Gene Autry Tipped Stetson

By GENE AUTRY
1907-1998

Humbly, and with a sense of deep affection and gratitude, I doff my Stetson to the greatest cowboy of them all – Will Rogers.      Back in 1944, when the body of this great and kindly man was finally brought back from its temporary resting place in bleak Point Barrow, Alaska, to his native Oklahoma, (1) I was asked to speak at the memorial services. I was in the Army at the time, but was granted special leave for the occasion.      At this stage in my career, I had made more personal appearances than I could count, but now, standing in front of the new tomb of my friend, for the very first time in my professional life I was at a loss for words.      Then my eyes rested on the inscription on the base of the monument, and Will himself gave me my inspiration: “I NEVER MET A MAN I DIDN’T LIKE.”      I elaborated briefly on these, Will’s own words, in simple honest language that our neighbors in Claremore understood. And this is, I believe, the chief reason why I as well as millions of other fans who remember him with fond devotion, doff our hats to the memory of Will Rogers – because he never met a man he didn’t like.      I admire him, too, because out of a full and busy life, he took the time and trouble to help a struggling newcomer. I honestly believe that if it had not been for Will Rogers I would still be working night shift at a small town telegraph key, plinking on my guitar to help fill the empty hours.      Back in 1929, I was relief night operator on the circuit in central Oklahoma, relieving the regular operators while they were on vacation. The nights were long, and the messages were few and far between. I sang and played the guitar for a hobby. With my friend Johnny Long, a railroad brakeman who had a pretty niece, I composed a few tunes, among them, “That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine.”      Late on the evening of November 18 a stranger came into the office and said he wanted to send a fifty-word “N.P.R.” This means “Night Press Rate,” and I was naturally surprised and startled. I glanced up, and I recall very vividly even today the rather eerie effect of this man standing there. I could not see him very well; only in silhouette, because I was behind the cage with only a small work light which blinded me to objects beyond it. He handed me a slip of paper which contained a message of rare wisdom, couched in down-to-earth terms. I have often wished I could remember the content; my only recollection, now, is that it was a simple, homely observation that made sense in a crystal-clear way.      I recall feeling just a little foolish when I asked him where it should be sent – the supernatural effect of the stranger in the darkness, and the philosophical words of his message made an address seem ridiculously mundane.      He broke the spell, though, when he drawled. “It goes to the McNaught Syndicate; sign it Will Rogers.”      Needless to say, I was completely flabbergasted, and even more so when the stranger sat down and wanted to talk. He said he was born on a farm between Claremore and Chelsea which the government had given his great-grandfather, a Cherokee Indian who gave the name to Rogers County. (2) He came back often to see his sister, a Mrs. McSpadden of Chelsea, and other kinfolk.      He complimented me on my playing, and asked to hear more. I played “That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine” and “Dixie Cannon Ball,” and Will allowed that I might be a pretty good hand as an entertainer and gave me the a name to look up if I ever went to New York. This was The Break that every aspiring entertainer needs to get started.      Needless to say, I soon packed off for New York, using my railroad pass, for a two-week vacation, and looked up Johnny Marvin, the name Rogers had given me – one of the country’s top recording artists. He heard me sing, and said I was pretty good but needed more local experience. And on the strength of this interview I went back to Oklahoma and got a 15-minute spot on Tulsa station KVOO in the morning, continuing my telegraph job on an afternoon-evening shift in Sapulpa, a suburb of Tulsa. I was billed as “Oklahoma’s Yodeling Cowboy.”      In November 1930, a man named Art Satherly, vice-president of Columbia Records, came through and looked me up, saying Will Rogers had sent him. He asked me to come to New York, all expenses paid, to record “Silver-Haired Daddy.” (By this time I had married my co-composer’s niece.) The recording contract was intended to be only for a one-shot, but it has lasted twenty years. November, 1950, will be my 20th anniversary as a Columbia recording artist.      In the meantime I had moved to Station WLS in Chicago, and made one quick trip to Hollywood to appear in a Republic serial. In February of 1935 Republic brought me out again, this time under contract to make a series of musical westerns. Alone, and bewildered in a strange place, I naturally set about to look up my good friend Will Rogers.      He was then on the Board of Directors of the very exclusive “Hollywood Writers’ Club,” and had an office in their building. I suppose I looked pretty hay-seedy, and the doorman wasn’t going to let me in, but fortunately Rogers’ office was immediately over the door. He stuck his head out the window and yelled, “Is that that cowboy from Chelsea? Let him in!”      Rogers was our best friend during that first summer in Hollywood. He was active in the Hollywood Legion of Decency and was very much interested in the new project of reviving wholesome westerns and injecting new popularity by converting them into musicals. Ina May and I were invited out to his ranch frequently and enjoyed the warmest possible friendship which was destined to be all too brief. In August he took off for Alaska by plane with Wiley Post and kept a rendezvous with Death on bleak Point Barrow.      It was nine years later that his body was brought back and his monument dedicated. (3) In that time I had made an advancement in my career which to me still seems too fantastic to be true. I had accumulated worldly possessions, but, most treasured of all, I possessed the esteem of hundreds of thousands of children to whom I had become what Rogers had been to me.      I have heard that Warner Brothers have acquired the film rights to the life of Will Rogers. (4) My crowning ambition is to portray on the screen the man I admire above all other men – Will Rogers, a great cowboy and a great man. Editor’s Notes: (1) Following his death in 1935, Will Rogers was buried in Los Angeles. In 1944, the bodies of Will Rogers and his son, Fred, were quietly moved to Claremore, at the request of Will Rogers’ ailing widow, Betty, who died a few weeks later and was entombed next to her husband. (2) It was Will Rogers’ father, Clement Vann Rogers, not his grandfather, for whom Rogers County was named. (3) The Will Rogers Memorial Museum was opened and dedicated in 1938, although Will Rogers’ body was entombed in Claremore during special services in 1944. (4) When Warner Bros. studio made “The Story of Will Rogers” in 1952, the starring role went not to Gene Autry but to Will Rogers Jr.)