came close to doing the same. He was working in a Circus and Wild West Show, then in 1932 he made a mini-comeback with “Destry Rides Again”, including nine other features.

His last film was “The Miracle Ride” and he again returned to touring with a circus before being killed in a car crash after a performance in Tucson.

Movie Cowboy and “King of the Bullwhip”!

Lash Larue was born in 1917 and got his break when he played the Cheyenne Kid in the “The Song of Old Wyoming” and used his bullwhip techniques.

He then got a starring role in “The Law of the Lash” in 1947, followed by a series of “B” westerns and tours of rodeos and carnivals.

Warner Brothers studio refused to sign him because they thought he looked too much like Humphrey Bogart.

Movie Cowboy: Buck Jones was born in 1891, and as an actor lived a wild life both on screen and off. He was one of the top cowboys of the silent era and died on November 28, 1942 in a famous fire on Thanksgiving night at the Coconut Grove in Boston.

Jones grew up on a ranch in Red Rock Oklahoma and became an expert horseman. He joined the Miller Brothers Wild West Show and also worked for the Ringling Brothers Circus, after he served in the Army, where he saw action against Pancho Villa before his discharge in 1913.

His first movie feature was “The Last Straw” in 1919, and made more than 50 films and was a top cowboy star along with Tom Mix and William S. Hart in that silent movie era. He made 27 films for Columbia and later made serials for Universal. Buck Jones did other serials and starred in the “Rough Rider” series.

It is said that at one time, his fan club numbered around four million members.

Movie Cowboy:   Gabby Hayes was the legendary sidekick who worked with Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Hoot Gibson, Harry Carey, John Wayne, Bob Steele, Rex Bell, Tom Tyler and Randolph Scott.

The role of the comic sidekick had already been made successful by Smiley Burnette and Gabby’s career took off as well. He usually wore a plaid shirt, leather vest and tattered black hat that made him look more like a western bum than anything.

Hayes was originally a vaudeville performer and moved to Hollywood in the 1920’s where his first sound picture was “The Rainbow Man”. Oddly, he did not get cast into Westerns until he was in his 40’s. His fame came in 1939 as Roy Rogers’ sidekick in “Southward Ho” where he developed his famous line “Yur durned tootin’!” that soon became his motto. Hayes and Rogers starred in 28 films together from 1939-42. His role with Rogers was replaced by Burnette and Hayes went on to team with Wild Bill Elliott.

He made his last film, “The Caribou Trail” in 1950 when he was 65 years old. After the movie career ended, Hayes hosted a TV show for kids called “The Gabby Hayes Show”, then hosted “The Howdy Doody Show” from 1954-55 after Buffalo Bob Smith had a heart attack.

 

December 6, 1864- June 23, 1946

Movie Cowboy:   Film star and director, William Surrey Hart achieved his fame in the silent era. Born on December 6, 1890 in Newburgh, New York, he first became a stage actor who starred on Broadway before traveling to Hollywood.

Among his films: The Bargain, (the first teaming of Hart and his Pinto pony Fritz), Hell´s Hinges, The Return of Draw Egan,, The Cradle of Courage, The Narrow Trail.

His last and most highly praised film, Tumbleweeds was released in 1925 and then reissued in 1939 with a synchronized sound track and a spoken prologue by Hart. He retired after that one. William S. Hart died June 23, 1946 in Los Angeles.

Biography
William S. Hart was a silent film actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. Born in Newburgh, New York on December 6, 1864, Hart began his acting career in his twenties. A successful Shakespearian actor on Broadway, Hart appeared in the original 1899 stage production of Ben Hur. It was at the age of 49 in 1914, that Hart went west to Hollywood to start his movie career.In Hollywood, after playing supporting roles in two short films, he achieved stardom as the lead in the feature, The Bargain. During the next 11 years, he made more than 65 silent films, the last and probably his most famous being “Tumbleweeds” in 1925.

Hart was fascinated by the Old West and particularly interested in making his western films realistic, noted for their authentic costumes and props. He acquired Billy the Kid’s “six shooters”, and was a friend of legendary lawmen Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson.In 1921, Hart purchased a ranch house and surrounding property in which he built a 22 room mansion which today houses his collection of western art, Native American artifacts, and early Hollywood memorabilia. Hart lived at the ranch nearly 20 years until his death in 1946.In his will, Hart gave the Horseshoe Ranch to the County of Los Angeles.

It was to be set aside for the use and enjoyment of the public, at no charge. Today, the Horseshoe Ranch consists of 265 acres. Both the ranch house and the Hart residence are open to the public. An assortment of animals reside at Hart Park, including a small herd of bison which were a gift from the Walt Disney Studios in 1962. As part of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, California, Hart’s ranch in Newhall is now called the “William S. Hart Park”.

The William S. Hart Union High School District as well as William S. Hart Senior High School, both located in the Santa Clarita Valley in the northern part of Los Angeles County, were named in his honor.For his contribution to the motion picture industry, William S. Hart has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In 1975, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

TV Cowboy: Kirby Grant was famous for the popular TV show “Sky King” in which he played a lawman who made his way through the west in a small plane in search of outlaws.

He was born Kirby Grant Hoon in 1911 and was a child violin prodigy who debuted with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra at age 12. He also played semipro baseball later in life.

Kirby Grant worked in radio and sang with a Chicago dance band. Then in 1937 he entered a “Gateway to Hollywood” talent contest and won first prize which was a six-month contract with RKO Pictures. After making his fame as “Sky King, Grant also operated the Sky King Ranch of America for homeless teens.

 

Movie Cowboy: Hoot Gibson was a major movie cowboy star with a comedic bent who actually began his career in the rodeo then began doing stunts for silent films.

He was born Edmund Richard Gibson on August 6, 1892 in Tekamah, Nebraska and supposedly got his nickname because of a love of owl hunting.In 1912, Gibson won the title of The World’s All-Around Cowboy Champion in Pendleton, Oregon, then went on to serve in the U.S. Army during World War I.

Hoot purchased the Baker Ranch Rodeo in 1930. It later became know as the Saugus Speedway. He worked with director John Ford in a series of westerns, beginning a career that would span some 200 silent and 75 sound films, in which he functioned mostly as a comedic foil to the hero.

