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Especially by today's standards, Roy Rogers' claim to be King of
Cowboys might sound ludicrous, he quite simply lacked the charisma of
other cowboy greats like John Wayne (with whom he co-starred in Dark
Command) or latter day cowboy Clint Eastwood, his Westerns were
never on par with those of let's say Tom Mix and Ken Maynard, who
reigned supreme in the genre 10 to 20 years earlier, and especially from
today's point of view, a cowboy who would burst into singing a cheesy song
in pretty much each and every one of his films (and often repeatedly so)
hardly qualifies as King of
Cowboys - but that said,
there was a time during the 1940's when Roy Rogers simply was the biggest
name in Westerns, and especially for the kiddie crowds, who didn't
necessarily understand John Wayne's more elaborate A-Westerns and were too
young to even remember Tom Mix or Ken Maynard, Roy Rogers was an
undisputed idol. Thing is that Roy Rogers initially had no intentions to
become an actor, he was a singer on the constant rise to fame when he got
into movies rather by accident - and he would keep singing throughout most
of his career, with the effect that some of especially his later Westerns
looked suspicially like musical revues, with a little Western story thrown
in just for good measure ... but I'm getting ahead here, let's start at
the beginning: Roy Rogers was born Leonard Slye in urban
Cincinati Ohio in 1911, at the very location where the Riverside Stadium
(later Cynergy Field), home of the Cincinnati Reds, was built only a few
years later. The Slye family wouldn't remain in the city too long, they
moved to rural Portsmouth, Ohio, only months after little Leonard was
born, where they reportedly first lived on a houseboat, and later (Roy was
about 7) dad bought a farm. However, the farm failed to become a success,
and to sustain his family, dad had to move back to the city during the
week to work in a shoe factory while farmwork fell upon Roy, his mother
and his three sisters. However, the farm got from bad too worse, and
eventually Roy decided to drop out of school (after a mere two years of
high school) and move to Cincinnati to work in the shoe factory with his
father. Then the Great Depression struck the USA, and for some
reason, the Slye family thought the odds would be better in California
than in Ohio, so they moved West - and realized they were wrong,
California was just as miserable as the rest of the country. During that
period, Roy accepted pretty much every (odd) job he could find, including
picking peaches in exactly the labour camps brought to life in John
Steinbeck's classic Grapes of Wrath. During al the
years of hardship though, Roy Rogers kept making music, something he had
developed an interest in back in his farmdays, when he first mixed
traditional country and Western music with yodeling (really). Now
it was 1931, and legend has it that he was talked into performing at an
amateur talent show on the radio by his sister ... and purely based on
this radio performance, he was hired by a country and Western band called
the Rocky Mountaineers pretty much right on the spot as a singer.
It was not long after he was joined by a second singer (not
something unusual for a countryband back then), Bob Nolan, a man who would
accompany him throughout most of his later career - even if he didn't stay
with the Rocky Mountaineers for more than a year. When the Rocky
Mountaineers were going nowhere, and going fast, Roy quit and subsequently
played in all kinds of Country and Western bands, including The
International Cowboys, The O-Bar-O Cowboys and Jack and His
Texas Outlaws, before the formed the Pioneer Trio with Bob
Nolan and Tim Spence - who was originally Nolan's replacement at the Rocky
Mountaineers. Eventually, the Pioneer Trio was rechristened The
Sons of the Pioneers (rather unexpectedly, allegedly, by a radio DJ
who just didn't think they looked old enough to be pioneers), and
slowly but steadily they were becoming more and more of a success, first
on radio (then a booming industry) and records, but evntually also on film
... The first film appearance of Roy Rogers and the Sons of
the Pioneers was reportedly Radio Scout (circa 1934), a now
forgotten Warner
Brothers short starring Swedish comedian El Brendel, which was
soon followed by the Hal Roach-produced comedy short Slightly Static
(1935, William H.Terhune) starring Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly, and the
Western short Way Up Thar (1935, Mack Sennett), produced by Educational
Pictures. Eventually, the Sons of the Pioneers - including
Roy of course - got their first roles in a feature film, the musical
Western The Old Homestead (1935, William Nigh), produced by Liberty
Pictures and starring Mary Carlisle. Soon to follow were two
Westerns starring Charles Starrett and produced by Columbia,
Gallant Defender (1935) and The Mysterious Avenger (1936,
both directed by David Selman), two starring Dick Foran at Warner
Brothers, Song of the Saddle (1936, Louis King) and California
Mail (1936, Noel M.Smith), and a Paramount-produced
Western musical starring Bing Crosby, Rhythm on the Range (1936,
Norman Taurog), before Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers eventually landed
at Republic,
to support Gene Autry in two films, The Big Show (1936, Mack
V.Wright) and The Old Corral
(1936, Joseph Kane) - the latter of which also starred pre-star Lon Chaney
jr in a small role [Lon Chaney jr bio
- click here].
