In last issue's opening installment of this tribute, we chronicled Autry's early years and career and his first movies for Republic Pictures in 1935. Here we see how his fame as a film and recording star continued to grow in the 1930s, followed by his involvement in rodeo, the establishment of his own national radio program, his enlistment in World War II, and his postwar entertainment career, during which he developed a production company to make pictures for Columbia and later, television.

The year 1939 was an auspicious one for Gene Autry. He had starred in 26 feature films over the past four years and since 1937 had been voted by theater owners as the No. 1 Western box-office draw. A Saturday Evening Post article reported that an estimated 40 million people had flocked to his movies and that his records outsold Bing Crosby's. Autry's films now played urban areas as well as small towns, and the New York World's Fair declared July 22 Gene Autry Day when the singing cowboy visited. Shortly thereafter, he, his wife Ina, and Republic boss Herb Yates sailed to the United Kingdom, where Autry received a royal welcome. He was mobbed by thousands of fans who turned out to see him in London, Dublin, and other cities. War clouds were gathering, however, and Autry and company returned to the States as France and England declared war against Germany. Autry had picked up a new song in Dublin, "South of the Border," written by two Irish songwriters, and it became another Autry smash.

Republic bought the film rights to the song, and in 1940 the result was one of Autry's most popular pictures. The second part of the song's hook, "Down Mexico Way" also became the title of an Autry movie. Another big number for Gene in 1939 was "Back in the Saddle Again"-it would become his theme song the following year when yet another Autry venture got underway.

On January 7, 1940, Autry's own weekly radio show, Melody Ranch, began broadcasting on the CBS network. The program featured music, comedy, and a Western drama, and was sponsored by Wrigley's Doublemint gum. Except for a brief hiatus during World War II, the show would endure until 1956, with Wrigley's sponsorship throughout. Melody Ranch proved so popular from the get-go that Republic made an Autry film by that title later in the year. His biggest budget feature to date, the movie co-starred dancer Ann Miller and comic Jimmy Durante.

That fall, Autry flew from California to New York with Champion-the first horse to make a transcontinental flight-to headline the 15th annual Madison Square Garden Championship Rodeo. The 19-day event broke attendance records and ushered in a new era in rodeo in which a bigname, country and western entertainer would perform as part of the festivities. In December, Autry was named the year's fourth most popular actor in all categories, following Mickey Rooney, Spencer Tracy, and Clark Gable. "Autry thus becomes the first cowboy star to achieve that distinction since the late Will Rogers outdistanced all other rivals in 1934," according to the New York Times.

The following year would find Autry investing in his own Flying A Ranch Rodeo. He purchased land in Carter County, Okla., near the area where he spent some of his youth. There, outside a tiny town called Berwyn, he began stocking his ranch with bucking horses and bulls. It was on Nov. 16 that the town fathers decided to change the name of their town to Gene Autry. That date also marked the 34th anniversary of Oklahoma's statehood. The new town name was adopted in a ceremony broadcast nationally on the Melody Ranch radio show.

On Nov. 16, 1941, the town of Berwyn, Okla., officially became Gene Autry, Okla., in a ceremony that was broadcast on Autry's national radio show.

Again participating in Everett Colborn's World's Championship Rodeo, Autry invested in it as well (and would subsequently own ranches in Arizona and Colorado, where he raised livestock). But on December 7, after the horrific attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor, everything changed. Autry got the news while about to broadcast the Melody Ranch show in Los Angeles. The Flying A Ranch Rodeo and Stampede appeared at the Houston Fat Stock Show on February 6, 1942, but when Gene Autry decided to serve his country and enlist that July, his rodeo's days were numbered.

While Autry served in the Army Air Corps, Republic Pictures began boosting the career of Roy Rogers, who had started in pictures as an extra in Autry's first film Tumbling Tumbleweeds. Republic's Herb Yates tried to convince his top star to get a deferment, as did Rogers and John Wayne, but Autry persisted in his decision to join up. He would eventually fly one of the war's most dangerous cargo-carrying missions, over the Hump (the Himalayas) within the China- Burma-India Theater, the air zone with the highest fatality rate in the war.