He retired in 1939 but made a comeback of sorts when he appeared in “The Horse Soldiers” in 1959 starring John Wayne. He died August 23,1962.

TV & Singing Cowgirl: Seen here with her famous horse “Buttermilk”, Dale Evans was a cowgirl, indeed!

Born Frances Octavia Smith in 1921, Dale Evans was the only actress who emerged as a star from “B” westerns. She sang on radio stations throughout the south and working in a Louisville station when she changed her name. She then became a big band singer and in 1942 she was signed by Twentieth Century Fox.

In 1943 Dale signed with Republic Pictures and made her first western “In Old Oklahoma” which starred John Wayne. Her first role with Roy Rogers was in “The Cowboy and the Senorita” and then made 20 films together between 1944-47.

She married Roy Rogers in 1947 and then starred with him in his TV The Roy Rogers Show from 1951-57 with her famous horse “Buttermilk”. Dale also worked with him in the early 1960s when they had a one-hour variety show together.

 

Movie/TV Cowboy:   “Hey Wild Bill, wait for me!”  — That was Andy Devine’s famous lines as the character “Jingles”, Wild Bill Hickok’s sidekick on the TV show (The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok).

He was the stagecoach driver in the 1939 film “Stagecoach” and was also “Cookie Bullfincher” as Roy Rogers sidekick in nine films. 

August 6, 1880 – September 10, 1961

Movie Cowboy:  Leo Carrillo was an actor, preservationist and conservationist who was born in Los Angeles in 1880. His beginnings, however, were in San Diego where his grandparents Josefa (Bandini) and Boston-educated Pedro Carrillo, were married. There, they maintained their residence and raised a large family. As a wedding gift, Governor Pio Pico awarded them title to Coronado Island which they sold 23 years later for $1,000. As Leo jokingly observed, “I think the family let it go too soon.”

The family moved from San Diego to Los Angeles then to Santa Monica, where Carrillo’s father Juan José Carrillo served as the city’s police chief and later the first mayor. His cousin was Broadway star William Gaxton (real name Arturo Antonio Gaxiola). Proud of his heritage, Leo Carrillo wrote a book, The California I Love, published shortly before his death in 1961.

Leo Carrillo worked as a newspaper cartoonist for the San Francisco Examiner before turning to acting, appearing in 15 major stage plays (several on Broadway) and more than 90 motion pictures in which he was featured in supporting or character roles.

He worked with the very biggest stars in Hollywood. But his greatest fame came from his portrayal of Pancho, the mischievous sidekick to Duncan Renaldo’s Cisco Kid in the pioneering television series of the early 1950s. The Cisco Kid was based on an O. Henry short story which in turn was drawn from Cervantes’ Don Quixote. In this classic Spanish novel the sidekick was named Sancho Panza. Shot entirely in color, a first in tv production, its enormously popular 156 action-western episodes ran for six years, from 1950 until 1956. Pancho’s horse’s name was Loco.

As his showmanship blossomed Leo experienced parallel success as a politically well-connected supporter of recreational and cultural resources for the public. He served 18 years on the California Beaches and Parks Commission and the Leo Carrillo State Park near Malibu is named in his honor. He was a key factor in the development of the Los Angeles Olvera Street complex, the Los Angeles Arboretum and the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Most notably, his personal relationship with the family led to the acquisition of the famous Hearst Castle at San Simeon. He toured the world as the state’s official Ambassador of Good Will. California’s governor of the time, Edmund G. Brown, called Leo “Mr. California.”

At the peak of his film career Leo felt an intense yearning to find a retreat where he could re-create an Old California-style working rancho, an important cultural asset he felt was rapidly dying out. In 1937 he came across the Rancho de Los Kiotes in what is now southeast Carlsbad and which was once owned by the Kelly family, very large, long-standing landowners in the area. Leo quickly snapped up his first 840 acres for $65,000 or $77 per acre. He immediately began construction of 18 structures necessary for his ranch operations and, over time, increased his spread to 2,538 acres.

In 1977 the city acquired a tiny 10.5 acre remnant that contained and protected the most critical original buildings. Thanks to a state preservation grant and matching funds contributed by local civic organizations, some of the buildings were seismic retrofitted and partially restored in 1992. A $5.5 million catch-up round of restoration has now been completed. A required transfer of 16.4 acres from contiguous residential developers has expanded the Park site to 27 acres. Leo Carrillo Ranch Historic Park is an extraordinary educational and passive recreational resource, the envy of all Californians, and a visitor destination.

Leo Carrillo died of cancer in 1961 and was interred in the Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery in Santa Monica.

1878 – 1947

Movie Cowboy: Harry Carey was born Henry DeWitt Carey II in the Bronx, New York, the son of a New York City judge and the president of a sewing machine company.

In his teen years, Carey studied at a military prep school and after graduation, he was offered an appointment to West Point, which he turned down in favor of attending law school at NYU. A boating accident at the age of 21 resulting in a severe case of pneumonia, caused Carey to give up the pursuit of law. Instead, he pursued writing and his first endeavor was a play called “Montana”. He liked it so much that he decided to play it on the stage and it turned out to be such a big hit that Harry toured the country with it for the next three years.

Following that success, Harry wrote another play, this one titled “Heart of Alaska” but it flopped. He then turned his attention to acting in the up-and-coming movie industry, first finding work at the old Biograph studios in New York in which he became part of D. W. Griffith’s stock company. The 1909 film ” Bill Sharkey’s Last Game” is reported to be Carey’s first important film.

Carey joined Griffith in his trek west and he continued to make numerous short Westerns in the new environment of Hollywood. In 1913 he appeared in “The Battle at Elderbush Gulch” which starred Lillian Gish and Lionel Barrymore. For the next few years, Carey stayed busy alternating between Westerns and non-Western roles. 1915 marked a turning point in Carey’s career, when he signed up with Universal and began a series of longer two-reel Westerns, at a reported salary of $150 a week. He played the character ‘Cheyenne Harry’, the first of which was in “Knight on the Range”. Co-starring with him in most of the two-reelers was Carey’s future wife, Olive Golden and pal, Hoot Gibson.

