Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 18, 1994 TAG: 9407070084
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by PAUL DELLINGER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By Georgia Morris and Mark Pollard. Collins Publishers
San Francisco. $24.95.
To all moviegoers of a certain age, Roy Rogers will always be (as dubbed by his studio) the ``king of the cowboys.''
In the days before television sets became part of everybody's home furniture, Hollywood turned out hundreds of programmer Westerns that became part of America's weekly movie diet. It is surprising even to those grownups who fondly remember how they, rather than the bigger-budgeted ``A'' films often made possible by their revenues, seem to outsell their major movie counterparts in the movie video racks of major discount stores.
The American Movie Classics cable TV channel produced a documentary on Republic Pictures, Roy's home studio, that proved popular enough to follow with a documentary on Roy's career. Georgia Morris was involved in the scripts for both programs, and it is from the one on Roy and Dale Evans, his frequent co-star and later his wife, that this book derives. It also benefits from photographs on practically every page from the Roy Rogers Museum, some of which only visitors to the California museum could otherwise see.
Roy's fans may already know the story of his Depression-era childhood, his family's move from Ohio to California, his joining a radio singing group that would eventually become the Sons of the Pioneers, the loss of his first wife after the birth of one of their children, how he almost could not get into the studio to audition for Republic's new singing cowboy series, the children he and Dale adopted, his move to radio and a TV series of his own, and his famous horse, Trigger, who acted with Roy from their first movie in 1938 all the way through their TV series in the 1950s.
The difference is that, here, the story is told in Roy's own words, complete with ``uhs'' and ``ahs'' and hesitations, and the result is that he comes across just as those of us who grew up watching him might expect - folksy, self-effacing, down-to-earth and generally an all-around nice guy who is proud of his humble beginnings and still a little surprised at the success he has had.
The cowboy movies of the 1920s to the 1950s reflected simpler times, easier answers and, often, recycled plots, but their success at what they did has proved elusive for modern movie-makers who have tried their hand at such films. Perhaps it was the times themselves that made cowboys the kings of movie heroes, but it was a quality that Roy Rogers brought to the screen from his personal side that made him the king of the cowboys.
Paul Dellinger covers Pulaski County for the New River bureau.
by CNB