Cowboys and Singers
by quietgiant2 | created - 11 Mar 2013 | updated - 3 months ago | PublicRELATED LISTS: Silent Era: 40 favorite pets_ https://www.imdb.com/list/ls086385337/ A Silent Westerns Selection_ https://www.imdb.com/list/ls025649522/
1. Gene Autry
Soundtrack | The Gene Autry Show
After high school Gene Autry worked as a laborer for the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad in Oklahoma. Next he was a telegrapher. In 1928 he began singing on a local radio station, and three years later he had his own show and was making his first recordings. Three years after that he made his ...
2. Kenny Rogers
Soundtrack | Polar
Born in Houston, Texas on August 21, 1938, Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, actor, record producer and entrepreneur Kenneth Ray Rogers was the fourth of eight children born to a carpenter father who worked in a shipyard and a mother who was a hospital nurse's assistant. Of humble Irish and Native...
3. Roy Rogers
Soundtrack | Cowboy and the Senorita
Roy Rogers (born Leonard Slye) moved to California in 1930, aged 18. He played in such musical groups as The Hollywood Hillbillies, Rocky Mountaineers, Texas Outlaws, and his own group, the International Cowboys. In 1934 he formed a group with Bob Nolan called Sons of the Pioneers. While in that ...
4. Tex Ritter
Actor | Song of the Gringo
Tex Ritter was born on January 12, 1905 in Murvaul, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Song of the Gringo (1936), High Noon (1952) and Varsity Blues (1999). He was married to Dorothy Fay. He died on January 2, 1974 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
5. Smiley Burnette
Actor | Galloping Thunder
Smiley worked on a local radio station and in Vaudeville after high school. Always interested in music, he was friends with Gene Autry and worked with him on the radio show "The National Barn Dance". When Westerns became a big draw with sound, the studios were always on the lookout for singing ...
6. Dean Martin
Soundtrack | The Dean Martin Show
Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio, to Gaetano Alfonso "Guy" Crocetti, an Italian immigrant and barber, and his Ohio-born wife, Angela (Barra) Crocetti. He spoke only Italian until age five. Martin came up the hard way, with such jobs as a boxer ("Kid Crochet"), a steel mill ...
7. Ricky Nelson
Actor | The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet
Ricky Nelson was born on May 8, 1940 in Teaneck, New Jersey, USA as Eric Hilliard Nelson. He was an actor, known for The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet (1952) and Rio Bravo (1959). He was married to Kristin Harmon. He died on December 31, 1985 in De Kalb, Texas, USA.
8. Nelson Eddy
Soundtrack | Let Freedom Ring
The only career Nelson Eddy ever considered was singing. His parents, Isabel (Kendrick) and William Darius Eddy, were singers, his grandparents were musicians. Unable to afford a teacher, he learned by imitating opera recordings. At age 14 he worked as a telephone operator in a Philadelphia iron ...
9. Johnny Mack Brown
Actor | Valley of Fear
An All-American halfback while attending the University of Alabama, Johnny Mack Brown chose the silver screen over the green grass of the football field when he graduated. Signed to a contract with MGM in 1926, Brown debuted in Slide, Kelly, Slide (1927) with William Haines in a film about - ...
10. Gordon MacRae
Actor | Oklahoma!
Albert Gordon MacRae was born on March 12, 1921, in East Orange, NJ. During his early years, he resided in Syracuse, NY, and, while in high school, spent much of his time singing and acting in the Drama Club. It was also during this time that he learned to play the piano, clarinet and the saxophone...
11. Bob Nolan
Soundtrack | Close Encounters of the Third Kind
American singer-songwriter who appeared in a number of low-budget Westerns, but was most renowned as the leader of the singing group, The Sons of the Pioneers. The son of an Army officer, Nolan attended the University of Arizona after his father retired to that state. He studied music and poetry in...
12. Ray Whitley
Soundtrack | Sleepless in Seattle
Ray Whitley was born on December 5, 1901 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. He was an actor, known for Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Giant (1956) and Land of the Open Range (1942). He was married to Catherine Kay Johnson. He died on February 21, 1979 in Mexico.
13. Eddie Dean
Actor | Range Beyond the Blue
Eddie Dean made his name as a country-western singer on radio in the '30s. He journeyed to Hollywood to make it in western movies, debuting in Manhattan Love Song (1934), but he could only land bit parts in features and musical shorts. His career started to take off in the early 1940s, though, and ...