It was his association with John Ford during this period that set the stage for both of their future successes in the film industry. The first of 26 features films that would come out of the Ford/Carey alliance was Universal’s “Straight Shooting” in 1917.

Carey’s portrayal in the early silent films, and in fact, during his entire career, has been linked somewhat to the William S. Hart tradition of Westerns with emphasis on realism and grittiness. His films were often true portrayals of the West and his physical appearance, like Hart, was rather rugged. His taciturn expression, a trademark of his Western role-playing, was depicted in every picture he made.

Many of his gestures, such as the way he sat on a horse, slouched with elbows resting on the saddle horn, were unique. (displayed in the John Wayne 1947 “The Angel and the Badman”). Some of Carey’s gestures, in fact, were picked up by Wayne, who has been quoted as saying that Harry Carey “was the greatest Western actor of all time.” One trait, in particular, adopted by Wayne can be seen in 1956 John Ford’s classic “The Searchers” when Wayne is framed in the doorway in the final scene, walking away holding his left arm with his right as Carey often did.

By 1919 Carey’s salary had increased to $1,250 a week, putting him in the top echelon of Western stars. Carey and Ford continued their winning combination up until the early 1920s. It’s been said that certain traces of Ford’s style could be seen in such Carey Westerns as his 1921 “Desperate Trails”, which also highlighted Carey’s fine acting ability.

Carey left Universal and John Ford in 1922 when Universal decided to feature Hoot Gibson as the leading star. The new trend left behind the realism and strong plots of the Ford/Carey pictures in favor of a more flashy style as evidenced by a younger Tom Mix. Carey was also getting old for a leading cowboy star; he was 44 in 1922.

Carey turned out solid performances with several other film companies beginning with FBO, then joining Hunt Stromberg’s Producer’s Distributing Corporation (PDC), and finally signing in 1926 with Pathé Pictures, one of the finest makers of silent Westerns. Such titles as “The Night Hawk”, “The Prairie Pirate”, “The man From Red Gulch, all released in 1924, proved that Carey could still captivate an audience. Pathe’s “Satan Town” (1926) was the best of the bunch.

Between 1912 and 1928 Carey had made scores of Westerns and a few non-Westerns. The silent era was coming to a close and despite the fact that his salary had grown and he found himself among the top Western stars, he was somewhat discouraged that he not quite reached the elusive fame garnered by the younger set, including Hoot Gibson and Tom Mix. When his Pathé contract was not renewed, Carey decided to hit the vaudeville stage with wife Olive (they married in 1920), but they weren’t successful and the traveling from town to town soon took its toll on them. During this stint, the San Francisquito Dam burst and flooded the Santa Clarita Valley, killing hundreds of people and totally destroying the Carey’s ranch.

Producer Irving Thalberg and MGM came to his rescue in 1929, casting him as the lead with Duncan Renaldo and Edwina Booth in what has been called the greatest adventure film of all time, “Trader Horn” which took him to Africa and Mexico for seven months. It proved to be a huge success, earning Carey enough to rebuild and re-stock his ranch. Bad luck struck again shortly afterwards when their ranch was totally destroyed by fire.

Luckily the success of “Trader Horn” generated new interest in Carey and he was soon signed by Mascot Pictures’ to star in the 1931 serial, “The Vanishing Legion” and he was immediately contracted for two more in 1932 (“Last of the Mohicans” and “The Devil Horse”). That same year he was cast in Universal’s highly acclaimed “Law and Order” about the famous gunfight in Tombstone. Carey plays a Doc Holliday type character and Walter Huston worked his magic in a Wyatt Earp type role.

For the next several years, Harry starred in a number of Westerns for various independent producers and he had the lead in the 1935 RKO all-star “Powdersmoke Range”. The following year, Carey and Hoot Gibson teamed again in RKO’S “The Last Outlaw” which John Ford had helped script. Carey was billed over Hoot Gibson in both of these films, indicating that perhaps over the long haul, Carey’s career was more consistent than Gibson’s.

In 1938, Carey starred in his last program Western, “Law West of Tombstone” and in 1939 he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor award for his role in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” but he lost it to Thomas Mitchell who won the Oscar for his role in “Stagecoach”.

In the early forties, Carey returned to the stage for several Broadway productions, including Eugene O’Neil’s “Ah, Wilderness”. He also continued portraying character and support roles in both Westerns and non-Westerns throughout the forties. One of the best was with John Wayne in Paramount’s semi-Western, 1941’s “The Shepherd of the Hills”. The following year he was cast as Wayne’s partner in “The Spoilers”. 1947 saw another fine performance of Carey’s in “The Angel and the Badman” with Carey as the understanding lawman trailing good guy outlaw Wayne. The following year brought him to “Red River”, again with Wayne. Carey’s son, Harry Jr. also appears in the film, the only time father and son were cast in the same picture, although they do not appear together in any scenes.

Carey was ailing quite a bit by this time. “Red River” and a Disney film called “So Dear to My Heart”, in which he played an understanding judge, were his last films. Both pictures were released a year after his death which occurred on September 21, 1947 at Brentwood, California. He died from a combination of lung cancer and long ongoing emphysema from cigarettes, and pneumonia as a young man. Carey was buried in his cowboy outfit at a ceremony that was attended by more than one thousand admirers.

In addition to Harry Jr., the Carey’s also had a daughter named Ella. Both children were raised on the ranch near Saugus, California. Carey’s wife Olive, a creditable actor in her own right, continued to act in films. Most notable was her performance in Ford’s 1956 classic “The Searchers”with son, Harry, Jr. She died on March 13, 1988 at the age of 92.

November 29, 1896 – May 24, 1986

Movie Cowboy/Stuntman:  Yakima Canutt was a popular Hollywood actor and stuntman from the 1920s through the 1950s. He was born Enos Edward Canutt on November 29, 1896 near Colfax, Washington.

As a young man, he was a successful rodeo rider who got the nickname of “Yakima” when he was caught fraternizing with several rival rodeo performers from Yakima, Washington. He met actor Tom Mix at a rodeo in Los Angeles and was persuaded to work as a cowboy in films.

