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1954 Roy Rogers On The Trail Of The Zeros by Packer Elton
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Roy Rogers (born Leonard Franklin Slye)1911 –1998, was a singer and cowboy actor, as well as the namesake of the Roy Rogers Restaurants chain. He and his third wife Dale Evans, his golden palomino Trigger, and his German Shepherd Dog, Bullet, were featured in over one hundred movies and The Roy Rogers Show. The show ran on radio for nine years before moving to television from 1951 through 1957. His productions usually featured a sidekick, often either Pat Brady, (who drove a jeep called "Nellybelle") or the crotchety George "Gabby" Hayes. Roy's nickname was "King of the Cowboys". Dale's nickname was "Queen of the West."
Leonard Franklin Slye and cousin Stanley Slye went to Los Angeles and started musical careers as The Slye Brothers. In 1932 while performing in Long Beach with the Rocky Mountaineers, Len met Lucille Ascolese. That same year, a palimino colt was foaled in Santa Cietro, CA, named "Golden Cloud", and later renamed "Trigger". In May 1933, Len, 21, proposed to Lucille, 19, via a radio broadcast; they were married on May 8, 1933 in Santa Ana, CA. Len then went on tour with the "O-Bar-O Cowboys". He divorced Lucille re-married and married again to Grace Arline Wilkins. Leonard Slye moved to California to become a singer. After four years of little success, he formed Sons of the Pioneers, a Western cowboy music group, in 1934. The group hit it big with songs like "Cool Water" and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds". The Sons of the Pioneers continued their popularity through the 1950s. Although Rogers was no longer a member, they often appeared as Rogers' backup group in films, radio, and television.
From his first film appearance in 1935, he worked steadily in western films, including a large supporting role as a singing cowboy while still billed as "Leonard Slye" in a Gene Autry movie. In 1938 when Autry temporarily walked out on his movie contract, Slye was immediately rechristened "Roy Rogers" and assigned the lead in Under Western Stars. Rogers became a matinee idol and American legend. A competitor for Gene Autry as the nation's favorite singing cowboy was suddenly born. In addition to his own movies, Rogers played a supporting role in the John Wayne classic Dark Command (1940). Rogers became a major box office attraction.
In 1944 Dale Evans was first cast in a movie with Roy. Roy & Arline had a son, Roy Jr. ("Dusty") in 1946, but Arline died of complications from the birth a few days afterward on November 3, 1946. Roy and Dale soon fell in love, and Roy proposed to her during a rodeo at Chicago Stadium. They married on New Year's Eve in 1947 at the Flying L Ranch in Davis, Oklahoma, where a few months earlier they had filmed Home In Oklahoma. In August 1950, Dale and Roy had a daughter, Robin Elizabeth, who died of complications of Down Syndrome shortly before her second birthday. Evans wrote about losing their daughter in her book Angel Unaware. Roy and Dale remained married until Roy's death in 1998. Roy and Dale's famous theme song, "Happy Trails," was written by Dale and they sang as a duet to sign off their television show. In the fall of 1962, the couple co-hosted a comedy-western-variety program, The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show, aired on ABC. It was cancelled after three months, losing in the ratings to The Jackie Gleason Show on CBS.
Rogers was an idol for many children through his films and television shows. Most of his postwar films were in Trucolor in an era when almost all other B-movies were black-and-white. Some of his movies would segue into animal adventures, in which Roy's horse Trigger would go off on his own for a while, with the camera following him.
With money from not only Rogers' films but his own public appearances going to Republic Pictures, Rogers brought a clause into a 1940 contract with the studio where he would have the right to his likeness, voice and name for merchandising. There were Roy Rogers action figures, cowboy adventure novels, a comic strip, playsets, a long-lived Dell Comics comic book series (Roy Rogers Comics) written by Gaylord Du Bois, and a variety of marketing successes. Roy Rogers was second only to Walt Disney in the amount of items featuring his name.
Rogers also owned a Hollywood production company which handled his own series. It also filmed other undertakings, including the 1955-1956 CBS western series Brave Eagle starring Keith Larsen as a young peaceful Cheyenne chief, Kim Winona as Morning Star, his romantic interest, and the Hopi Indian Anthony Numkena as Keena, Brave Eagle's foster son.
For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Roy Rogers has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1752 Vine Street, a second star at 1733 Vine Street for his contribution to radio, and a third star at 1620 Vine Street for his contribution to the television industry.
Roy and Dale were inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1976 and Roy was inducted again as a member of the Sons of the Pioneers in 1995. Roy was also twice elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, first as a member of The Sons of the Pioneers in 1980 and as a soloist in 1988.
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