Back in 1936, Gene Autry was hot stuff:
He might not have invented the singing cowboy genre, but he has
popularized it with his Mascot-serial
The Phantom Empire
(1935, Otto Brower, B.Reeves Eason) [Mascot
history - click here] and subsequent Westerns
for Republic
[Republic history - click here]
- and suddenly every major and minor filmstudio decided it needed its own
series featuring a singing cowboy as well - but so far, noone was able to
compete with Autry. So far ... Thing is, since Gene Autry had become the
first star of the then newly formed (or rather newly merged) Republic,
he had become a tad difficult, so Republic
was looking for someone to fill his boots, not exactly to replace him but
to give him competition - which might explain why The
Old Corral almost looks like a trial run for Roy, who, despite
being credited only with his band as the Sons of the Pioneers,
plays the secondary hero and has quite a bit of dialogue. So
eventually, after Roy and the Sons of the Pioneers did another
Charles Starrett Western, The Old Wyoming (1937, Folmar Blangsted),
over at Columbia,
he answered a casting call at Republic,
who were by now actively looking for a singing cowboy - and Roy landed the
contract, even if that meant the (temporary) break-up with the Sons of the Pioneers
who stayed at Columbia
to do more Charles Starrett pictures. Roy's first two films for
Republic
[Republic history - click here]
were nothing special, he did supporting roles in the Three
Mesquiteers-Western Wild Horse Rodeo (1937, George
Sherman) and the Gene Autry starrer The Old Barn Dance (1938,
Joseph Kane), but at least he got to sing a song in both of them. Curiously
enough, Roy, who was listed under his birth name Leonard Slye in
his previous films, went as Dick Weston in these two films and these two
only.
As legends go, Gene Autry failed to report on set for his
next movie, Under Western Stars (1938, Joseph Kane), something
which Autry did routinely just to let the studio feel his power ... but
this time Republic
was prepared, and they promptly promoted The Old Barn Dance's
supporting player Dick Weston to leading man status, changed his name to
Roy Rogers ... and over night, a star was born - and incidently the only
man who could ever compete with Gene Autry, Republic's
other singing country star. (By the way, unlike Gene Autry, Roy Rogers
would remain with Republic
throughout his B-Western career.) Actually with Under Western Stars, a
Western about Roy trying to convince a congressman about the hardships of
the dustbowl, pretty much the formula for Roy's later movies was already
in place (actually, the formula was lifted one to one from the Gene
Autry-series of Westerns): The film was decidedly light-weight, with Roy
as the knight in shining armour always getting the baddies in the
end and righting a few wrongs, with always enough time to sing a tune or
two and woo a lady. Roy would even ride his famous horse Trigger, a long haired
stunt horse previously ridden by Olivia de Havilland in Adventures of
Robin Hood (1938, Michael Curtiz, William Keighley),
in this one, the horse he would ride through most of his career and that
in some of his later films would even get bigger roles. And Joseph Kane,
who directed Under Western Stars, would stay with Roy and direct
almost all of his fillms until 1944 - in total, Kane directed Roy in 41
movies with Roy as the lead (and that's not counting the two times Roy
sided Gene Autry). Actually, Kane was a leftover from the Gene Autry
Westerns, but the combination of him and Roy Rogers seems to have worked
out since he quit working on the Autry-series in 1939. Now Joseph Kane
was not a particularly remarkable director, he was certainly no match to
John Ford or Raoul Walsh - but that's of course an unfair comparison since
those were A-list directors. However, his movies also were never as
exciting and interesting as those of let's say B-Western auteur Robert
N.Bradbury. Kane was pretty much a contract director (and would remain so
with Republic
until the studio ceased production in 1959 [!]) who delivered exactly what he was
asked for, with Westerns being his speciality. His films were usually
competently crafted and reasonably well-paced, but they would usually lack
a personal style, original ideas or any particularly exciting setpieces. Along
with Joseph Kane, Roy Rogers also took over Gene Autry's sidekick, former
vaudeville comedian Smiley Burnette, however their association was not
