Remembering a Genius

Will Rogers and Luke Cosgrave in Lightnin’.

By Terrell Lester      In his 1993 bestseller, Will Rogers: A Biography, the scholarly and learned author Ben Yagoda wrote:      “For there to be another Will Rogers today, he (or she) would have to combine the separate attributes of Johnny Carson, Roy Rogers, Clark Clifford, Walter Cronkite, Bill Cosby, Bob Hope, Russell Baker, H. Ross Perot and James Reston. It just can’t happen.”      Indeed. Will Rogers was an American original. He was a man of his times, a man for all times.      He was a rope-trick artist, a vaudeville showman, a standup comedian, a cowboy philosopher, a political humorist, a syndicated newspaper columnist, an author, a radio commentator and a movie star.      Will Rogers was born on the American frontier, in Indian Territory, on November 4, 1879, and at the peak of his career, in 1934, he held the unique distinction of being America’s top box-office attraction and most popular newspaper columnist.      And today, decades after his death, the wit and wisdom of Will Rogers is a part of the American national heritage.      More than a half-century after his death in an airplane crash on August 15, 1935, Will Rogers’ legacy continues to grow. Scores of books have been published about his life. The Will Rogers Follies was a Tony Award-winning play on Broadway during the 1990s. Television networks explore his impact on the American cultural landscape, and politicians turn to his writings for expression and inspiration.      Since he was such a multi-faceted phenomenon, an icon before the word enjoyed everyday usage, it is difficult to focus on one area of his boundless genius.      However, he has been remembered as much for his oft-quoted humor and views as he has for any of his other many talents.      And perhaps the most endearing, and enduring, quality of Will Rogers’ humor is that it is good-natured. It is ultimately kind and forgiving, rather than harsh and judgmental. It is devoid of bitterness and hatred.      “I have often said in answer to inquiries as to how I got away with kidding some of our public men, that it was because I liked all of them personally, and that if there was no malice in your heart there could be none in your gags, and I have always said I never met a man I didn’t like,” Will Rogers once said.      “I don’t think I ever hurt any man’s feeling by my little gags. I know I never willfully did it. When I have to do that to make a living, I will quit.”      Will Rogers often began his syndicated columns with the phrase, “All I know is what I read in the papers.” It became one of his many trademarks.      And what Will Rogers wrote about, and spoke about on radio, was based on that simple creed. He did not borrow jokes or gags written by others. He preferred to write his own original material, material that he gleaned from keen observation and lifetime experiences.      “I would read the papers for hours, trying to find out a funny angle to the day’s news, and I found that they would laugh easiest at the stuff that had just happened that day,” Will Rogers said. “A joke don’t have to be near as funny if it’s up to date.      “So that’s how I learned that my own stuff, serving only fresh-laid jokes, as you might say, goes better than anything else.”      He prided himself in sticking to the truth.      “Every gag I tell must be based on the truth,” Will Rogers said. “No matter how much I may exaggerate, it must have a certain amount of truth.”      And the truth today is that Will Rogers remains in the national spotlight, a man whom author Alex Ayres calls “an American original,” a man whom Ayres says “raised common sense to the level of genius.”