14. Jimmie Dodd
Actor | Riders of the Rio Grande
Composer, songwriter ("Mickey Mouse March"), actor, singer, guitarist and conductor, Jimmie Dodd was educated at the University of Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Conservatory and Vanderbilt University. He began his career in 1933 as a guitarist and singer on radio, coming to Hollywood in 1937 to play ...
15. Johnny Bond
Soundtrack | Big Daddy
Johnny Bond was born on June 1, 1915 in Enville, Oklahoma, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Big Daddy (1999), Gallant Bess (1946) and Infamous (2006). He was married to Dorothy. He died on June 12, 1978 in Burbank, California, USA.
16. Rex Allen
Soundtrack | Tomorrowland
Rex Allen started out as a singer in vaudeville, and sang on numerous radio shows before hooking up with a traveling rodeo show. He signed with Republic Pictures and became a popular singing cowboy, and was often paired with sidekick Slim Pickens. He starred in his own western TV series, Frontier ...
17. James Newill
Actor | Sky Bandits
Newill, one of Hollywood's largely unsung singing cowboys, began his career as a tenor with the Los Angeles Light Opera company in the early 30's. By the middle of the decade, he fronted the microphone as a vocalist with various society orchestras, including those of Gus Arnheim, Phil Harris and ...
18. Jimmy Wakely
Soundtrack | Song of the Drifter
He was one of filmdom's last dying breed of crooning cowpokes following WWII. Jimmy Wakely had many talents (singing, songwriting, guitar-playing) and performed in many venues (radio, film, TV, rodeos, clubs) over his career. He began life in Mineola, Arkansas in 1914, but was raised in ...
19. Fuzzy Knight
Actor | Gunman's Code
American character actor primarily of Western "sidekick" roles. Born John Forest Knight in Fairmont, West Virginia, Knight joined a traveling minstrel show as a musician at age 15. He attended The University of West Virginia as a law student, supporting himself as the drummer in his own band. ...
20. George 'Gabby' Hayes
Actor | Randy Rides Alone
American character actor, the most famous of Western-movie sidekicks of the 1930s and 1940s. He was born May 7, 1885, the third of seven children, in the Hayes Hotel (owned by his father) in the tiny hamlet of Stannards, New York, on the outskirts of Wellsville, New York. Hayes was the son of ...
21. Howard Keel
Actor | Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Howard Keel was the Errol Flynn and Clark Gable of "golden age" movie musicals back in the 1950s. With a barrel-chested swagger and cocky, confident air, the 6'4" brawny baritone Keel had MGM's loveliest songbirds swooning helplessly for over a decade in what were some of the finest musical films ...
22. John 'Dusty' King
Actor | Haunted Ranch
Band singer and light leading man who graduated to leads in a series of B-Westerns. John King was born Miller McLeod Everson to Ernest and Ruth Brumfield Everson on 11 July 1909 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He attended the University of Cincinnati. Following his schooling, he held many jobs for short ...
23. Jack Kirk
Actor | Zorro's Black Whip
Jack Kirk was born on February 19, 1895 in Nickerson, Kansas, USA. He was an actor, known for Zorro's Black Whip (1944), Stormy (1935) and The Topeka Terror (1945). He was married to Ethel Mason. He died on September 13, 1948 in Ketchikan, Alaska, USA.
24. Ken Curtis
Actor | Gunsmoke
Considering the kind of scruffy, backwoods, uneducated, Deep-South hillbilly types he played, many people would be surprised to hear that Ken Curtis wasn't actually born in the south but in the small town of Las Animas, Colorado, the son of the town sheriff. They would probably be even more ...
25. Robert Paige
Actor | Son of Dracula
A "B" Hollywood leading man who had the requisite tall, dark and handsome features (plus an excellent singing voice) that Hollywood often relied upon, Robert Paige was an extremely capable player worthy of stronger dramatics but was too often trapped in staid and standard leading man roles that ...
26. Monte Hale
Actor | Giant
American B-Western star and singing cowboy Monte Hale was born Samuel Buren Ely in 1919 in Ada, Oklahoma, to Herod and Helen Ely. He learned to sing and play guitar at an early age. In Houston and later Galveston, Texas, he played for vaudeville shows and local rodeos. During World War II a job as ...