Upon Autry's return to civilian life after the war's end in 1945, he worked harder than ever to stay on top of the entertainment field. Roy Rogers had taken over as No. 1 Western box-office draw, and Autry was determined to regain the title that he'd held for six consecutive years. Unfortunately, he never would. But though the war caused Autry to lose some of his previously unchallenged popularity, it taught him the wisdom of shrewd investments-and his initial foray into partial ownership of a pair of Arizona radio stations would pave the way to future wealth. Autry also decided to leave Republic and start his own production company. After making five more Republic films and battling Yates in court, he and his longtime producer Armand Schaefer began Gene Autry Productions in a joint venture with Columbia Pictures.

Beginning with The Last Round-Up, the new Gene Autry pictures for the most part would take on a more serious approach than the musical comedies of the Republic era. Among them were the sole color feature films of Autry's career: The Strawberry Roan and The Big Sombrero. Songs were still included in Autry's Columbia pictures but in lesser number.

Music abounded, however, in Autry's personal appearance tours. In 1948, he put together a large touring ensemble that would travel the country annually. He continued to make rodeo appearances as well. The late 1940s also saw the biggest hits of Gene's career. In 1947, he cowrote and recorded his first seasonal smash, "Here Comes Santa Claus (Down Santa Claus Lane)." Its 1949 follow-up, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," exceeded everyone's expectations. The catchy number, written by New Yorker Johnny Marks, became the second best-selling single of all time after Bing Crosby's "White Christmas," a record it held until the 1980s.

In 1950, Autry embarked on another major career move. Flying A Pictures, again in conjunction with Schaefer, began making The Gene Autry Show, to air on television. At that time, the medium was in its infancy, and most Hollywood studios and stars shunned it. Autry was the first major player to produce and star in his own show. The series (with many episodes shot in color) would run until 1955, and Flying A would produce such successful programs as Ranger Rider, Death Valley Days, and Annie Oakley, the first TV Western to star a woman (Autry's frequent costar, Gail Davis). Autry's audiences had always included large numbers of children, but as a TV star, Autry's youthful audience grew exponentially. With it came a vast array of Gene Autry-endorsed products, including bicycles, games, clothing, toys, comic books, and wristwatches. Beginning in the 1930s, with the Gene Autry Roundup Guitar and the Gene Autry Cap Pistol, Gene's endorsement deals proved quite lucrative, which expanded further with the cowboy boom of the early 1950s.

Gene Autry and Pat Buttram worked together in films, TV, radio, and on the road.

Times were changing, however. With the rise of television, B Westerns began to lose their appeal at the box-office. Autry released his final motion picture, aptly named The Last of the Pony Riders, in 1953. His TV series and radio show continued for a few more years, but as rock-and-roll began to grab listeners, sci-fi and superheroes began to beat out the singing cowboy on kids' TV programming. Though socalled "adult Westerns," such as Bonanza and Gunsmoke, remained popular, Autry's kind of TV Western began to fall out of favor. Finally, by 1960, Autry's days in the spotlight were over.

The cowboy did not retire, however. Those radio stations he bought in the 1940s were just the beginning of his vast holdings in broadcasting, including a Los Angeles radio station (KMPC) and TV station (KTLA) and stations in San Francisco, Detroit, Seattle, and Portland. His wealth would gain him a spot on the Forbes 400 for eight years in the 1980s and '90s. Always a huge baseball fan, Autry secured the rights in late 1960 to start an American League ball club in Los Angeles. Beginning in 1961, the Angels became Autry's all-consuming passion. Though the team never captured the pennant before Autry's death in 1998 at age 91, they won the World Series in 2002.

Over his lifetime, Gene Autry made 640 recordings and 93 films. He starred in more than a hundred half-hour television programs and several hundred radio shows. He appeared in nearly every town of any size in America. Autry is the only performer to be awarded five stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame- for recording, motion pictures, radio, television, and live performance. His image and message impacted at least two generations of Americans. As one of his biggest fans, Johnny Cash, once wrote, "Reflecting upon.the great people I have known, as an All-American image of goodness, justice, good over bad, nothing or no one comes closer than Gene Autry. He made the world look better to me."