REX ALLEN

BY: DON DEDERA

A dear sweet little old farm grandma in Throckmorton, Texas, thinks she knows Rex Allen. The real Rex Allen. Saw him once at the Fort Worth Fat Stock Show. Galloped across the chemical-treated sawdust sitting a $15,000 saddle astride a chocolate-and-cream color horse. Had on one of his 68 pairs of iridescent cowboy boots fitted with spurs that clanged like a runaway chuckwagon; a $1,000 embroidered western suit by a Denver tailor; a solid gold belt buckle brighter than a dancehall chandelier; a $100 Bailey beaver sombrero; and a brace of matched inlaid .45 Colt's Peacemaker pistols reversed for quick draw from hand-tooled holsters. Actually got his horse Koko to multiply 5 times 3 with its hoof, and take a bow for an encore. Then Rex sawed the fiddle some, and jigged a bit of reel, and drawled a couple of bunkhouse thigh-thwackers over the public-address system. The spotlights narrowed when he plugged the extension cord into his guitar, and in a baritone as smooth and sweet as mesquite honey, he crooned "Crying in the Chapel." The moment was so true, so pure, so moving, the little old lady from Throckmorton had to reach a neckerchief out the hip pocket of her Levi's and dab her eyes.That is Rex Allen at his fanciest, as he is known to millions of Americans. A pity, in a way. Those closer to him than Throckmorton prefer a much plainer Rex Allen and so does he. With his given name, from the greatest distance back, he has gone farther retaining more original decent qualities and avoiding more sorry influences along the way, than just about anybody in show business. If his life were a serial, the script would begin, "Can a dirt-poor, cross-eye, freckle-face ranch boy find happiness as a singing cowboy?" Unbelievable.. It's not precisely true that Rex Elvie Allen is a native of Mud Springs, Ariz. His mom fled Mud Springs in time for Rex to be born Dec. 31, 1921, at his granny's tiny house on Haskell Street next door to the G&W Auto Supply in Willcox. About which, more later. From birth, the boy's eyes would not track together. The normal right eye would aim straight ahead, but the maverick left eye would wander around until losing itself in a corner next to Rex's nose. "I could see around a haystack," Rex will joke today, but closer to the truth is another of his sayings, "When I bawled, the tears rolled down my back." When only a few weeks old, Rex was taken to Mud Springs, a raw, foredoomed homestead in the Winchester Mountains northwest of Willcox. In the 1920s boomer sodbusters and shirttail cowmen rushed to take up claims on the periphery of the sprawling Hooker cattle empire. More qualified than most was Rex's pappy, a likeable mix of muscle, music, grit, aptitude, charm and impossible dreams. Horace Allen came West from San Angelo, Texas, driving a four-mule team for seven weeks. At Willcox he took Fay Clark, age 15, as his bride. Fay was daughter to pioneers. For most western stars, their backgrounds are ballyhoo. Rex Allen's great-granddad was a Butterfield stage coach driver. That Mud Springs homestead the Allens aspired to improve was little more than an alkali seep, a rockbound canyon and unending toil. Their first shelter was a tent fly under an oak, and they even tried raising goats while Horace was increasing his herd to 150 mother cows. Of course, they ate Hooker beef, and they didn't complain to the sheriff if a Hooker gate happened to swing open and a registered Hereford bull got loose to service the Allen breeding stock. "Some years," Rex exaggerates, "we had phenomenal calf crops 200 per cent!" Still, life was gut mean. Right along, somebody else was eating Allen beef. What with rustlers, drouth, predators, disease and capricious markets, not many of the bootstrap farmers and ranchers managed to hang on. Horace Allen had traded a burro for a violin, which he taught himself to play, and he helped support his family by calling square dances at Klondike, Sunset, Ash Creek and the Old Horton Place. Rex Allen's first show tour was tagging along to a Fourth of July celebration where his dad nailed up a lemonade stand for Fay before pitching into "Turkey in the Straw." Horace would play to dawn for $15 and an occasional pull of Cochise corn. (Horace to this day remains a formidable man in Cochise County where he builds houses and rarely finishes worse than second in the Benson Fiddling Championship. When Horace and Rex get together invariably friends push them on stage for a father-son duet.) Another way Horace augmented his homestead was in farming, Indian fashion, small patches in the flats. In the cultivation of those fields, the whole Allen family would share. Once a publicity handout about Rex bragged, in a romantic flourish, that he was a bona fide ranch kid that he often rode eight miles to fetch the family mail from the weekly stage. As far as the publicity went, it was true. Rex did own a horse, Geronimo, and at an early age he was taught to ride and rope and shoot. But Rex was even more expert in the drudgery of hauling wood and splitting wood and hoeing weeds. And black tragedy, he early came to realize, could strike through the dust and the heat and the sweat. In 1926, in a vegetable garden near Hooker Butte, the Allens and their two boys, Wayne, 7, and Rex, 5, were weeding. The mother asked Wayne to bring her a drink of water. The willing towhead sprinted toward the canteen, vaulted a barbed-wire fence, and landed in the middle of a rattlesnake. The grownups did what they could. Cut the fang marks on the ankle. Sucked at the poison. Bundled the boy into the wornout, stripped Model T Ford that balked at starting, and when it did, took two hours to bounce 35 overheated miles to the doctor at Willcox. Two days more, Wayne was dead, and in her total grief Fay Allen vowed she would never, never, never return to Mud Springs, a promise she kept to her own death, in 1930. Horace was obliged to move to town and go into the trucking business, beginning by hauling four cows at a time in his Ford.