Canutt gained minor success in the 1930s playing mostly villains in a number of B-westerns and serials. But it was his talent for handling horses and taking falls that gained him work, both as a stuntman and stunt coordinator. During this time he worked with a young John Wayne. Since Canutt was an accomplished horseman and a real cowboy, Wayne often sought his advice. Canutt ended up teaching Wayne the finer points of handling horses and about how real cowboys acted.

Yakima Canutt and John Wayne starred in a series of popular B-westerns known as the ‘Lone Star’ westerns. These formula westerns were full of action and were quite entertaining to watch. Canutt had, of course, coordinated and performed most of the hair-raising stunts that made these films so exciting. He is credited with coming up with a method of throwing a screen punch that is standard practice among stunt people today. He positioned the action so that when a punch was thrown, it was always done so towards the camera which would be filming over the shoulder of the receiving actor. When shot from this point of view and with even moderately-accurate timing from the performers, audiences saw what appeared to be a real fight. The realism of all movie fights was increased dramatically as a result of this innovation. Some of Canutt’s top notch stunts include riding a horse off a cliff into a watery chasm, jumping off horseback onto a runaway wagon; running mounts were classic and he could jump straight from the ground into the saddle with just a step or two.

He appeared in the 1939 John Wayne western classic “Stagecoach” and helped Wayne deal with an antagonistic director named John Ford. It was also in this film that Canutt performed one of his most famous stunts: the daring pass under the moving stagecoach. That same year, Canutt could be seen performing stunts in “Gone With The Wind”, doubling as Clark Gable driving the wagon through the burning streets of Atlanta. He also appears as a regular actor in the film as the renegade soldier who attacks Vivien Leigh.

As a stunt coordinator, Canutt staged the famous chariot race segment in the 1959 film Ben-Hur. You can also catch a glimpse of him in the distant shot in which Ben-Hur’s chariot bounces over the wreckage of another chariot, just before the cut to the close-up of Charlton Heston.

Over the course of his career, Canutt developed several devices and special rigging that made stunt work safer for stunt performers while at the same time, making the stunts themselves appear more spectacular. Not a single performer was seriously injured on any of Canutt’s films and many of his safety procedures are standard practice among stuntmen today.

Canutt was given an Honorary Academy Award in 1966 for his achievements as a stuntman and for his development of stunt safety devices. He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in recognition to his contribution to the motion picture industry. In 1975, he was inducted into the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum (Hall of Fame).

In 1985, Canutt appeared in a music/bio called “Yak’s Last Ride” directed by John Crawford. His sons Joe Canutt and Tap Canutt also worked as stuntmen. His autobiography, “Stuntman”, was published in 1979.

March 18, 1911 – February 16, 1967

 

 

Singing Cowboy:   Smiley Burnette was most famous for being Gene Autry’s sidekick and the character “Frog Millhouse”. He was a fine musician too and wrote some 300 songs. He later starred on “Petticoat Junction” as Charlie Pratt.

Smiley Burnette was born on March 18, 1911 in Summum, Illinois as Lester Alvin Burnett. His best creation was the character known as “Frog Millhouse” or just “Frog” , a character who wore a checkered shirt, tattered black Stetson cowboy hat with its brim turned up, and he rode a white horse with a black ringed eye (known first as “Black Eyed Nellie”, then “Ring Eyed Nellie”, and finally just “Ring Eye”. Interestingly, in real life, Smiley Burnette never owned a horse.

While Smiley was very young, his family moved to Monticello, near Urbana. They lived next to musicians with access to many instruments. Smiley borrowed one instrument after another. By the age of nine, he could play 10 instruments and by the age of 22, he had mastered about 50. In his lifetime, he would play more than 105 instruments, all of which he learned to play by ear; he never found the need to actually read music. The first instrument that Smiley learned to play was the piano but the first performance in which Smiley received payment was for playing the musical saw at the age of 9.

In the movies “Melody Trial”, “Waterfront Lady”, and “The Old Corral” Smiley played seven instruments simultaneously. He created and built some of the instruments in his workshop at his home. One of those instruments looked something like an organ with pipes, levers, and pull mechanisms. It was called a “Jassass-a-phone” and was featured in several movies the first being “The Singing Cowboy”. His very favorite instruments to play were the Piano Accordion and the Spanish Guitar.

Smiley dropped out of school due to financial needs and never finished the 9th grade. To help support his family, he tried his hand at a number of occupations including waiter, truck driver, taxi driver, carnival roustabout, delivery-boy, blacksmith, electrician, and photographer. He finally seemed to find his calling at a small local radio station, WDZ, in Tuscola, Illinois in 1929 where he ran all aspects of the radio station seven days a week. There, he worked as disc jockey, announcer, musical director, janitor, and all around entertainer. He would read the comics from the newspaper using multiple character voices and sound effects to entertain his young audience. He appropriated the name “Smiley” for a new children’s program he was creating after reading Mark Twain’s “Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”. His character became ‘Mr. Smiley’ and then, just “Smiley”.

In December 1933, Gene Autry was working in Chicago on WLS (World’s Largest Radio Station). He found himself without an accordion player and asked if anyone knew of a replacement. He was told of a young man down in Tuscola who played on the WDZ airwaves by the name of Smiley. Smiley joined Gene on the National Barn Dance radio show (WLS) in late December. The following year, Smiley and Gene headed west to appear in two Ken Maynard films. “In Old Santa Fe” was a feature length film in which Gene and Smiley provided the musical interlude, singing three songs back to back. Two of the songs were Smiley’s compositions, “Somewhere in Wyoming” and “Mama Don’t Allow No Music Played in Here”. The other film was a 15 chapter serial, “Mystery Mountain”. In the serial, the duo had only bit parts. Smiley was a wagon driver with one line, and Gene a ranch hand with a couple of lines. Upon completion of their film debut, Gene and Smiley headed back east to complete personnel appearances and return to radio broadcasting.