quite as long-lasting, Smiley only sided Roy in his first 2 starring
films, Under Western Stars and Billy the Kid Returns (1938,
Joseph Kane) to then team up again with Autry. It was only when Gene Autry
joined the army to fight in World War II that Burnette and Rogers were
teamed up again for a few films - Heart of the Golden West (1942, Joseph
Kane), Idaho, King
of the Cowboys, and Silver Spurs (all 1943, Joseph Kane) -
before Burnette joined up with Eddie Dew (and later Bob Livingston) for
the John Paul Revere series. Yet later he made a few Weserns
with Sunset Carson before he supported Charles Starrett in the Durango
Kid-series ... but I digress ... With Smiley Burnette
gone as sidekick, Republic
tried out a few other possibilities, Raymond Hatton would side Rogers for
3 pictures - Come on Rangers (1938, Joseph Kane), Roug Riders'
Round-up and Frontier Pony Express (both 1939, Joseph Kane) -,
while the duo Lulu Belle and Scotty (= Myrtle and Scotty Wiseman)
would support Rogers in one - Shine on, Harvest Moon (1938, Joseph
Kane) -, but it wasn't until 1939's Southward Ho (1939, Joseph
Kane) that Roy found his ideal sidekick in Gabby Hayes. (By the way,
Raymond Hatton would share sidekick duties with Gabby Hayes in one more
film, Wall Street Cowboy [1939, Joseph Kane], but soon he would move on to
play Rusty Joslin in Republic's
Three
Mesquiteers, sharing the screen with John Wayne and Crash
Corrigan for two films, Wyoming Outlaw and New
Frontier/Frontier
Horizon [both 1939, George Sherman] [John Wayne in the 1930's -
click here, Crash Corrigan bio - click
here], then with Bob Livingston and
Duncan Renaldo for seven more. Much later he would return to support Roy
Rogers in a couple or so episodes of The
Roy Rogers Show.) By the time Gabby Hayes hooked up
with Roy Rogers as a permanent sidekick (they where in 44 movies together
as well as occasionally appearing together on Roy's radioshow in the
mid-1940's), he had already garnered himself quite a reputation as a
Western actor ... though he did not make his first film until he was circa
45 ... Born in 1885, Hayes spent his youth as a vaudeville and circus
performer before eventually winding up a successful businessman - until he
lost pretty much everything in the 1929 stock exchange crash, and decided
to turn his attention to film acting - and while he appeared in films of
numerous different genres, it was the Western genre that soon stuck with
him - his first Western was God's
Country and the Man (1931, John P.McCarty) starring Tom Tyler [Tom
Tyler bio - click here] -, which was kind of ironic because
until then he couldn't even ride a horse (he did learn to ride for future
work though). Gabby could soon be seen supporting Bob Steele and John
Wayne in their films for Monogram
(sometimes in bad guy-roles), but his breakthrough as a Western
sidekick came with the Paramount-produced
Hopalong
Cassidyseries of films starring William Boyd, with
which he stayed from film one in 1935 - Hopalong Cassidy (Howard
Bretherton) - until 1939, playing Hoppy's faithful sidekick Windy. From
the Hopalong
Cassidy series, Gabby pretty much directly
switched to the Roy Rogers-Westerns and only occasionally made appearances
outside the series (like the Gene Autry Western Melody Ranch [1940,
Joseph Santley] that also starred Jimmy Durante). Gabby proved to be the
ideal sidekick for Roy, he was perfect in playing the grumpy old man with
a heart of gold next to Roy's optimistic, wiry, youthful charmer who
always had a song on his lips. And unlike many sidekicks, e.g. Smiley
Burnette, Gabby never tried too hard to be funny - which at least in my
eyes ruined most of Smiley Burnette's performances (but be that as it may,
fact remains that Smiley and Gabby were the only two sidekicks who
repeatedly ranked among the Top Ten Western Stars of both the Motion
Picture Herald and Boxoffice). Gabby's last film with Roy
Rogers by the way was 1946's Heldorado
(William Witney [William Witney
bio - click here]). Gabby did not do much movie work after that ... By and large, the Roy
Rogers-Westerns Joseph Kane directed were without genuine highlights - but
also without real lows - but I have still picked out a few that might be
more interesting than others:
- Billy the Kid Returns (1938), Days
of Jesse James (1939), Young Buffalo Bill, Young
Bill Hickok (both 1940), and Jesse James at Bay (1941)
are all (rather free) takes on historic Western characters.