At school near Mud Springs. "When I was going to school at Willcox I was the cross-eyed kid," Rex recalls. " 'Course, any reference to my appearance meant a fight, and since I was a fair hand with my fists, the subject wasn't openly discussed. But there were other ways a boy was reminded he was differ ent. I never had what you would call a date with a girl."

Rex Allen wouldn't be the first afflicted artist to sublimate, substitute and compensate. But one wonders what a Lord Byron or a John Milton or an Henri Toulouse Lautrec could have achieved with the outlet offered Rex Allen.

As the surviving son, Rex inherited double the chores, among them, chousing critters through the pens and chutes along the Southem Pacific tracks. In that less sophisticated day, the chamber of commerce thumped Willcox as The Livestock Capital of the World. In town Rex was introduced to a circle of peers who could be far more hurtful than his old chums at the country For $6, Horace bought Rex a Sears, Roebuck mail order guitar. "After that boy got to hammerin' on that git-tar," Horace says, "none of us had no sleep for two years." Aunt Ruth C. Gardner remembers Rex's 'teen years. After her sister Fay's death she gave feminine concern to the Allen children, especially the lad with the erratic eyes.

"You'd look at him and your heart would go out," says Ruth. To this day she faithfully keeps scrapbooks of Rex's career - not just the more recent, more obvious accomplishments, but also of when Rex was singing to his own accompaniment for church socials and school assemblies. Motivated by a high school teacher, Rex studied music seriously, and on graduation from Willcox High in 1938, he journeyed to Eastern Arizona Junior College and won a scholarship with his solo of "Lost in London Town." Big deal. The scholarship was $100, not enough. His disappointment was compounded when surgery, partly sponsored by the Willcox Rotary Club, failed to uncross his eyes.

So authentic cowboy, Rex followed the rodeo circuit for a couple of years. He'd have starved as a bronc buster. He would rise from the dust, find his hat and a micro phone, and earn his bus fare singing cowpuncher laments. He then billed himself as Cactus Rex, ever careful to present his right profile.His first big break, although it seemed small enough at the time, was a job on a New Jersey radio station. Rex had sung on Arizona radio (present governor Jack Williams gave him his first job) but Rex had never read a line of copy.

"Can you read copy?" his boss asked. "I'm an expert," said Rex. He demonstrated with a spot ad about cow feed. He murdered it."Son," said the boss, "If you want to stay on here, you'd better learn quick. Block out your copy and learn how to talk. Rex took home old scripts and recited them aloud to himself, time and again, polishing an art that later would establish him as one of the busiest narrators in the country. WLS, Chicago, was the originating station of the National Barn Dance, which in its heyday was magnet, amplifier and outlet for many country-western stars: Red Foley, Pat Buttram, Hoosier Hot Shots, Lula Belle & Scotty, Gene Autry, Homer & Jethro, Fibber & Molly, and George Gobel. A. talent scout invited Rex to sing on the National Barn Dance, and he was a sensation.

Preceding Rex at WLS were the pretty sisters, Connie and Bonnie Linder, out of Nehawka, Neb.; Yankton, S. Dak.; Shenandoah, Iowa. They harmonized "Have I told You Lately?" and turned on every clodhopper on theMidwest fair circuit, Rex included. He favored Bonnie; asked her; she accepted. She has not sung professionally since.

"The youngest daughter in a family of eight farm children got what she wanted: a loving husband, a home and her children. I've never regretted giving up my own stage career. One star in the family is enough."

Announcers of that golden age of network radio, the likes of Jack Holden and Si Harris and Harlow Wilcox, helped Rex with his delivery.

"They taught me to speak softly and avoid gimmicks and never say anything I couldn't prove," recalls Rex. "It was the kind of training I'm not sure is available anymore."

Also in Chicago, Rex's eyes were corrected, almost as an anticlimax. Doctors with genius in their fingers gave Rex a local ariesthetic, lifted the left eyeball onto his cheek, repaired the control cord, and put the eye back. Rex watched the operation with his good eye. Since, he's been 20-20, true and together in sight.

