Roy Rogers

Roy Rogers was the last Western movie star to hold the title of “King of the Cowboys.” He stared in over 110 feature-length Westerns and 104 half-hour TV shows.

He was born at 412 Second Street; Cincinnati, OH redeveloped the area as the old Riverfront Stadium. Roy figures the home was around second base. He grew up in Portsmouth, Ohio. After leaving high school at 17, he worked in a shoe factory in Ohio with his dad. In 1930, the family migrated to California in the family’s 1923 Dodge.

As a young boy, he learned to play a guitar. In California, he teamed up with a cousin, Stanley Slye, and they form a singing duet. Later, he joined a group called “The Rocky Mountaineers.” It was with the group that he first works with Bob Nolan and Tim Spencer. In 1934, he changed his name to Dick Weston and organized a musical cowboy group with Bob Nolan called “The Sons of the Pioneers,” which included Tim Spencer and Hugh Farr. When the quartet finally gets public notice over radio station KFWB in Los Angeles, they added another member, Pat Brady, to the group.

In 1937, almost every film studio frantically searched for likely candidates to compete with Republic's new singing sensation, Gene Autry. Universal asked him to audition for the part of their singing cowboy. Universal picked a singer named Bob Baker. Over the next months, Leonard Slye took the rejection hard. However, after some soul searching, including the increasing popularity of the Sons of the Pioneers, his girlfriend Arlene, and a few small roles in a string of Westerns, he decided to become a star. On October 13, 1936, Leonard Slye signed a contract with Republic Studios.

In 1938, Gene Autry demanded more money from Republic Pictures and goes on strike. The studio searched for a replacement. The twenty-seven year old actor got the job and became Roy Rogers. His first starring film was the 1938 Under Western Stars and the movie was a hit and a revelation to the Republic brass. Autry was quick to compromise with studio. The studio kept Rogers to star in a competing series.

Roy rode a magnificent palomino stallion originally named Golden Cloud (Olivia de Havilland rode Golden Cloud in The Adventures of Robin Hood). Roy re-named him Trigger. He purchased the horse from the stable for $2,500. Co-star, of most of these early Westerns as his sidekick, was George “Gabby” Hayes.

Roy’s Westerns propelled him into third place on the list of top ten cowboy stars of 1939, 1940 and 1941. The following year, he replaced William “Hopalong” Boyd, who slipped to third place, into second place.

At the end of 1942, Gene Autry entered the U.S. Army Air Force and Roy became the new “King of the Cowboys,” just as the producers at Republic anticipated. From 1943 to 1954, he maintained his number 1 Western box-office ranking. Republic was a studio that took great pride in its large array of cowboy stars because Westerns and serials were the company's chief sources of income. Realizing that Rogers was their hottest property, the studio heads backed him all the way and increased the production value of his westerns.

In the mid 1940s, the Rogers films avoided traditional Western plot lines and action sequences in favor of elaborate musical presentations. This reflected Republic president Herbert Yates’ passion for the Broadway production of “Oklahoma!” In 1944, Roy’s co-star in The Cowboy and the Senorita was Dale Evans. This is the first movie they work together. Dale was a feisty blonde who played a “city gal” at odds with Roy. She appeared in many of his top 1940s pictures, including Lights of Old Santa Fe, Don't Fence Me In (one of Roy's highest-grossing, and best-remembered, series Westerns), Along the Navajo Trail, My Pal Trigger and Roll On, Texas Moon.

By the late 1940s, a new production team revitalized the series with color photography, plot lines that are more adult and action. The studio replaced “The Sons of the Pioneers” with Foy Willing’s “Riders of the Purple Sage.” After Gabby Hayes left in 1947, a string of sidekicks including Andy Devine, Gordon Jones, and Pinky Lee provided comedy relief. In 1951, Republic released Roy's last Western, Pals of the Golden West. The following year, he co-starred with Bob Hope in Son of Paleface. He also made a gag cameo in the Bob Hope’s Alias Jesse James.

Leaving the big screen, he confined most of his energies to his long-running TV show, personal appearances, and recording career. However, Roy appeared in a modern Western, Mackintosh and T.J in 1975. Film critics called the movie “pleasant but decidedly unexciting ‘comeback’ for the ‘King of the Cowboys’.”

In 1932, Roy married Lucile Ascolese but the marriage ended quickly in an annulment. In 1936, he married Arlene Wilkins and the marriage last ten years at her sudden death. A year later in 1947, Roy married his leading lady, Dale Evans, with whom he had raised nine children, most of them adopted from foundling homes.