50 Fun Facts About Roy Rogers

After Roy Rogers's famous palomino died in 1965, how did the cowboy star keep the horse on public view?

As a taxidermy mount, the palomino greeted visitors from the day the Roy Rogers museum opened in 1967. His hide was stretched over a foam likeness by a Los Angeles firm.

A Roy Rogers, the mocktail named for the cowboy star, mixes grenadine syrup with which soft drink?

Cola is what separates the drink from a Shirley Temple, which uses ginger ale or lemon-lime soda. It was probably named for him because he did not drink alcohol.

In which 1988 action film does the hero adopt the pseudonym Roy in tribute to cowboy star Roy Rogers?

Die Hard has Bruce Willis's John McClane call himself Roy, and its makers drew his cowboy catchphrase from old Western lingo that the singing star had used.

Which skill did trainers call the greatest accomplishment of Roy Rogers's trick-trained horse?

Being housebroken was the cowboy star's most carefully guarded trade secret, because the horse spent so much time in hotels, theaters and hospitals. He also learned 150 trick cues.

What was the name of Roy Rogers's palomino stallion, his co-star in films and on television?

Trigger got the name for his quickness of both foot and mind. The stallion could reportedly walk 50 feet on his hind legs and sign an X with a pencil.

Which song, written by Roy Rogers's wife, did the couple sing to sign off each episode of his TV series?

Happy Trails borrowed its title and first three notes from a 1951 movie song by Foy Willing. The couple's recording joined the National Recording Registry in 2025.

Roy Rogers joked he was born at second base, as a ballpark later covered his birthplace in which city?

Cincinnati built Riverfront Stadium over the 2nd Street tenement where he was born in 1911. His family left the following summer, heading upriver toward Portsmouth.

Which hotel company licensed Roy Rogers's name in 1968 for a chain of fast-food restaurants?

Marriott first put the name on its Junior Hot Shoppes outlets, then on the RoBee's roast beef chain it had just bought. The star collected a licensing fee and made personal appearances.

Roy Rogers's palomino once carried which actress, as Maid Marian in The Adventures of Robin Hood?

Olivia de Havilland rode the horse in the 1938 swashbuckler, shortly before the cowboy star picked him from five rented movie horses for a first starring Western.

Which British star's 1973 double album includes a track titled simply Roy Rogers?

Elton John put the song on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, one of several musical tributes that include Lyle Lovett's If I Had a Boat and Toby Keith's Should've Been a Cowboy.

Which Texas-born singer, first cast opposite Roy Rogers in 1944, became his wife and regular co-star?

Dale Evans was born Frances Octavia Smith in Uvalde and sang with swing bands before Westerns. The pair stayed a team on screen and off until his death in 1998.

Roy Rogers got his first starring film in 1938 when which singing cowboy walked out on their studio?

Gene Autry had demanded more money, so the studio ran a contest to find a cheaper replacement. The winner had already played uncredited bit parts in his rival's pictures.

Which nickname, also the title of his 1943 film, did Roy Rogers carry throughout his career?

King of the Cowboys was the headline Life magazine gave him in July 1943, adding that he kisses the horse, not the heroine.

Under which birth name did Roy Rogers sing on radio and play his earliest film roles?

Leonard Slye was still his billing for a large supporting role as a singing cowboy, before his studio rechristened him for stardom.

Which Western harmony group did Roy Rogers co-found in the 1930s with Bob Nolan and Tim Spencer?

Sons of the Pioneers got the name from a radio announcer who thought the young trio could hardly be pioneers themselves. The group has kept performing ever since.

Roy Rogers was inducted twice, with his group in 1980 and solo in 1988, into which institution?

Country Music Hall of Fame voters chose him with his old group and then on his own, a double that no other person had matched as of 2022.

Dark Command, a 1940 Civil War Western, is the only film pairing Roy Rogers with which cowboy icon?

John Wayne took the lead while the younger star played a key supporting role as Fletch McCloud, in a story loosely based on Quantrill's Raiders.

Roy Rogers shared the 1952 Western spoof Son of Paleface with Jane Russell and which comedian?

Bob Hope played Junior, who disguises himself as the cowboy star to flee on his horse. The singing hero turns out to be a government agent.

What was the name of Roy Rogers's German Shepherd, billed as the Wonder Dog on his TV series?

Bullet shared animal billing on the series with the star's palomino, helping its heroes rescue the helpless from rustlers, con artists and crooked lawmen.

Which studio, known for B Westerns, gave Roy Rogers his stage name and his first starring film?

Republic Pictures picked Roy for its Western ring and borrowed the surname from the humorist Will Rogers. His 1940 contract let him keep the rights to his own name and likeness.

Under what original name was Roy Rogers's palomino foaled in California in 1934?

Golden Cloud was born in San Diego and sired by a Thoroughbred. His new name stuck so firmly that the other palominos who doubled for him on screen played under it too.

Which buckskin Quarter Horse did Roy Rogers's wife ride beside him on his 1950s television series?

Buttermilk became a merchandising hit beside the star's palomino, sold as cast-iron and plastic replicas, lamps and dozens of other products.

On The Roy Rogers Show, sidekick Pat Brady chased after the wayward Nellybelle, which was what?

A Jeep with a mind of its own, Nellybelle sometimes sped away driverless with Brady chasing on foot. He had ridden a mule until the star swapped it for the 1946 Willys.

Which bewhiskered sidekick joined Roy Rogers for dozens of films after leaving Hopalong Cassidy?

Gabby Hayes switched studios in 1939 after a salary dispute and played the same cantankerous codger under a new character name. He had not learned to ride until his forties.