Overnight Rex had an honest handsome face to go with his tall, lean physique. He arrived in Hollywood only half a guitar-length behind Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Rex made 31 Grade B musical oaters with Republic, and a dozen other western films with Disney, Universal and 20th Century-Fox. If Rex was a trifle late for the western movie, he was on time for television with the "Frontier Doctor" series, in the series-hungry 1950s. Mickey Gross with no more than a handshake has been Rex's business manager for 20 years. Mickey can spin a thousand yarns about the care and feeding of a singing cowboy: "The first time I saw him in Chicago walk out onto a stage with no more props than a guitar and a pair ofblue jeans, I said, now there is one hell of an entertainer. I was right, Like, I mean, he has written 300 of his own songs....

"But it's the personal appearances that have kept Rex on top. Even I don't know how he stands the pace. He always draws bigger the second year." Gross ticked off show cities Salt Lake, eight or nine seasons; Casper, six; Colorado Springs, eight; Calgary, six, Phoenix, eight. Returns to San Antonio, Houston, Milwaukee, New York, Pueblo, Denver, Gladewater, Dallas. Concert with the Omaha Symphony. More from Gross - "He never leaves an audience unhappy, and he has never canceled a date in his career. One year he played shows with a broken foot.

"In the old days, Rex would give away silver bullets by the hundreds, and once in Baitiniore we appeared at 30 theaters in three days. He'd do nearly anything promotion asked, and once he took his horse out on the eighth floor balcony of a hotel in Lethbridge. He's had to be rescued from mobs of children, because he'll never leave so long as one kid still wants an autograph.

"We used to have straight-laced rules for movie cowboys, and not only did Rex follow them, he believed in them. As a hero to youngsters, he wouldn't let himself be seen smoking or drinking, or so much as winking at a girl. That's the kind of guy he is, understand? He feels the responsibility."

The rewards have a price, says Gross: "It's a hell of a lot of money, but it takes a lot of money to keep it going, and it is a hell of a lot of suitcases, and lost nights, and tense moments, and one hell of a lot of hotel rooms."

Rex's easy-going, outdoorsey way with words has him narrating four to five Disney specials a year; his favorites, "Incredible Journey," "Yellowstone Cubs," "Hollywood Coyote," and "The Wetback Hound." In all, Rex has done 75 narrations, including General Electric's "Carousel of Progress" transplanted to Disneyland from the New York World's Fair. He has branched out to stage show production, to merchandise wholesaling, and to television documentaries. Counting rebellious writers, broken-down rodeo pals, temperamental cameramen, Rex in middle-age has a bunch of acquaintances he describes as "wilder than a bunch of outhouse rats."

Despite them, the Allen marriage has endured, while all about them others were failing.

"Credit Bonnie," says Rex. "She always made sure there was a place I could call home."

The home she keeps these days is a new hillside ranch house near Calabasas, a few minutes off the Ventura Freeway toward the ocean. The fireplace is a masterpiece of masonry in the huge, vaulted living room, in itself larger than the homestead at Mud Springs. Several Allen cars and a ranch jeep usually clutter the broad drive and carport. Prize whiteface cattle and the trick horse, Koko Jr., graze the 20 spring-fed acres. Chaparral creeps down to the white fences and lawns and gardens.

Attractive and chic, Bonnie is at once hospitable and guarded, the protective wife who would have only good things written about her husband because his faults don't matter, really.

"Rex may be away from home 100 days a year," she says, "but he likes to say that when he's home, he's home 24 hours a day, and that he and his boys aren't going to be satisfied until they have climbed every mountain in California."

The boys are three: Chico, out of college and the army and a coming singer with Plantation ("Harper Valley PTA") Records; Curt, producing records in Nashville; and Mark, high school. The spoiled, precocious joy of all the Allens is Bonita Kaye, 8, their "bonus baby."

For the Rex Allen ideal of the good life, there's still a lot of country in Southern Arizona, and it's all western.

REX ALLEN - from page 29

By proclamation Rex Allen is an admiral of the Nevada Navy, an ambassador of the sovereign Republic of Texas, a naturalized citizen of Nebraska, and the honorary mayor of Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. These put-on certificates he does not, does not, keep on the walls of his home. But he has hung a few treasures in a back room: his gold record signifying a million sales of "Crying in the Chapel," a trophy naming him Rodeo Man of the Year, and an inexpensive plaque given him by a governor, appointing him "Arizona's favorite cowboy."

Bonnie says, "Here, Rex keeps safe the things that are important to him, and here, he allows nothing that is phony. The boys long ago became accustomed to their father's schedule and occupation, and they are proud of him because he hasn't let the fame and money change him. Around here, he's their father. He tells them, 'This is my sanity.'"

