The man who looks like he’s about to shoot a hole in his hat is Orvon Grover Autry — Gene Autry, the first certifiably famous singing cowboy. His voice carried across the nation from Melody Ranch, his radio show — on the air from 1940 to 1956. And he sat tall in the saddle on the silver screen throughout my early childhood. He was born in whoopi-ki-yay-Tioga, Texas in 1907 and became the fourth biggest box office draw in American movies a few decades later, hard on the heels of Mickey Rooney, Clark Gable, and Spencer Tracy, in that order. But nairn one o’ them three dudes were a big enough toad in a puddle to sell a hunert million rekerds like Gene Autry done.
Even if you’re not of a generation likely to have carried Autry’s likeness on a lunchpail, you’ve no doubt been reintroduced year after year, since childhood, to one of his greatest hits: “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Rudolph’s scarlet snout upstaged Autry’s own Champion the Wonder Horse. And Champion was pretty famous. (Hence the long face.) “Peter Cottontail” amongst other critters also featured in Autry’s menagerie and his repertoire of eponymous hit songs. But it was “Smokey the Bear” that first got me to sing along as a four-year-old.
