WILL ROGERS (1879-1935)
By Joe Carter

BOTH AN INDIAN AND A COWBOY, Will Rogers gave the world a wondrous example of the all-American Western man. He won world acclaim with flashy roping feats, common sense talk, and a wholesome philosophy galvanized by frontier reality and enlivened by humor.
Rogers’ words were studded with lessons of temperance, brotherhood, and upright living. His intelligence was gleaned from his ranch upbringing, polished by self-education, and warmed by cowboy campfire laughter.

“I’ve joked about every prominent man of my time,” he said, “but I never met a man I didn’t like.” In his own life, Rogers gave everyone a first chance devoid of discrimination against race, nationality, or religion. Claiming that all Americans are “fundamentally liberal,” Rogers raised thousands for the downtrodden. He quietly gave away his own money to flood, Dust Bowl, and earthquake victims.

Will Rogers ribbed world leaders and industrialists like his pals Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller, the banker to whom Rogers donated a dime. All were flattered. Targets of his stage wit and sly written criticism included royalty, senators, and seven presidents—from Teddy to Franklin Roosevelt. He often overnighted in the White House.

Relentlessly on the move, Rogers would be showered with loving laments after he met death August 15, 1935, in an Alaskan plane crash.

Gone by age 55, Rogers had circled the globe three times; written six books and 4,000 syndicated newspaper columns; starred in 71 movies, reigning as number one in box office for two years; mastered Broadway’s famed Ziegfeld Follies for a decade; and coaxed Americans from the Great Depression as the nation’s premier radio commentator.

Born in a Cherokee Nation (now part of Oklahoma) log cabin, Rogers was a champion steer roper, bulldogger, and fancy roper. His father was a Civil War scout who fattened Texas Longhorns and served as a tribal judge and Cherokee senator. Mrs. Rogers home-schooled her precocious son, Little Willie.

Before he could talk, Will Rogers could read. Before he could walk, he rode horseback. Lifelong, Rogers owned the finest equine stock: “A man who doesn’t like a horse—well, there’s just something the matter with him.”

Roping a sheriff and pony on American stages while peppering his act with quaint frontier sayings and incomparable rope tricks, Rogers traveled America’s vaudeville circuits until Ziegfeld, Broadway’s top showman, recruited him as stand-up comic. Rogers read seven newspapers daily to deliver topical, insightful humor that regaled audiences, shaped public opinion, and wrought political policy.

“All I know is what I read in the papers,” he would begin. His weekly and daily columns, telegraphed to 500 newspapers, were anchored by The New York Times.

When radio first crackled in the 1920s, he quipped that it was impossible for a comedian to make the microphone laugh. To help, he loaded the studio with giggling beauties from the Ziegfeld Follies.

Despite flashy (and handy) actresses, Rogers remained pure and loyal to his stellar wife, Betty Blake Rogers of Arkansas. A quiet churchwoman, she was the chief behind-the-scenes adviser. “I’m a rarity in Hollywood. I’ve still got the same wife I arrived with,” Rogers quipped. No infidelity whispers were heard about the cowboy who taught trick riding and polo to his three children.

To maintain a killer schedule, Will Rogers embraced pioneer aircraft. Renowned as one of the top 100 figures in aviation, fellow Oklahoman Wiley Post would pilot him on his final flight. As the two of them eyed the first transpolar flight to Moscow, their single-engine plane crashed in Alaska. Both died instantly.

Some 240 books since were written about Oklahoma’s favorite son. The Will Rogers Follies: A Life in Revue won top 1991 Broadway musical honors depicting the incredible cowboy who shaped the West with ingenuity, honor, integrity, and fine clean humor.

His credo was, “Live your life so that whenever you lose, you’re ahead.” And: “If you live life right, death is a joke as far as fear is concerned.”

Former director of the Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Claremore, Okla., Joe Carter is a former UPI correspondent, newspaperman, and White House-Congressional speech writer. His Rogers biography Never Met A Man I Didn’t Like sold more than 100,000 copies.

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