More Bonnie, "When Rex travels, he gives himself completely. When he's home, he's tired of people. Maybe we'll have over a few old close friends, like Maggie and Slim Pickins, or the Roger Millers.

"At home, Rex's idea of a perfect day is running the tractor. Or building something. He built the barn (cost $75,000) with his own hands. It's really more than a barn his wardroom and office and stable."

The tour passed some chicken coops and a small, well-tended truck garden.

"Look here," said Bonnie, "Early in the morning Rex likes to come out here and feed the chickens. He plows this garden and plants these things, and he keeps the weeds hoed out."

Safe to say, there is no western wing-ding quite like Rex Allen Days every October for the past 20 years in Willcox, Arizona.

Allen donates his time, his talent and his troupe to his birthplace. The ritual has become a kind of festival of loyalty on the one side a man who has made it big in show biz, and on the other side, folks who hardly ever got past the city limits.

It helps perspective to know that Ginny Simms is also from Willcox, and there is no Ginny Simms Days. As far as Willcox has heard, Miss Simms has never admitted, in any public forum, that she is the same pigtailed grammar school lass whose family lived overhead the Willcox Movie Theater.

Rex has never displayed any shame of his origin. In his first giddy weeks of public adulation, Rex in interviews would allow to all radioland that he was from Willcox. And if that brought a snicker from the city slickers, Rex would patiently explain that Willcox was no ordinary wide spot; but rather, an important cattle shipper, a good place to stay a while and eat, home of the best people on earth, and gateway to God's Country.

Willcox today couldn't afford Rex on any terms, but free. With him, the celebration is first class, even to a Rodeo Cowboys of America-sanctioned tournament. Not that Willcox gets rich, but there's generally a few hundred left over for the 4-H, the hospital, and civic improve-ments. The town built a new Museum of the Southwest, with one room filled with mementos of Rex's career, from first hat to silver saddle.

ments. The town built a new Museum of the Southwest, with one room filled with mementos of Rex's career, from first hat to silver saddle.

An oldtimer summed up what Rex does for town morale: "When he comes down the street leading the parade I remember him hanging around my confectionary counter as a boy, and then Rex spots me and he always rides over and shakes my hand and says hello. Why, once, in Alaska, I mentioned I was from Willcox, and a guy said, 'You're from Rex Allen's home town!' "

Willcox consumes the man during Rex Allen Days. For family reunion Horace comes over from Benson, and usually his sisters show up, along with Aunt Ruth and uncountable coveys of cousins and step-relations. They crowd into Rex's motel room and hunger to talk to him about their favorite song, "Don't Go Near the Indians," and they want to hear again if it's true that all during "Frontier Doctor" he carried the black medical satchel of the late Dr. J. C. Wilson, the real-life frontier doc of Willcox. And for the umpteenth time Rex says, yes, it's true.

The town divides into thirds. One third keeps him up all night. Another third gets him started early in the morning. The other third clucks about how Rex looks a little puffy today shows you what that fast Hollywood life will do to a man!

Through it all, Rex Allen, plain, tries to make no more enemies than Rex Allen, fancy. And if that is his life's goal, to make no one unhappy, then he has fulfilled himself as few men on earth. No show personality makes more charity and hospital appearances, which he brushes off as "my religion on the road."

Rex will take a friend to lunch at the Hollywood Brown Derby, and sip a vodka-martini-on-the-rocks while waiting for his straw Reuben, and he no nonsense will say that he hung up his guns for good, a couple of years ago at the time of the assassinations, because: "I worried about my message to kids, wearing those instruments of violence. I decided I'd rather be remembered as a feller with songs, not guns. Not that I have any personal dislike of guns, own some sporting arms and all, but those pistols in those quick-draw holsters were a bad image for these new times."

And without a trace of cynicism, Rex will say, "I have all the wonderful things that can happen to a guy - the glory the million-seller, the movie fame, the cheers. But when some little boy or girl comes up to me and says, 'Rex Allen, I like you,' it is so sincere, so real, it is all the glory, all the success in a few little words. That is what makes everything in show business worthwhile to me."

And there comes that moment, in the shadows under the grandstand, when a famous and wealthy man, wrung out by a demanding trade, desperately in need of relaxation, would not be observed if he shoved aside an adoring child. But Rex Allen never does.

His britches may cost $200, but he puts them on one leg at a time. Eating steak, he forgets not the beans. At 30,000 feet on the way to Madison Square Garden, he remembers how his big brother died hurdling a threefoot fence. Rex Allen still does not drink in the streets, and he respects his elders, he keeps his pledges, he heads his house, and into the last of his 40s, just like the plainest folks of Throckmorton, Rex Allen plants a little garden and keeps out the weeds.