Interestingly, while Roy plays both Wild Bill
Hickok and Buffalo
Bill,
he doesn't play Billy the Kid (but his look-alike) and does not play
Jesse James in Days
of Jesse James while he does play him in Jesse James at Bay.
- The Carson City Kid
(1940) features a nice and rare bad guy role for fellow cowboy hero
Bob Steele [Bob
Steele bio - click here]. Plus, this is the film that has leading man Roy invite his
leading lady Pauline Moore to dinner at the local Chinese ... which
seems to be a bit out of place.
- With his steady and stadily growing success, Roy managed to perusade Republic
to hire his former band, the Sons of the Pioneer, led now by
Bob Nolan, as regular
supporting cast (and musicians) on his films, starting with Red
River Valley (1941). They would remain a fixture of Roy's movies
for the next 7 years, when they were substituted by Foy Willing and the Riders of the
Purple Sage (presumably for budgetary reasons).
- Sons of the Pioneers' last: Night Time in Nevada (1948,
William Witney [William
Witney bio - click here]).
- Riders of the Purple Sage's first: Grand Canyon Trail (1948, William
Witney).
- Like most other actors of the time, Roy Rogers did his fair share of
propaganda
work in the 1940's. Thus a film like King
of the Cowboys (1943) for example relies less on Western
clichés but more on miniature radios, car chases and timebombs,
things you'd rather expect from an espionage thriller, but all in
Western settings.
- After having had quite a variety of leading ladies over the years,
Roy was teamed up with Dale Evans for the first time in 1944's Cowboy
and the Senorita, a pairing that seemed particularly fortunate
because back then Dale - unlike most other B-Western leading ladies - still displayed a spunky persona (not the mother
of the nation she transformed into in later years) and she and Roy had
instant chemistry going on between them. Soon enough, Dale became Roy's
regular leading lady pretty much for the remainder of his career on
film and eventually also in private life - but more of that later ...
During Joseph Kane's tenure of the Roy Rogers-series, Roy only strayed
away from the director very rarely, like playing a role in the
Western comedies Jeepers Creepers (1939, Frank McDonald) and
Arkansas Judge (1941, Frank McDonald) - both starring Leon, Frank and June
Weaver - or supporting none other than John Wayne in a rare Republic-A-Western,
Dark
Command (1940, Raoul Walsh), in which Roy, as the hothead brother
of Wayne's girlfriend Claire Trevor, actually proved he was capable of playing more than the
knight-in-shining-armor, an opportunity he was given all too rarely during
his long career.
In 1940, while his career was definitely going places, Roy
realized that he was not making the amount of money to mirror that, so he
hooked up with manager Al Rush, in hopes that Rush would negotiate a
contract more in Roy's favour - however, the results Rush came up with
were behind Roy's expectations, salarywise. Instead though, Rush would come
up with something way more valuable (in the long run): He secured Roy
Rogers the rights to the name Roy Rogers (which was originally made up and
thus owned by Republic,
naturally). And soon enough, Roy could licence off his name and likeness
left and right, and as a result he would soon enough show up on pretty
much everything a young boy could want: alarm clocks, wrist watches,
lunchboxes, ... whatever there was, it seemed, there was a fair chance
that Roy was on it (actually in terms of licensing, Roy was allegedly only
surpassed by the Walt Disney stable of characters) - which naturally made
him a rich man for the rest of his life, and as a thank you, Roy remained
loyal to Al Rush for the next 49 years (or until Al Rush's death, if you
may).