While on tour in Wisconsin two contract offers arrived for Gene and Smiley. The 10-year contracts were for them to star in pictures the first of which was the 12 chapter Mascot Master Serial, “The Phantom Empire”. Gene was to receive $5000 a day and Smiley was to receive $1000 a day. They packed up and headed west to California. It was on this drive that Smiley wrote the classic western ballet “Ridin’ Down the Canyon (When the Desert Sun Goes Down)”. In the next town they came to, the men had someone put it to music because neither Gene nor Smiley could read or write a note of music and they never did learn how. That song is currently in The United States Congressional Hall of Fame as being one of the top 10 most beautiful ballets and to this day holds that distinction.

In 1936, Smiley appeared in eight feature length films with Gene Autry, but also performed in two serials and three non-singing cowboy films. Gene and Smiley made a total of 64 films over their long film careers. In 1953 the last of their 6 movies were released.

The biggest event of 1936 was his meeting up with Miss Dallas MacDonnell, a newspaper columnist and writer, who was on assignment for Screen Magazine. They eloped on October 26th, 1936 and their marriage lasted for the rest of Smiley’s life, just over 30 years.

Smiley and Dallas purchased a rambling ranch home in the San Fernando Valley. It was close enough to the studio but still in the country. Smiley expanded the home, also building a recording studio next to the house. The couple adopted four children all from Tennessee: from oldest to youngest: Linda, Stephen, Carolyn, and Brian.

Smiley loved making personal appearances. Harmonica Bill Russell, known as the “World’s Most Famous Harmonica and Trick Harmonica Player”, often accompanied Smiley on tours in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Smiley also worked with Doye O’Dell who had formed a Cowboy Band known as “Doye O’Dell’s Radio Rangers”. Smiley and Doye, along with the Radio Rangers, got the chance to work together in the film for Columbia, “Whirlwind Raiders”, a Durango Kid film done in 1948. A very entertaining number called “Fiddling Fool”, is performed in the film by Smiley, Doye and the Rangers.

In 1942 Smiley was voted one of the top-ten moneymaking stars in the “Motion Picture Herald Fame Poll”. From that point he remained number three for many years thereafter. In 1953, as Western movies were on the decline, Smiley’s popularity remained high and he kept up with personal appearances, traveling all over the United States. He would do personal appearances at drive-ins, fairs, rodeos, trailer sales, furniture marts, and even on a salt block in a cow pasture. Smiley also did shows in the Town Square for the Chamber of Commerce of many towns, and in shopping centers which we now know as shopping malls.

Then in 1963, Smiley once again came before the camera but this time in the rural, folksy TV series “Petticoat Junction”. He now became known to a whole new generation of kids, young adults, and grown-ups as the Cannonball Engineer, “Charley Pratt”.

After finishing his scenes for the last show of the season, Smiley allowed himself to be taken to the hospital. One week later on February 16, 1967, Smiley died. Throughout his lifetime, Smiley never drank, smoked, or gambled, and he was married to the same woman for over 30 years. His wife Dallas passed away on February 19, 1976

Smiley’s original Hat and Shirt, donated by Smiley himself, were placed in the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1962. He said that this Hat was his favorite over all the rest. He had 5 different black hats but the hat in the Hall of Fame is the one he originally used. Smiley was also honored at the 10th Annual Western Music Festival (Western Music Association) on November 5, 1998. On May 22, 1986, nineteen years after his passing, Smiley was honored at a special ceremony placing his star on the Walk of Fame.

December 31, 1914 – February 27, 1972

 

TV Cowboy:  Pat Brady was best  known for being cowboy Roy Rogers’ comical sidekick on “The Roy Rogers Show”.

Pat Brady was the one with “Nellybelle”, the jeep. He was also a member of the singing group “Sons of the Pioneers”, as was Roy under his original name.

Biography
Born in Toledo, Ohio, Pat Brady was the son of traveling performers, and first set foot on-stage at the age of four, appearing in a road-show production of Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. Thereafter, the young Brady was hooked on show business.

Much later, in 1935, while appearing as a bass guitarist in California, Brady struck up a friendship with a young country & western singer named Leonard Slye, a member of the popular Sons of the Pioneers. When Slye moved onto screen stardom as Roy Rogers, he recommended Brady as his replacement in the Pioneers group.

It was in 1937 that Brady himself made the transition to films by playing comedy relief in several of the Charles Starrett Westerns at Columbia. In the early ’40s, Brady moved over to Republic studios, where he played oddball camp cook Sparrow Biffle in the Roy Rogers films. Then when Rogers moved over to television in 1951, Brady went with him, ultimately enlivening well over 100 episodes of the popular The Roy Rogers Show, where he tooled about the sagebrush at the wheel of his faithful jeep “Nellybelle.”

Brady continued his association with Rogers on TV and in personal appearances long after the cancellation of the weekly series. He also rejoined the Sons of the Pioneers in 1959 for awhile. By the mid-1960s, however, Brady’s acting career began its decline. In February 1972, Brady checked himself into an alcoholic rehabilitation center in Green Mountain Falls, Colorado. One day later, he was dead at the age of 58.

1895-1972

 

Movie/TV Cowboy: Hopalong Cassidy was one of America’s greatest Cowboy heroes.

Originally created in novels and short stories by author Clarence E. Mulford, Hopalong Cassidy was immortalized by actor, William Boyd.

His likeness was brought to millions through movies, television, radio, novels and over 2,400 authorized merchandising items during the ‘40s and ‘50s. Boyd starred in 66 full-featured Hopalong Cassidy films, 52 half-hour television programs, and 104 radio shows. Attesting to the popularity of the western theme, at least a dozen of Mulford’s novels are still in print.

The original character created by Mulford sported a number of vices but it was Boyd who turned the cowboy into a matinee idol for the kids. His signature clothing was black with a tall hat and he rode a white horse named Topper. It was Boyd who acquired the TV rights to his movies and the first shows on TV were, in fact, edited versions of the films. He also acquired the radio and commercial rights, as a result, we have wonderful memorabilia in Hopalong Cassidy lunchboxes, pajamas, bedspreads, etc. His last film cameo was as the circus attraction, Hopalong Cassidy in Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Greatest Show on Earth”.

