I have expressed before on this blog my fondness for old Gene Autry westerns. The reason for this is quite easy. The movies are very fun (plus I am a country music fan as well as a movie fan). However also contributing to this is that there is something about Gene's screen presence that is incredibly inspiring. How can you watch one of these movies and not want to be a cowboy, riding a beautiful horse, saving the day and of course singing a song or two along the way. He was a larger than life role model, that every red blooded American boy could look up to and each time I watch one of his movies or TV episodes (as well as listening to his music and radio show as well) I become one of those red blooded American boys. Though naturally he was human and was not as perfect as his onscreen character, still the more I read about him as a person the more I like him. For an example here is an article from TV Radio Mirror (dated May 1956), entitled "Hooray for Gene."
"Some years ago, in the process of joining his rodeo with another, Gene Autry entered a banker's conference room to sign the papers closing the deal. The dealers, flanked by their lawyers were surprised to see Gene arrive alone. As Gene later explained simply 'I trust everybody.....' This trust is one of Gene's outstanding character traits, and to a great extent responsible for his ever continuing success: In 1956 Gene Autry will be celebrating his twenty-sixth year on radio and his sixteenth year for the same sponsor - one of the longest associations of a star and his sponsor in showbusiness history.
"What is there about Gene Autry that wears so well? The answer is to be found in Gene's sincerity, his honesty of heart and manner, simple as one of his western tunes. Plain folks, it seems, never wear out their welcome. And Gene Autry with his simplicity is forever welcome in his listener's homes.
"The love his coworkers have for Gene is well shown in their loyalty and long tenure in his organization - many have been with him for twenty years or more. Louise Moraweck, for example first played viola for Gene's radio orchestra for ten years and has since worked six more years on his radio staff. She describes good friend Gene as follows: 'Gene is consistent and even-tempered. Perhaps I should say he has a complete lack of temperament. So many actors are 'stars.' He is not one of them he is just Gene. He is so unaffected you can't help but loving him.
"'On the other hand he is so full of energy. On the road he doesn't mind a seven day a week schedule, matinee and evening performances, Sunday rehearsal and radio show or visits to the governor, mayor or city officials. Whenever there is a break in the day, his first stop is the children's hospital. He works best when he has the most to do. Yet he never loses his temper - though I can tell you he has had plenty of occasions to do so.
"'I remember when I first went to work for him, I was in charge of his 'original' record collection - relics they were, his first recordings, many out of release and impossible to duplicate. Some had already been destroyed a fire at his home, so that made the remainders even more valuable in his eyes.
"'One day the arranger came to me asking if he could borrow one of the 'firsts,' saying he needed it for a special job on the air show. My conscience hurt when I handed it over, but I did so only on his promise that he would return it the very next day. You can imagine how I reacted when he came in to say he had dropped and broken the record. Gene had every right in the world to lose his temper. But when I told him, he said 'Forget it Louise, you can't cry over spilled records...''
"The people who work with Gene, his friends who know him best, can tell you that no one in Hollywood is more of a 'real person' than Gene Autry. 'One of Gene's most wonderful qualities' says his long time friend and TV producer Lou Gray, 'is that Gene never changes. He is the same quiet unassuming man today that he was twenty five years ago when I first met him... When we go on location to Joshua Tree, Gene is just one of the cowboys. If a call goes out for a crack of dawn scene, he's there and he's still there when the sun goes down. If a hard-riding scene comes up, something that might require a stuntman, Gene says 'Aw come on now, let's don't make a big thing of this,' - and we go ahead and do it.
"'To go back twenty-five years; I first heard of Gene when I worked in a New York agency. Each month the record sales report came across my desk. Gene's records for Sears & Roebuck were beginning to hit the top ten. People in the office began asking, 'Who's Gene Autry?'
"'One day Gene finally got to the New York office. He came clumping in, wearing boots and a big white hat and said 'Howdy' to all the girls. They just gaped. You didn't see many boots on Madison Avenue in those days. Well from then on we referred to Gene as the 'boy in the big white hat.' Of course he's a big man now - point is, as far as I can see, Gene hasn't changed. I still call him 'The man in the big white hat' and he still says 'Howdy.'
"Says his wife Ina, 'Gene talks in plain United States, and I mean the plainest. In fact he spoke so easy it made an impression on me the first day we met. Gene had known my aunt and uncle for some years, and I was staying with them while going to college in Springfield, Missouri. They talked about him and how he was playing on Station WLS. To a kid in college, like me, anybody in Chicago radio was really big.
"'I was a dither when Gene stepped off the train for a visit that morning in 1931, but he spoke more 'Missouri' than my uncle and aunt! And I thought, Now there's a person whose head will never be turned by success. I think I decided there and then 'there's the man for me.' We went back to the house, visited for a spell, and then he took me to a movie. When he left we wrote. Then he visited again, three or four times and finally he wrote to me from St. Louis to come and get married. I did and I've never been unhappy about it a day in my life - and before long we'll have been married a quarter of the century.'
"With nearly twenty-five years of marriage, twenty-six years of radio, and a record of sixteen years with the same sponsor, TV RADIO MIRROR salutes Gene Autry. For - as many of his faithful listeners long ago agreed - to know Gene is to love him... plain folks it seems never wear out their welcome."
For our musical selection today we have a classic gospel song recorded by Gene on June 19, 1952. This song features Johnny Bond on guitar and backing vocals. Bond had a pretty successful career as a country singer himself. This song was written by Jimmy Kennedy. Kennedy had previously written a song called South of the Border which was a huge hit for Autry in 1939, coming for Autry's feature film South of the Border (1939). Today's song is entitled God's Little Candles.
Gene also sang this song in his feature film, Pack Train (1953). Here is that version of the song.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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