Roy Rogers born 5 November 1911

Roy Rogers (November 5, 1911 – July 6, 1998), nicknamed the King of the Cowboys, was an American singer, actor, television host, and rodeo performer. He starred in some 90 motion pictures and over 100 episodes of a weekly television show from the late 1930s to the mid-1950s. 

He was born Leonard Franklin Slye near Cincinnati, Ohio. His biggest early musical influence was his father, who played mandolin and guitar. He grew up working on his family’s farm and following high school became employed in a local shoe factory. In his teens he began singing and playing at local dances before moving west in 1930. After stints with such groups as The Rocky Mountaineers and The Hollywood Hillbillies, he formed his own band, The International Cowboys. Later—with the aid of Tim Spencer and Bob Nolan—he founded The Pioneer Trio, which changed its name to The Sons Of The Pioneers in 1934. 

A cowboy and western harmony group that enjoyed success with such western ballads as Tumbling Tumbleweeds, Cool Water and Way Out There. Rogers first recorded for Decca with The Sons Of The Pioneers, beginning in 1934, ten years before the first national country charts were launched. After splitting with the group in 1937, his first major solo release, Hi-Yo Silver was released in 1938. The 1940s found him on RCA Victor, where he inked his first chart entry with A Little White Cross On The Hill, which peaked at number seven in 1946. His biggest hit, My Chickashay Gal, came the following year. 

                                    

Always seeking other avenues for his talent, Leonard Slye began playing bit parts in films, first under the name of Dick Weston and then assuming the guise of Roy Rogers. He gained a starring role in Under Western Skies in 1938, and soon followed with Carson Cisco Kid, Robin Hood Of The Pecos, The Man From Music Mountain and Along The Navajo Trail. In 1944, Rogers teamed with actress-singer Dale Evans (born Frances Octavia Smith) in Cowboy And The Senorita. Evans became Rogers’ frequent co-star and wrote their theme song, Happy Trails To You. They were to marry in 1947 and went on to raise a large family, also adopting several children. Considered the most popular woman ever to appear in Western movies, Dale was the ‘Queen of the Cowgirls’ to Rogers, the ‘King of the Cowboys.’ 

She rode her horse, Buttermilk, beside him on his celebrated palomino, Trigger, who was to serve Roy for almost three decades and when it passed away in 1965 at the age of 33 it had 52 tricks in its grasp. Fondly remembered is the where he steals the gun from Roy’s holster. When Trigger died, Roy had him stuffed and mounted in a rearing position and placed in his personal museum. The horse had become a big celebrity and it seemed as if he had at least as many fans as Roy Rogers. Roy and Trigger were often augmented by another side-kick, Bullet the Wonderdog. 

When the B-Western movies faded in the early 1950s, Roy and Dale began their television career. The Roy Rogers Show ran from 1951 to 1957; later incarnations included The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show, in 1962, and Happy Trails Theatre, a show of repackaged Rogers and Evans movies on cable TV’s Nashville Network in the late 1980s. Dale and Roy recorded more than 400 songs together. Rogers’ business ventures included a chain of restaurants bearing his name and a radio show carried on more than five hundred stations on the Mutual network. 

He is the only performer twice elected to the Country Music Hall Of Fame: as part of the Sons of the Pioneers in 1980 and as an individual in 1988. He received the Pioneer Award from the Academy of Country Music in 1986 and has garnered countless other accolades. In the later years of his life, Rogers enjoyed greeting visitors at the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum, which the couple established in 1965 in Victorville, California. One of the exhibits is Trigger, whom Rogers had stuffed when he died. In 1991 he came out of semi-retirement to participate in an RCA tribute album that spawned Hold On Partner, a duet hit with Clint Black. 

He recorded prolifically with the Sons Of The Pioneers during the 1930s, then once he had launched his own career, he started recording as a solo artist, initially for RCA, and later for Capitol, 20th Century and gospel label Word, making records right through to the early 1990s when he joined contemporary country acts like Clint Black, Randy Travis, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson and Kathy Mattea on a special tribute album that produced his last country hit, Hold On Partner. Estimated to be worth more than 100 million dollars, at the peak of his career Roy was earning more than a million dollars a year. 

Roy Rogers, the cowboy star who helped create global images of the American West and taught several generations of youngsters ‘the cowboy way,’ died July 6, 1998 at his home in Apple Valley, California. His wife and co-star Dale Evans passed away less than three years later on February 7, 2001.

(Edited from obit by Alan Cackett  & Wikipedia)