On Roy Rogers's 1950s TV series, his leading lady ran the Eureka Café and Hotel in which town?

Mineral City's café also employed the hero's sidekick as its cook. The series ran for 100 episodes over six seasons.

Which raspy-voiced character actor played Cookie, Roy Rogers's comic sidekick in ten feature films?

Andy Devine also played Jingles on television's The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok and appeared in more than 400 films.

In which Mojave Desert town did Roy Rogers settle in 1965, open his museum and spend his final decades?

Apple Valley named streets, highways and civic buildings for the couple in thanks for their work with homeless and disabled children. Both are buried there.

The Roy Rogers museum left California in 2003 for which Missouri resort town, where it closed in 2009?

Branson was meant to bring the collection within reach of more fans, but the museum shut for financial reasons after only six years there.

Which auction house sold the Roy Rogers museum collection in New York in 2010 for about $2.9 million?

Christie's held the two-day sale, where his 1964 Pontiac Bonneville, studded with silver dollars by his tailor, fetched $254,500.

Which burger chain's parent bought Roy Rogers Restaurants in 1990 and rebranded many as its own?

Hardee's takeover sent the brand into severe decline as stores switched signs, though many converted outlets went on selling Roy Rogers fried chicken.

During the Depression, Roy Rogers lived in a California labor camp while picking which fruit for Del Monte?

Peaches were his harvest in Tulare in 1931, after the highway job where he drove gravel trucks collapsed. The camp resembled those John Steinbeck later described.

As a baby, Roy Rogers left the city aboard what vessel his father built from salvage lumber?

A houseboat measuring 12 by 50 feet carried the family upriver in 1912. After the Great Flood of 1913 they moved it onto their own land and kept living in it.

As a teenager, Roy Rogers quit high school to join his father on a production line making what?

Shoes paid the family's bills twice: his father had earlier worked at another plant in Portsmouth, coming home to the farm at weekends with gifts, once a horse.

Young Roy Rogers and his mother signalled each other across the family farm with what calls?

Yodels in different patterns carried messages across the Ohio farm, and he was still at it on the California radio show that launched his career.

At Saturday square dances on his family's Ohio farm, young Roy Rogers sang, called the steps and played what?

Mandolin was his instrument at those neighbourhood dances, held because the farm had no radio and the family had to make its own entertainment.

Which Bob Nolan song did Roy Rogers's group cut at its first recording session in 1934?

Tumbling Tumbleweeds began life as Tumbling Leaves before a Western retitling. The group's 1934 recording was added to the National Recording Registry in 2010.

In Under Western Stars, Roy Rogers's first starring film, his singing cowboy is elected to which office?

Congressman Rogers fights for the water rights of Dust Bowl ranchers, even staging a fake hold-up so visiting politicians taste the drought for themselves.

Roy Rogers married his co-star on New Year's Eve 1947 at a ranch in which state?

Oklahoma's Flying L Ranch, near Davis, was where the pair had shot a Western the year before. The marriage lasted more than fifty years, until his death.

Roy Rogers proposed to his screen partner and future wife in Chicago at what kind of event?

A rodeo at Chicago Stadium was the setting, fitting for a man who performed in arenas as well as on film. The wedding followed on New Year's Eve.

A radio caller in which New Mexico city promised Roy Rogers a pie for a song, then married him in 1936?

Roswell is where Grace Arline Wilkins phoned the station during his 1933 tour, and the two wrote to each other for three years before the wedding there.

Roy Rogers's wife wrote the bestseller Angel Unaware about their daughter's life with which condition?

Down syndrome shaped Robin's short life, and the book helped change public perceptions of children with developmental disabilities. A training center was later renamed for its author.

Roy Rogers and his wife often sang and gave their testimony at the crusades of which evangelist?

Billy Graham also belonged, with the couple and Jane Russell, to the Hollywood Christian Group, which met from 1949 and grew into Bel Air Church.

In the 1948 animated anthology Melody Time, Roy Rogers tells two children the tall tale of which folk hero?

Pecos Bill is the film's finale, introduced by the singer, his horse and his old harmony group as live actors set against animated backdrops.

Which country star supplied the songs for Mackintosh and T.J., Roy Rogers's last film, in 1975?

Waylon Jennings also released a soundtrack album for the picture, which coaxed its star back after more than twenty years away from movies and was shot on Texas's 6666 Ranch.

With which country singer did Roy Rogers record Hold On Partner, a Grammy-nominated 1990s duet?

Clint Black shared the vocal when the veteran was about 80, and the pairing earned a Grammy nomination for best country vocal collaboration.

Which Broadway songwriter wrote Don't Fence Me In, the cowboy song Roy Rogers sang in Hollywood Canteen?

Cole Porter built it on lyrics by Robert Fletcher, and the tune went on to become the title song of the singer's own 1945 Western.

In products carrying his name, Roy Rogers was reportedly second only to which entertainment figure?

Walt Disney alone had more, as the cowboy's name appeared on action figures, adventure novels, playsets and a long-running Dell comic book.

Most postwar Roy Rogers Westerns used which color process while rival B Westerns stayed black and white?

Trucolor was his studio's own process and reached his Westerns in 1947. It began as a two-color system, and its dyes fade with age in a way rival Cinecolor's do not.

Which filmmaker has hailed William Witney, director of many Roy Rogers Westerns, as an action great?

Quentin Tarantino lists a 1949 Roy Rogers vehicle among the four films he considers Witney's best work.

A twin of the giant rearing-horse statue atop Roy Rogers's museum was cast for which NFL team?

Denver Broncos stadium mascot Bucky came from the mold made for the cowboy's giant fiberglass palomino. He agreed to the reuse on condition the new horse took a different name.