b'He Never Met A Man He Didnt LikeThe (Untold) Story of Will RogersPART 2 By Alan RockmanFROM COWBOY STARWill said, "I don\'t like contracts. You can trust me and I TO STAGE AND FILMknow I can trust you." Mr. Ziegfeld was not in the habit of SUPERSTAR doing that sort of thing, but he must have been pretty sure In the meantime, asof Will, for he called in Charley Dillingham, who happened aforementioned, Will\'s reputationto be standing backstage, as a witness, and the verbal and talents were in high demand.agreement was made (Betty Rogers, Will Rogers, p.137). While a rousing success at the St. Louis World\'s Fair, it was an incident in New York City\'sWow. A simple verbal agreement and a handshake.In our Madison Square Garden in late spring 1905 that cementedcynical world, one would seldom agree on those terms, but his reputation - at least as a riding and roping champion. in those days it was something to be honored. Will Rogers gave his word and he kept it. Flo Ziegfeld could easily As Will himself VERY modestly put it, "I was doing thehave reneged, but he knew Will Rogers would stick to the roping in the show. We had some wild steers and oneagreement and deliver the goods. In the end, Ziegfeld was jumped over the railing and ran up the stairs among thenot just a boss and Rogers an employee but the two men audience. The other boys followed him up, but I saw hebecame fast friends. And thus, Will Rogers became a star in was going around and would come out on the other side."Ziegfeld\'s Follies."So I headed him off, roped him and we led him down and no one was hurt" (Rogers, Autobiography of Will Rogers, p.Between musical shows featuring beautiful dancing girls, 30). More dramatically though, was this account-relatedWill would come out, do his rope tricks, and amuse the by Ketchum, "Lucille Mulhall was roping to the music ofaudiences with his homespun tales and jokes - becoming the Seventh Regiment band when a big, eight-hundred- an endearing figure to them in his Cowboy outfit and his pound steer, with horns that spread five feet, ran into thesimple manner.ring and suddenly started for the stands. Lucille and some of the Cowboys (including Tom Mix) tried to head it off,"He had come a long way from the serious, single-minded but the steer leaped the bars into the seats and while thetechnician who made the customers marvel at his dexterity crowd panicked, loped up the stairs to the balcony, where itwith a rope. Now he was talking with his audiences - talking disappeared behind the box seats. Hot on its heels were theacross the floodlights to be sure, but taking them into hisWill Rogers in the Ziegfeld Follies, 1922cowboys, and as the (New York) Herald described it, theconfidence as if they were all together in someone\'s living Indian Will Rogersheaded the steer off and got his roperoom, conversing and laughing about the events of the around its horns. Alone and afoot, he was no match for theday. He had progressed too, beyond telling a stock line ofmovies, and most of those he did do were in the "Silent" brute\'s strength, but he swerved it down the steps on thejokes between rope tricks. Where audiences once admiredera. While most of his talkies were light-hearted, human 27th Street side, where it again jumped into the ring and his roping and chuckled at his comments, now they werecomedies, Rogers was not averse to taking on challenging was roped by the men in the arena and led away" (Ketchum,laughing with Will, who seemed more like an amiable friendroles, including doing an early film version of Mark Twain\'s Will Rogers, p. 95). than a performer" (Ketchum, Will Rogers, p. 139). A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur\'s Court.Indian Cowboy Will was now the toast of New York butIt may have seemed out of place - but Rogers kept wowingAnd considering the amount of violence and profanities although he lacked formal education, Rogers was wisethem and amusing them. He remained a major hit in theused in current Hollywood movies, there was very little of beyond his years in street smarts and common sense. Hefive or six years he stayed with the Follies, but he neverthe former in Will\'s films - and just one instance of a Rogers\' perceived early on that the demand for Wild West Showsforgot Ziegfeld taking a chance on him. use of