Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 23, 1995 TAG: 9501250006
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"I never met a man I didn't like."
"All I know is what I read in the newspapers."
And his cartoonish image as the trick-roping cowboy philosopher remains etched in our history like an old photograph. But Will Rogers, in his day, was much more than the caricature we might think of now.
He was really our first national comedian.
He was something more, too. America trusted him. Through his radio commentaries and his weekly newspaper columns, people came to think of him as a part of the family. It was said he was the country's conscience, and everyone listened to him, from the poorest of sharecroppers to the president. Presidents Taft, Coolidge, Hoover, Wilson and both Roosevelts knew him well.
When he died at 55 in a plane crash in Alaska in 1935, his death was marked by 30 minutes of silence on the CBS and NBC radio networks. At the time, he was the country's biggest box office attraction at the movies, the country's most popular public speaker, and his weekly newspaper column was read by more than 40 million people, nearly one-third of the nation's population.
"I did everything ... the circus, wild west shows, the Follies, the movies and even a play by [Eugene] O'Neill," he once said in typical style. "There is only one other amusement line I haven't been in, and that's to go to the U.S. Senate.
"But I ain't going to try that, I've got some pride left."
Born in 1879 in Oologah Indian Territory, in what became Oklahoma, Rogers was the son of a prominent rancher and businessman who subscribed to The New York Times. His mother loved to entertain guests on the family's parlor piano.
Like his mother, the young Rogers loved to entertain people.
And like his father, he developed an intense interest in current events.
On the ranch, he also learned to rope.
In 1989, he competed in a roping contest at the St. Louis Fair. "That gave me a touch of show business in a way," he said. "So that meant I was ruined for life - as far as actual employment was concerned."
He ended up with Texas Jack's Wild West Show, which toured South Africa, and then with the Wirth Brothers Circus in Australia. His act then was strictly trick roping, and he billed himself as the Cherokee Kid.
By 1915, he was working in New York as a vaudeville performer. One night, he began providing explanations to accompany his roping, and the audience roared with laughter. He stormed off the stage in anger. But the theater manager persuaded him to keep the talking. He was a natural.
That led to the Ziegfeld Follies.
"My little old act with the lasso was just put into the Ziegfeld Follies to kill time while the girls were changing from nothing to nothing," he said. "A male actor's monolog in a girl show is just like an intermission."
But the audiences laughed. Soon, he was sharing the bill with the likes of Fanny Brice and W.C. Fields. Then, he connected on the formula that would make him a national celebrity: commenting on the news of the day.
"A joke don't have to be near as funny if it's up to date," he explained.
Of his act, The New York Times wrote: "He gives the impression of being simply the crossroads general-merchandise store talkers of a continent rolled into one man. ... He is an expert satirist masquerading as a helpless, inoffensive, ineffectual zany."
The New York Times then offered him his own Sunday newspaper column, which was quickly syndicated. He wrote as he talked, informally, with no regard for grammar, punctuation, or the normal rules of English. He used capital letters at random, and spelled words as they sounded to him, all of which added to the humor of his pieces.
Radio followed, and Hollywood. He made his first movie, a silent film, in 1918, and moved successfully to the talkies after that. From 1933 to 1935, he was country's biggest box office draw, distancing even Clark Gable.
His influence equaled his popularity.
Once, he mentioned that it might be good to let Congress know how the country felt about a certain piece of legislation, and more than a million letters flooded Capitol Hill. Another time, he ridiculed a federal airplane program, saying it had turned out more air than planes.
An immediate investigation was launched.
"There was something infectious about his humor," Franklin Roosevelt said. "His appeal went straight to the heart of the nation. Above all things, in a time grown too solemn and sober, he brought his countrymen back to a sense of proportion."
He tried to give up the radio chore, but the entire Senate sent him a petition asking him to reconsider. He did, continuing both the radio commentary and his weekly column until his death.
In fact, in the wreckage of the plane crash that killed Rogers was the portable typewriter he carried with him wherever he traveled. In it was an unfinished column, and the last word he had written was ``death.''
by CNB