Biography
William Boyd was born in Ohio in 1895 and raised in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area before arriving in Hollywood around 1918. He became a leading man during the silent era, and his best work from that period included many films for director Cecil B. deMille.

Boyd brought the character of Hopalong Cassidy to the screen in a feature produced by Paramount Pictures. The studio made 34 more pictures with Bill Boyd as Hoppy and United Artists produced 31 others, also with Bill Boyd. Never in Hollywood history has one man played the same character in as many features. When audiences the world over saw the films, Bill Boyd and Hopalong Cassidy became synonymous.

Time Magazine in 1950 said, “Boyd made Hoppy a veritable Galahad of the range, a soft spoken paragon who did not smoke, drink or kiss girls, who tried to capture the rustlers instead of shooting them, and who always let the villain draw first if gunplay was inevitable.” Boyd himself said, “I played down the violence, tried to make Hoppy an admirable character and I insisted on grammatical English.” His character was well known for moseying up the bar and ordering milk.

In 1950, Boyd moved the character to television, this time with remarkable foresight. He had purchased the television rights to all the Hoppy motion pictures and licensed 52 of them to the NBC Television Network to be telecast as one hour episodes. From the moment that Hopalong Cassidy premiered on NBC, Bill Boyd became an international hero, for the films were telecast not only in America but all over the world as well.

Twelve of the remaining motion picture features that Boyd retained under the Company name, “North Vines,” were edited by him into half hour episodes. Following this move, he formed a new television production company to shoot a series of 40 new half hour episodes. The company ended up creating a total of 52 half hours for the NBC network.

William Boyd’s popularity was astounding. He received 15 thousand fan letters a week and endless requests to make public appearances. He made two worldwide tours while NBC pressed him to continue production. During public appearances, as many as a million fans turned out to see him, among them: presidents, congressmen, governors and generals. As he was in his sixties by this time, he began to feel that the Hoppy character could not be properly portrayed at this age. He was also feeling the stress of being before the cameras month after month. The year before he retired, he made 40 Hoppy episodes in as many weeks and made one more tour around the world for the Newsboys’ Association.

After that tour, he put his horse Topper out to pasture and said goodbye to his alter ego, Hopalong Cassidy. Boyd was reluctant to retire because of his loyal fans and the knowledge that his large production crew would be put out of work. Fortunately, CBS was about to start shooting the series, Gunsmoke, and Boyd was able to turn over his company to that network, assuring employment for his entire crew.

Topper is buried at the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park in Calabasas, California. The park is called S.O.P.H.I.E. (Save Our Pets’ History in Eternity).

U. S. Television Office, Inc. the copyright proprietor of the Hopalong Cassidy Motion Picture Film Library and owner of the merchandising rights to the Hopalong Cassidy characters selected Kansas for the home of the “Hopalong Cassidy Cowboy Museum”. Among the museum’s features are displays honoring Hopalong Cassidy as well as the Chisholm Trail and other Silver Screen Cowboys.

September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998

 

Movie Cowboy/Singing Cowboy: Gene Autry’s career spanned some 70 years in the entertainment industry and he became famous in film, radio, television, live theater and in rodeo performances.

He recorded and wrote hundreds of songs and was the most successful singing cowboy ever. He made 93 movies and starred in 91 television productions. Gene Autry was ranked among the most celebrated film stars and for years was considered to be the most popular Western film actor.

Born in Tioga, Texas on September 29, 1907, Gene Autry was raised in Texas and Oklahoma. Discovered by humorist Will Rogers, in 1929, Autry was billed as “Oklahoma’s Yodeling Cowboy” at KVOO in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He gained a popular following and received a recording contract with Columbia Records in 1929. Soon after, he performed on the “National Barn Dance” for radio station WLS in Chicago. Autry first appeared on screen in 1934 and up to 1953 popularized the musical Western and starred in 93 feature films. In 1940 theater exhibitors of America voted Autry the fourth biggest box office attraction, behind Mickey Rooney, Clark Gable, and Spencer Tracy.

Autry made 640 recordings, including more than 300 songs written or co-written by him. His records sold more than 100 million copies and he has more than a dozen gold and platinum records, including the first record ever certified gold. His Christmas and children’s records Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane) and Peter Cottontail are among his platinum recordings. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the second all-time best selling Christmas single, boasts in excess of 30 million in sales.

From 1940 to 1956 the public listened to him on Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch radio show that was heard weekly over the CBS Radio Network, featuring Autry’s trademark theme song Back In The Saddle Again. In addition, Autry’s popularity was apparent during his personal appearance tours. He was the first performer to sell out Madison Square Garden, and his concert and rodeo appearances throughout the United States and Europe are legendary. He served as a model for other performers. Autry did two shows a day, seven days a week, for 65 to 85 days at a stretch.

Gene Autry joined the Army Air Corps in 1942 and became Sgt. Gene Autry. During the war, he ferried fuel, ammunition, and arms in the China-India-Burma theater of war and flew over the Himalayas, the hazardous air route known as “The Hump.” When the war ended Autry was reassigned to Special Services, where he toured with a USO troupe in the South Pacific before resuming his movie career in 1946.

In 1950, Autry became the first major movie star to use the television medium where he excelled and for the next five years through his Flying A Pictures he produced and starred in 91 half-hour episodes of The Gene Autry Show for CBS Television. This success lead him to produce such popular TV series as Annie Oakley, The Range Rider, Buffalo Bill Jr., The Adventures Of Champion as well as the first 39 episodes of Death Valley Days.

He carried his love for entertaining and sharp business sense into broadcasting, where, under the Golden West Broadcasters banner, he owned such award-winning stations as KMPC radio and KTLA Television in Los Angeles as well as other stations across the country. Autry’s great love for baseball prompted him to acquire the American League California Angels in 1961. Active in Major League Baseball, Autry held the title of Vice President of the American League until his death.

Autry’s long-cherished dream came true with the opening in November 1988 of the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum, since acclaimed as one of the finest museums on the West. Autry intended to give something back to the community that had been so good to him. In January 2004 the museum merged with the Southwest Museum. As part of this affiliation, an umbrella company was created. The new Autry National Center consists of three entities: the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of the American West, and the Institute for the Study of the American West. Today thousands of visitors learn the fascinating history of America’s West through world-class collections of art and artifacts.