Song of Nevada (1944) was the last Roy Rogers-film
handled by Joseph Kane, with San Fernando Valley (1944), only
released a month or so later, being directed by John English, who would
soon hand the series over to Frank McDonald and finally William Witney [William
Witney bio - click here],
with one film - Out California Way (1946) - being directed by
Lesley Selander.
One would now think that the new directors infused some
new blood into the series that over the years has run a little stale -
sure, Joseph Kane was still capable of directing solid B-Westerns, but not
much more than that -, but unfortunately, the series slowly took a turn to
the worse: What was formerly B-Westerns with a few songs thrown in became
increasingly more song-heavy, until the Roy Rogers Westerns resembled more
a revue film with a cowboy theme and a few action scenes thrown in as
bridging sequences. And more and more screentime was given to Roy's
faithful horse Trigger, who often had whole sequences to himself, which
only made Roy's film all the cheesier and more childish (but not in a good
way). A film like My Pal
Trigger (1946, Frank McDonald) - the film about how Roy got his
faithful horse - for example is almost painful to watch because of that.
Also, Roy's later movies would frequently carry conservative, pro-family,
pro-faith messages - and often hammered them home way too bluntly (which
is much worse than just carrying these messages). That all said of
course, Roy's movies - e.g. Heldorado
(1946, William Witney) - could still occasionally pack a punch, and some
of his Western revues were fun in a campy sort of way ... they were
just no great Westerns, maybe less so than Joseph Kane's bunch of films.
Still,
despite Roy's films obvious shortcomings (provided you watch them as
Western), they continued to be big successes, so much so that in 1947,
starting with Apache Rose (William Witney), Republic
had his films shot in colour - which was highly unlikely at a time
when B-films were generally shot in black-and-white (for budgetary
reasons), and Westerns were no exception. Of course, Republic
would not afford the Technicolor process but Trucolor, a
process that is cheaper but also inferior, inasmuch as it gives the film a
sort-of cheesy look by default - which did somehow correspond with the
content Roy's Westerns from that era though. In 1950, with the traditional
B-Western on the decline though, Republic
would switch back to black and white (again for budgetary reasons), with
Roy's last colour film being the all-star Western Trail of Robin Hood
(1950, William Witney). While his professional life was
going from strength to strength though, Roy was less fortunate in his
private life: In 1946, Roy's second wife Arline died from an embolism
after having given birth to Roy's second real child Dusty (they
already had one adopted daughter). Roy married his then permanent leading
lady - who has turned friend and obviously lover - Dale Evans on New
Year's Eve 1947. She gave birth to their only child Robin Elizabeth in
1950 - but the girl was diagnosed with Down's Syndrom, and she died
shortly before her second birthday. Together with Dale, Roy also adopted
four more children, one of whom died in a car accident in 1964, another
one choked to death in 1965 ... (By the way, while it is commonly
believed that Dale Evans co-starred with Roy in all his Republic
films from Cowboy
and the Senorita onwards, she did in fact take a time-out in the
1950/51 season - rather understandably since she was pregnant with Robin
Elizabeth. The films she was not in were Sunset in the West, North
of the Great Divide, and Trail of Robin Hood [all 1950, William
Witney] - Roy's all-star Western that also starred Rex Allen, Allan Rocky
Lane, Monte Hale, Tom Tyler [Tom
Tyler bio - click here] and Crash Corrigan [Crash Corrigan bio - click
here] -, Spoilers of the Plains, Heart of the Rockies
and In Old Amarillo [all 1951, William Witney]. Roy's leading ladies
in these films were Penny Edwards and Estelita Rodriguez.)