27. James T. 'Bud' Nelson
James T. 'Bud' Nelson was born on January 28, 1914 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Jolson Story (1946), Texas Panhandle (1945) and Outlaws of the Rockies (1945). He was married to Mary Josephine Penta. He died on March 13, 1994 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
28. Frankie Marvin
Actor | Gold Mine in the Sky
Frankie Marvin was born on January 27, 1904 in Butler, Indian Territory, USA [now Oklahoma, USA]. He was an actor, known for Gold Mine in the Sky (1938), Heart of the Rio Grande (1942) and Springtime in the Rockies (1937). He died on January 18, 1985 in Valencia, California, USA.
29. Smith Ballew
Soundtrack | Magic in the Moonlight
Began in show business as a radio singer. In the early 1930s he became one of the first singing screen cowboys. He starred in a series of musical westerns for Paramount, and another series for 20th Century Fox. In later years he was featured in supporting roles well into the 1950s.
30. George Strait
Soundtrack | Pure Country
George Harvey Strait Sr. is an American country music singer, songwriter, actor, and music producer. Strait's success began when his first single "Unwound" was a hit in 1981, signaling the arrival of the Neotraditional movement. During the 1980s, seven of his albums reached number one on the ...
31. Tim Spencer
Soundtrack | South of Santa Fe
Tim Spencer was born on July 13, 1908 in Webb City, Missouri, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for South of Santa Fe (1942), Sons of the Pioneers (1942) and Desert Heat (1999). He was married to Velma Blanton and Mable McKibben. He died on April 26, 1974 in Victorville, California, USA.
32. Lee 'Lasses' White
Soundtrack | Mars Attacks!
Lee 'Lasses' White was born on August 28, 1888 in Wills Point, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Mars Attacks! (1996), Song of the Range (1944) and Rainbow Over the Rockies (1947). He died on December 16, 1949 in Hollywood, California, USA.
33. Dave O'Brien
Actor | Tell Your Children
Former chorus boy who would become a star in "B" westerns, and later a successful comedy writer (under the name David Barclay) and TV director. O'Brien is notable as one of the relatively few success stories to emerge out of the drek of poverty row, where he blissfully worked for nearly a decade ...
34. Fess Parker
Actor | The Great Locomotive Chase
A former college athlete at the University of Texas, Fess studied drama in the early fifties and debuted in Springfield Rifle (1952). He made only a handful of movies until he was signed by Walt Disney to star in the "Davy Crockett" series. When Walt was looking for an actor to play the part of ...
35. James Ellison
Actor | I Walked with a Zombie
American light leading man, primarily of Westerns, James Ellison was born James Ellison Smith in Guthrie Center, Iowa, in 1910. He grew up on a ranch in Valier, Montana, where he learned the skills that would stand him in good stead as a movie cowboy. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was a ...
36. Bob Steele
Actor | The Big Sleep
American Western star and character actor whose career spanned six decades. The son of director Robert N. Bradbury, he appeared in vaudeville with his parents and with his twin brother Bill Bradbury appeared as a child in a series of 16 semi- documentary short films directed by their father, The ...
37. Robert Livingston
Actor | Daredevils of the Clouds
Bob Livingston's father was a newspaper editor in Quincy, Illinois. As a reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News Bob did a story on the Pasadena Playhouse, and that got him interested in acting. In his mid-20s, he was doing bit parts for Universal and Fox and went from there to romantic roles with ...
38. Charles Starrett
Actor | The Mask of Fu Manchu
While on the Darmouth College football team, Charles Starrett was hired to play a football extra in The Quarterback (1926). Impressed by the job, Starrett got the acting bug and next went into vaudeville, then regional stage work and finally to Broadway. Spotted by a Paramount talent scout, Starrett...
39. Charles King
Actor | The Adventures of Sir Galahad
Although Charles King played a variety of roles in silent films, and even made a series of comedy shorts for Universal in the 1920s, it was as a villain in sound westerns that King achieved his greatest fame. In the 1930s and 1940s his jowly face, beady eyes, Texas accent, droopy walrus mustache ...
40. Herb Jeffries
Actor | The Bronze Buckaroo
This velvet-toned jazz baritone and sometime actor was (and perhaps still is) virtually unknown to white audiences. Yet, back in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Herb Jeffries was very big...in black-cast films. Today he is respected and remembered as a pioneer who broke down rusted-shut racial ...