Autry is the only entertainer to have all five stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one each for Radio, Recording, Motion Pictures, Television, and Live Theater. He was a 33rd Degree Mason and Honorary Inspector General and was given the prestigious award of the Grand Cross of the Court of Honor. Among the many hundreds of honors and awards Autry has received were induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame; the American Academy of Achievement Award, the Los Angeles Area Governor’s Emmy from The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences; and the Board of Directors Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Achievement in Arts Foundation.

Gene Autry was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, The National Cowboy Hall of Fame, the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame, and he received The Songwriters Guild Life Achievement Award. He was also honored by his songwriting peers with a lifetime achievement award from ASCAP.

Autry died at his home in Studio City, California on October 2, 1998. He was 91 years old.

Gene Autry’s Ten Commandments of a Cowboy

1. He must not take unfair advantage of the enemy.
2. He must never go back on his word.
3. He must always tell the truth.
4. He must be gentle with children, elderly people and animals.
5. He must not possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas.
6. He must help people in distress.
7. He must be a good worker.
8. He must respect women, parents, and his nation’s laws.
9. He must neither drink nor smoke.
10. He must be a patriot.

 

March 21, 1880 – January 20, 1971

 

 

Movie Cowboy:  Bronco Billy was the first silent screen cowboy star and appeared in “The Great Train Robbery”.

Born Max Aronson in Little Rock, Arkansas, “Bronco Billy” was an actor, writer, director, and producer who is best known as the first star of the Western film genre. His mother, Esther Ash Aronson, was from a Russian Jewish family, and his father, Henry Aronson, a traveling salesman, was from a German Jewish family.

At age 18, he moved to New York City where he was a photographer’s model and newspaper vendor before appearing on stage as a vaudeville performer.  He later worked with Edwin S. Porter as an actor and sometime script collaborator.

In Porter’s early motion picture The Great Train Robbery (1903), Anderson played three roles. He saw the film for the first time at a vaudeville theater and was overwhelmed by the audience’s reaction to it.  It was then that Anderson decided to go into the film industry full bore.

In 1907, he and George K. Spoor founded Essanay Studios (“S and A” stood for Spoor and Anderson), which was one of the predominant early movie studios.  He used the stage name Gilbert M. Anderson, and began to write, direct, and act in his own Westerns — over 300 short films made for the studio.  He gained the most popularity in a series of 148 Western shorts in which he played the first real movie cowboy hero, “Broncho Billy”.

Anderson also found time to direct a series of comedy Westerns starring Augustus Carney. In 1916, Anderson sold his ownership in Essanay and retired from acting. He returned to New York, bought the Longacre Theatre and produced plays, but without permanent success. He then made a brief comeback as a producer with a series of shorts with Stan Laurel, including his first work with Oliver Hardy in A Lucky Dog (shot in 1919; released 1921). Conflicts with the studio, Metro, led him to retire again after 1920.

He resumed producing movies, as owner of Progressive Pictures, into the 1950s, then retired again. In 1958, he received an Honorary Academy Award as a “motion picture pioneer” for his “contributions to the development of motion pictures as entertainment.”

In his seventies, Anderson came out of retirement for a cameo role in The Bounty Killer (1965).

He died in 1971 at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.  He was cremated and his ashes are kept in a vault at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles.

Anderson was honored posthumously in 1998 with his image on a U.S. postage stamp. In 2002, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. For the past nine years, Niles (now part of Fremont), California, site of the western Essanay Studios, has held an annual “Bronco Billy Silent Film Festival”.   He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

(December 31, 1920 – December 17, 1999)

Movie Cowboy/Singing Cowboy:   Rex Allen, an actor, singer and songwriter, was known as the “Arizona Cowboy” and “Mister Cowboy”.

Rex was a real cowboy legend starring in western movies. His voice is still treasured in the narrations he did of Walt Disney’s “Wonderful World of Color” nature

Born Rex Elvie Allen to Horace Allen and Faye Clark on a ranch in Mud Springs Canyon, forty miles from Willcox, Arizona, Rex Allen would grow up to become a popular entertainer known as “The Arizona Cowboy.”

As a boy he played guitar and sang at local functions with his fiddle-playing father until high school graduation when he toured the southwest as a rodeo rider. He got his start in show business on the East Coast in radio as “Cactus Rex”, then found work in Chicago as a performer on the WLS Radio program, National Barn Dance. In 1948 he signed with Mercury Records where he recorded a number of successful country music albums until 1952 when he switched to the Decca label where he would continue making records into the 1970s.

When singing cowboys such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry were very much in vogue in American film, in 1949 Republic Pictures in Hollywood gave him a screen test and put him under contract. Beginning in 1950, Allen starred as himself in nineteen of Hollywood’s western movies. One of the top-ten box office draws of the day, whose character was soon depicted in comic books. On screen Allen personified the clean cut, God-fearing American hero of the wild west who wore a white Stetson, loved his faithful horse named “KoKo” and had a loyal buddy who shared his adventures. Allen’s comic relief sidekick in first few pictures was Buddy Ebsen and then character actor, Slim Pickens.

Over his career, Rex Allen wrote and recorded many songs, a number of which were featured in his own films. Late in coming to the industry, his film career was relatively short as the popularity of westerns faded by the mid 1950s. He has the distinction of making the last singing western in 1954. As other cowboy stars made the transition to television, Allen tried too, cast as Dr. Bill Baxter for a half-hour weekly series called Frontier Doctor.

Allen was gifted with a rich, pleasant voice, ideally suited for narration, and was able to find considerable work as a narrator in a variety of films, especially for Walt Disney Pictures wildlife films and TV shows. He also was the voice of the father on Disney’s Carousel of Progress, which was presented at the 1964 World’s Fair and is now at Walt Disney World. In addition to Disney, Allen provided the narration for the Hanna-Barbera animation of Charotte’s Web. He was also the voice behind Purina Dog Chow commercials for many years. In his later years he also performed frequently with actor Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Rex Allen was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6821 Hollywood Blvd. In 1983, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

In 1989 his life story was told in the book Rex Allen: “My Life” Sunrise to Sunset – The Arizona Cowboy written by Paula Simpson-Witt and Snuff Garrett.