By
the early 1950's, the B-Western (or series-Western) of old was breathing
its last while Western-series on TV were on the rise. Allegedly, Roy
initially wanted to persuade Republic
[Republic history - click here]
to produce his TV-series after his contract expired but they refused, then
wanting to have nothing to do with the new medium (though they soon
changed their minds). Thus Roy left the studios and - parallel to a
guestspot in the Bob Hope-comedy Son of Paleface (1952, Frank
Tashlin), in which he also got to sing, ride Trigger and act next to Jane
Russell - he launched his own TV-show (or rather brought his radioshow to
television) called The
Roy Rogers Show in late 1951. Dale Evans, Roy's wife, would
also play his wife in the series (and slowly become the [cowboy]mama of
the nation), Trigger was there, Bullet the dog who has sided Roy in his
last few films, was taken over into the series, and Pat Brady of the Sons of the
Pioneers would handle the comic relief - not all that well, though.
The series was definitely a step down from his movie work, there was
pretty much no money available for extensive action scenes let alone
special effects, plus much of Roy's singing was now done to advertise
cereals or candy (remember, this was the time when actors still personally
appeared in commercials for the companies that sponsored their shows), and
at times, the show's plots were buried beneath way too much preaching
about antiquated family values, still the show was going strong and stayed on the air until 1957, with a
total of a hundred episodes. After the show had come to an end,
Roy slowed down his activities, considerably, he (and Trigger) did one
more film in the 1950's, which was nothing more than a guestspot in
another Bob Hope Western-comedy, Alias Jesse James (Norman
Z.McLeod), and in the 1960's, he and Dale hosted the shortlived Roy
Rogers and Dale Evans Show (1962). During the 1960's, he made
quite a number of appearances on TV-shows though, something which he would
continue until his death in 1998. It was also in the
1960's that Roy licensed off his name to a chain of restaurants, the Roy
Rogers Family Restaurants, which tried to combine Roy Rogers-style
family values with fast food - and wouldn't you know it, it became a
success and the chain has survived in one form or
another to this day and has made Roy, who had no personal input in the
company besides setting certain standards, another fortune.
In
1973, Roy and Dale made another (TV-)appearance in a film together, the
Western/musical/comedy Saga of Sonora that starred Vince Edwards,
Jill St.John, Zero Mostel and Don Adams, with a guest appearance by Frankie Avalon.
Roy and Dale were only among the supporting cast though. In 1975's Mackintosh
and T.J. (Marvin J.Chomsky) on the other hand Roy played the lead, an
old drifter in the West who tries to give advice to a young man (14 year
old Clay O'Brien) still growing up.
The
Bushwhackers (Stuart Margolin), a 1977-episode of the TV-series Wonder
Woman, in which he starred, was also a hommage to Roy himself.
In this one he plays a Westerner who has adopted numerous kids during
World War II, but now he has to realize that his own son has thrown in
with a bunch of Fifth Columnists - however, Roy and Wonder Woman (Lynda
Carter) sort things out before any real harm is done and in the end Roy
can prove that he's a good father after all ... hoorray to Roy. Now, what
could have been high camp, a cross of Wonder
Woman's inherent camp and Roy's own somehow weird World
War II propaganda efforts, falls flat on its chest because of
its whole good-parenting subtext and cheesy scenes featuring the kids.
Plus, upon Roy's insistence, Lynda Carter did not wear her traditional
revealing costume but had to wear a more buttoned up Western outfit.
Considering the episode was made in 1977, this just proves how out-of-date
Roy was with modern times.
Towards the late 1970's, Roy slowed
down his working schedule and only made appearances on TV occasionally -
which is hardly surprising considering he was going towards 70. His more
interesting appearances might be a guest spot on the Muppet Show
in 1978 and two appearnces on the Lee Majors-series The Fall Guy
in 1983 and 1984 as himself. Roy Rogers died in 1998 from
congestive heart failure, and he died a rich and happy man. (By the way,
Dale Evans would survive him for three more years.) From
todays's rather jaded point of view it's of course easy to ridicule a singing
cowboy and hard to grasp the impact his films once had ... but maybe
for once we are just taking matters too seriously here, by and large the
Roy Rogers-films were good-natured B-Westerns for a kiddie-crowd, and
regarding their box office, they were most successful at that ... and
taken with a grain of salt, some of his movies are quite exhilarating, if
not always intentionally so ...
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