profanity -"Can you tell me where in the helleth I would soon be in decline, and wanting to expand hisam" in the aforementioned A Connecticut Yankee in King horizons, he sought employment in the Vaudeville circuit."Will worked for Mr. Ziegfeld a long time, but there wasArthur\'s Court (Joseph H. Carter, The Quotable Will Rogers, The stage owners kept turning him down, for how on earthnever a written contract. And when Will left the FolliesGibbs-Smith Publisher, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2005, p.39).could a Cowboy twirling a rope and riding his pony make itto make pictures in California, Mr. Ziegfeld presented but Rogers persisted and persevered.He fine-turned his act,him with a platinum watch, engraved, "To Will Rogers,Besides Goldwyn, he was produced by Hal Roach and John and communicating directly in his folksy down-home stylein appreciation of a real fellow, whose word is his bond"Ford, the latter he considered the finest of the Hollywood with the audiences - he struck pay dirt twice. (Betty Rogers, Will Rogers, p.137). producers he worked with. He starred alongside the best of the time and was good friends with many of them First, after being turned down at least three times by aAs a postscript, when Ziegfeld died in 1932, almostincluding Eddie Cantor, W.C. Fields, William S. Hart, even Betty too reluctant to marry a stage performer with limiteddestitute due to the Wall Street crash, it was Will Rogersa young Joel McCrea. The friendships were solid ones, prospects of steady income, Rogers was finally able towho paid for his beloved former boss\' funeral expenses,solid to the point that whenever Will wished to raise funds win Betty Blake\'s heart after nine years of knowing her,and took care of Ziegfeld\'s widow, the actress Billie Burke,for destitute families, whether those suffering in the tragic the last four becoming romantically involved with her.until she could get back on her feet again - she wouldMississippi floods of 1927 or were down and out during They were married in November 1908, Rogers would goeventually be known for her role as Glenda, the Goodthe Depression, he could always call on them to come on record as saying , "The day I roped Betty I did the starWitch in the movie The Wizard of Oz. running and come on board.performance of my life" (Sterling, Sterling, Will Rogers A Photo-Biography, p.45). Hollywood producers who often flocked to Ziegfeld\'s"A wag of the mid-1930s said that during the final four years shows were quite aware of this Oklahoma Cowboy whoof his life, Will earned more than $1,500 a day (making Second, Rogers would soon strike pay dirt on the Vaudevillecracked jokes and told stories in a way that either mademovies). The estimate was conservative but would have circuit which initially shunned him because they didn\'t knowfolks laugh or especially touched them, and as early astotaled more than half-a-million per year in hard-time what to do with a riding, roping, folksy Cowboy. Rogers1918, even while still doing the "Follies" circuit Rogers wasdollars. Earnings from early Wild West shows, Vaudeville, landed a plum Broadway role in the acclaimed "Ziegfeldhired to star in Samuel Goldwyn\'s Laughing Bill Hyde.the Ziegfeld Follies, magazine and newspaper columns, and Follies" within a couple of years after his marriage to BettyHe would eventually make nearly 70 films in a career thatbooks were dramatically paled by fees for sound-on-film Blake. Florenz Ziegfeld was, at the time, the most famousspanned from 1918-1935, the year of his death. Nearly 50movies. From 1918-1928 Will was well compensated for his Vaudeville Impresario in America. He initially offered Will aof his films were silent, 48 to be exact, with 21 "talkies," five(almost) fifty silent movies - $2,000 or $3,000 a week was written contract, but Will Rogers always trusted people - andof them alone produced in the last year of his life, 1935 -common. Then he starred in twenty-one talkies that paid declined the written contract in favor of a verbal agreementincluding Steamboat \'Round the Bend and In Old Kentucky.him more than $150,000 apiece. Fox, then 20th Century Fox and a handshake. As Betty Rogers related: Interestingly enough, Rogers made very few "Cowboy"Studio earned more than $1 million on each feature.44 February 2021'