Rex Allen died in 1999 in Tucson, Arizona. He died of a massive coronary, causing him to collapse in his driveway. Unaware of this, his assistant inadvertantly backed the car over him. Cremated, his ashes were scattered near the Rex Allen Museum and Willcox Cowboy Hall of Fame in Willcox, Arizona where most of his memorabilia is on display. A few months before his death, Allen gave an extensive interview on his days at WLS radio to announcer and producer Jeff Davis for the 75th Anniversary History of WLS Radio program, which was broadcast after Allen died. That segment of the program was dedicated to his memory.

Buckshot – TV Wild Bill Hickok
Wild Bill Hickok’s horse in the ‘Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok’ TV show running from 1951-58. Guy Madison as Hickok rode Buckshot and Jingles rode Joker.

 

 

Buttermilk – Dale Evans Horse
Buttermilk (1941-1972) was a light buckskin Quarter Horse made famous in American Western films with his owner/rider, cowgirl star Dale Evans. The horse was ridden by Dale in a 1950s television series with her husband Roy Rogers who rode his Golden Palomino, “Trigger.” Both horses were extremely popular and became a marketing success with cast iron and plastic replicas, lamps, and dozens of other products purchased by adults and children alike. After Buttermilk died in 1972, his hide was stretched over a plaster likeness and put on display at the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum in Victorville, California which has since been relocated to Branson, Missouri.

Champion – Gene Autry’s Horse
Champion appeared with Gene Autry as his partner and sidekick throughout their legendary career in film, radio, and television. Pictured here is the Original Champion in Autry’s 1939 “Home on the Prairie”. Actually, there were three “official” Champions that performed in Autry films and several specialized horses, such as Little Champ, Lindy Champion, Touring Champion, and Champion Three.

Other horses served as doubles for movie stunts and personal appearances. The Original Champion was sorrel-colored, had a blaze down his face and white stockings on all his legs except the right front. His first onscreen credit was for 1935’s Melody Trail. He died while Autry was in military service.

Champion was the only horse of a western film hero to have a TV series. “The Adventures of Champion” was produced by Autry’s Flying A production company, and starred Barry Curtis as Ricky North, Jim Bannon as Uncle Sandy North, Francis McDonald as Will Calhoun, and Ewing Mitchell as Sheriff Powers. The program first aired on the CBS television network, and ran from September, 1955 through February, 1956. There was also a Champion comic book (but Gene’s horse wasn’t the only one to have a comic series – Roy Rogers’ Trigger also had a comic book run).

Duke – John Wayne
Duke is John Wayne’s horse in the western, ‘Ride Him, Cowboy’ (1932). John Drury saves Duke, a wild horse accused of murder, and trains him. When he discovers that the real murderer, a badguy known as The Hawk, is the town’s leading citizen, Drury arrested on a fraudulent charge.

Loco and Diablo
Pancho and the Cisco Kid’s horses.

Scout – Tonto’s Horse
Tonto, who rode Scout the pinto horse, was the sidekick of The Lone Ranger, the popular Western character created by George W. Trendle (in collaboration with others). Tonto himself was created by writer Fran Striker for the original radio series which began in 1933; Tonto made his first appearance on the twelfth show (which aired on station WXYZ in February 25, 1933). Though he became as iconic as his friend, Tonto was originally created just so the Lone Ranger would have someone to talk to. Throughout the radio run (which spanned twenty-one years), with only a few exceptions, Tonto was played by American actor John Todd. Over the years, Tonto’s horses names were White Feller, Paint and Scout. Before September 1935 (on the radio series) Tonto rode double with the Lone Ranger.

Silver – The Lone Ranger’s Horse
Silver was the name of the hero’s horse in the long-running radio, and later, television program The Lone Ranger. Silver was a magnificent white stallion, named after his being found near a silver mine also found by The Lone Ranger and his Indian sidekick, Tonto. (In a later, retcon version, The Ranger saved Silver from a raging buffalo and then adopted him.) Silver’s exploits almost made him the equivalent of another character in the series, as he was extremely intelligent and well-trained (this could also be said of Tonto’s mount, Scout). Silver won the Award for Excellence (Patsy) in 1957. This award is for animals who are outstanding actors in the television and motion picture industry.

 

Target – TV Annie Oakley’s horse
Target was Annie Oakley’s horse in the western adventure series ‘Annie Oakley’. Target was owned by sharpshooter and rancher, Annie Oakley (Gail Davis) who lived in the old west town of Diablo. She later owned a horse named Daisy. The two horses used to play the role of Target were rental horses from the Ace Hudkins Stables. Annie’s younger brother Tagg (Jimmy Hawkins) rode the Amigo colt Pixie and Deputy Lofty Craig (Brad Johnson) rode Forest.

 

Topper – Hopalong Cassidy’s horse
Topper, the Arabian white stallion with black ears was ridden by western cowboy star William Boyd when he starred in the 1930s Hopalong Cassidy movies and TV series based on the stories written by Clarence E. Mulford. Boyd purchased Topper in 1937 for the “Hoppy” movies. Topper is buried at the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park in Calabasas, California. The park is called S.O.P.H.I.E. (Save Our Pets’ History in Eternity).

 

Trigger (1932-1965) – Roy Rogers’ Horse
Trigger, a 15.3 hands golden Palomino stallion, was made famous in American Western films with his owner/rider, cowboy star Roy Rogers. The horse was ridden by Roy in many of his motion pictures and in Rogers’ 1950s television series with his wife Dale Evans who rode Buttermilk.

Trigger became the most famous horse in film entertainment, even having his own Dell comic book recounting his exploits. Trigger was bought by Roy in 1938 after he spotted him on the set of “The Adventures of Robin Hood” where he was being ridden by Olivia de Havilland. After Trigger died in 1965, his hide was stretched over a plaster likeness and put on display at the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum in Victorville, California. The museum has since been relocated to Branson, Missouri.