41. Karel Fiala
Actor | Limonádový Joe aneb Konská opera
Karel Fiala was born on August 3, 1925 in Hrusov, Ostrava, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. He was an actor, known for Lemonade Joe (1964), Amadeus (1984) and The Secret of Steel City (1979). He died on October 3, 2020 in Prague, Czech Republic.
42. George Chesebro
Actor | Wolfblood
George Chesebro was an American character actor who, after a few leading roles in silent films, became an omnipresent bit player in "B" westerns. A native of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Chesebro became involved in traveling stock theater productions before the age of 20, and by 1911 was a seasoned ...
43. Frank Rice
Actor | The Ridin' Kid from Powder River
Frank Rice was born on May 13, 1892 in Muskegon, Michigan, USA. He was an actor, known for The Ridin' Kid from Powder River (1924), The Squaw Man (1931) and The Last Round-Up (1934). He was married to Louise Kaufman. He died on January 9, 1936 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
44. Kermit Maynard
Actor | The Fighting Texan
Kermit Maynard was born on September 20, 1897 in Vevay, Indiana, USA. He was an actor, known for The Fighting Texan (1937), Valley of Terror (1937) and Phantom Patrol (1936). He was married to Edith Jessen. He died on January 16, 1971 in North Hollywood, California, USA.
45. Ray Corrigan
Actor | Pals of the Saddle
Ray Corrigan was a physical culturist and very good athlete. He began working in Hollywood, as a physical fitness trainer for movie stars. Bit parts in 1932 led to action roles in the Undersea Kingdom (1936) and The Leathernecks Have Landed (1936), the same year he began his role as Tucson Smith in...
46. Max Terhune
Actor | Three Texas Steers
Four years after appearing with Gene Autry on a national radio show in 1932 he went to Hollywood. By that time he Max was a skilled vaudevillian (magician, juggler, whistler, impressionist, card tricks). His specialty was ventriloquism. On the Orpheum Circuit his dummy was named Skully Null; he ...
47. Dale Robertson
Actor | Son of Sinbad
Dale Robertson, the actor who made his name in television Westerns in the 1950s and '60s, was born on July 14, 1923, in Harrah, Oklahoma. After serving in a tank crew and in the combat engineers in North Africa and Europe during World War II, the twice-wounded Robertson started his acting career ...
48. Tom Keene
Actor | Plan 9 from Outer Space
Not much is known about the early life of darkly handsome "B" cowboy actor Tom Keene, who was born George Duryea on December 30, 1896, in Rochester, New York. However, he did arrive in Hollywood in the late 1920s after college studies at Columbia and Carnegie Tech and immediately made an impact as ...
49. Bob Shelton
Soundtrack | Multiple Maniacs
Bob Shelton is known for Multiple Maniacs (1970), Tumbleweed Trail (1946) and Young@Heart (2007).
50. Dale Evans
Soundtrack | Cowboy and the Senorita
American leading lady of musical westerns of the 1940s. Born Frances Octavia Smith in Uvalde, Texas. She was raised in Texas and Arkansas. Married at 14 and a mother at 15, she was divorced at 17 (some sources say widowed). Intent on a singing career, she moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and worked in ...
51. Dorothy Page
Actress | The Singing Cowgirl
Dorothy Page was born March 4, 1904, in Northampton, Pennsylvania. As a college student in Pennsylvania she was picked by the Curtis Publishing Co. to be a cover model for the "Saturday Evening Post". She married a medical student in 1925, and after he became a doctor they moved to Detroit, his ...
52. Penny Edwards
Actress | The Dalton Girls
Vivacious blue-eyed blonde Penny Edwards was born in New York City in 1928 and displayed signs of musical talent as a youth. She began studying dance by age six and, as a teen, appeared on Broadway in "The Ziegfeld Follies of 1943". After a couple of other musicals and a stint with the St. Louis ...
53. Doris Day
Soundtrack | Love Me or Leave Me
One of America's most loved actresses was born Doris Mary Kappelhoff on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Alma Sophia (Welz), a housewife, and William Joseph Kappelhoff, a music teacher and choir master. Her grandparents were all German immigrants. She had two brothers, Richard, who died ...
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