Roy Rogers

(Leonard Frank Sly) actor, singer
Born: 11/5/11
Birthplace: Cincinnati, Ohio
Died: 7/6/98

Actor and singer who starred in more than 80 Westerns, earning the moniker "King of the Cowboys." He signed with Republic Pictures in 1938, and with Gene Autry, became one of the country's two most famous cowboys. His films include Under Western Stars (1938), King of the Cowboys (1943) and The Yellow Rose of Texas (1944). He was married to actress Dale Evans.

The United States has no king as head of state; but on rare occasions our culture provides a hero so great that the royal title fits: Elvis, King of Rock and Roll; Kitty Wells, Queen of Country Music; Babe Ruth, Sultan of Swat. In 1943 Republic Studios declared Roy Rogers King of the Cowboys. It was an audacious marketing ploy, but it worked. The tuneful sagebrush superstar from Duck Run, Ohio, fit the silver-saddle throne like no man before or since.

As a movie buckaroo, he was the best there ever was: he shot the straightest and rode the fastest (on Trigger, "The Smartest Horse in the Movies") and yodeled the sweetest and strummed hypnotic sagebrush tunes about tumbling tumbleweeds on his guitar. He was invincible: when it came to fisticuffs, he could outbox any one man or any four, always fighting cleanly even if they did not. He was fabulously well-dressed in fringe and fancy leather, and he was a man who never seemed to need a shave. His partner in many of the movies he made was just about the prettiest cowgirl there ever was - Dale Evans, "Queen of the West." When Roy crinkled his eyes in a smile, girls fell in love and boys smiled right along with him. Children especially adored him because even though he was a grown-up, Roy Rogers seemed never to lose his boyish enthusiasm for life's adventures.

At the peak of his career, from the early 1940s to the mid-1950s, he made as many as six pictures a year, which were seen annually by more than 80 million Americans - over half the population of the country. In 1950 there were more than two thousand Roy Rogers fan clubs around the globe; the one in London had fifty thousand members - the biggest such club then for anyone, anywhere on earth. In 1951 Roy Rogers moved to television and starred for six years on "The Roy Rogers Show" along with his wife, Dale Evans. They also created several long-running radio series that featured their singing duets and dramatic sketches, and they regularly rode in all the biggest parades and performed at all the grandest rodeos throughout the nation.

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Additional Information at:
http://www.royrogers.com/