GENE AUTRY IN ARIZONA

GENE AUTRY IN Arizona "PHOENIX IS SORT OF A SECOND HOME TO ΜΕ."

The time is today. In a house on a quiet street in Scottsdale, a two-and-a-half-year-old girl in robe and pajamas sits enthralled by the sight of a real live reindeer with a red nose appearing on her favorite morning TV program. The room around the small girl echoes with the Christmas song about Rudolph, "the most famous reindeer of all."

Although Gene Autry had died several months before, the song he recorded a half-century ago was entertaining yet another generation.

In 1949, Rudolph joined the other famous reindeer - Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder, and Blizten, as a name synonymous with Santa and Christmas. The year before, New York songwriter Johnny Marks sent a demo record of the song he'd written to Bing Crosby and other popular recording artists, all of whom rejected it.

Knowing Autry had written and recorded the country's first postwar Christmas hit, "Here Comes Santa Claus," Marks sent his demo to the popular singing cowboy. Autry did not care for the song. But his wife, Ina, disagreed.

"Ina loved it," Autry wrote (with Mickey Herskowitz) in his 1978 autobiography, Back in the Saddle Again. "There was a line in the song about the other reindeer not letting Rudolph join in any reindeer games, and she was touched by it. She said, 'It reminds me of the story of the Ugly Duckling. The kids will love it.'"

The Autrys often shared part of Rudolph's favorite holiday season with the William and M.T. Clemans families of Florence. Longtime Arizona ranchers, the Clemans brothers also owned and produced the World Championship Rodeo in New York's Madison Square Garden and the Boston Garden. Autry had met them in 1940 when he appeared in their rodeo at Madison Square Garden. "Gene loved spending Christmas in Arizona," recalls M.T.'s widow, Rose. Because Autry had no children of his own, she added, "He loved having children around at Christmas."

As for Rudolph, Rose reveals, "He [Autry] was quite surprised it was a hit." Ina's intuition proved more than correct: At the time, it became the biggest selling record in Columbia Records' history. And her husband's biggest hit ever.

For Gene Autry, before "Here Comes Santa Claus" and "Rudolph," there were Christmases away from home during the war, interrupting an astonishingly successful career, the signs of which showed up in his early years.

Born in 1908, Gene Orvon Autry was the son of a Tioga, Texas, livestock dealer and horse trader and a mother who bought him his first guitar. His Baptist minister grandfather made five-yearold Gene a part of his church choir. In the late 1920s, Autry began his rise from a $150-a-month guitarplaying singer and songwriting-railroadtelegrapher to Hollywood superstar.

'I HAD DISCOVERED DURING THE WAR,' AUTRY SAID, 'HOW QUICKLY YOUR SECURITY CAN BE THREATENED BY CONDITIONS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL.' AUTRY SAW A FUTURE IN ARIZONA.

Autry became Tech. Sgt. Gene Autry when he left Republic Pictures and joined the Army Air Corps in 1942. His first assignment after basic training was Luke Field west of Phoenix.

By 1940, his income as an entertainer reached $600,000 a year. Under contract to Republic Pictures, he made eight films a year. Millions tuned in to his weekly "Melody Ranch" radio show. There were 18 hit records in a decade, five of which sold more than a million copies. There were personal appearances and rodeos. In 1937 (and for six consecutive years), he was voted the Number One Western Star. Three years later, only Clark Gable, Mickey Rooney, and Spencer Tracy outranked him as a box-office draw.

Early in 1942, despite studio opposition, "America's Favorite Cowboy," now 35, made the decision to put his horse, Champion, out to pasture and enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps.

As a "Flying Sergeant" in the Air Transport Command, Autry flew primarily in North Africa and in the China-Burma-India Theater, including the Hump. (Legend has it he was the only U.S. serviceman allowed to wear cowboy boots on duty.) "I had discovered during the war," Autry wrote in his autobiography, "how quickly your security can be threatened by conditions beyond your control." What if something happened to his voice?

His health?

"I knew," he continued, "the time had come to start looking for an interest that did not depend on my being able to perform."

Assigned to Special Services at the old Luke Field west of Phoenix, Autry, who had piloted only small aircraft before the war, paid for private lessons in Phoenix to qualify for larger aircraft. During this time, he performed for Gen. George Patton's Eighth Army troops at their desert training facility in Arizona and often broadcast his "Melody Ranch" radio program from Luke.

He also had a fateful meeting with businessman Tom Chauncey, who owned a jewelry store in Phoenix's Adams Hotel. Forming a partnership, the two men bought the Phoenix radio station, KOOL, that carried "Melody Ranch." Autry saw a future in Arizona.

It was in Florence that Autry began his close friendship and business association with the Clemans family.

"It was the first person in Florence to meet Gene Autry," recalls Dr. William Clemans Jr., who was then nine years old. It was in 1942. "There was a knock on our front door. I opened it and there was this man in an Army uniform carrying a briefcase. He said, 'Son, do you know who I am?' I said, 'You're Gene Autry and we're having dinner and you can come in and join us." The briefcase contained Autry's proposal to become the Clemans family's partner in World Championship Rodeo. The offer was accepted.

Soon Autry's friendship and business relationship with the Clemanses went beyond rodeo. "We were in the cattle business with him, too," Rose

GENE AUTRY Arizona

says, “with ranches near Florence and Winslow.” Her nephew, Dr. Clemans, remembers, “When he came to Florence he was just Gene Autry. Everyone loved him. He would play basketball with local kids. He would sit in our living room and my friends - especially during the Christmas holidays - would come over. Gene would sing requests for as long as we asked him to.” In 1946, Autry freed himself from his longtime contract at Republic Pictures. The singing cowboy formed his own film company, partnered with Columbia Pictures, and returned to Arizona, filming The Last Round-Up at Old Tucson and The Strawberry Roan in the Sedona area.

By the early 1950s, Autry and Chauncey had purchased a Phoenix television station, which became KOOL-TV, a CBS affiliate. The partnership would also include a television station in Tucson and an interest in The Arizona Republic and The Phoenix Gazette newspapers. Additionally, Autry opened his Gene Autry Western Store in the Adams Hotel in Phoenix and invested in radio stations in Yuma, Nogales, and Coolidge.

Audrey Herring of Phoenix, Tom Chauncey's secretary and assistant for many years, remembers the first time she met Autry, in the early 1950s. She had recently moved to Phoenix from Texas. “Mr. Autry came into the station, and I was on the phone with Mr. Chauncey, who was in Chicago.He asked me to drive Mr. Autry over to the Adams Hotel.” Herring recalls being “very nervous” in the presence of a man who was so popular the U.S. Postal Service reported that only Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward received and sent out more mail than Gene Autry.

As she took Autry from the station to the hotel, Herring's driving reflected her nervousness. She remembers assuring her famous passenger that “I was a licensed Texas driver.” She also recalls liking him immediately. “He was a very charm-ing man.” But always that was the public Gene Autry. “He was a very private man,” says Homer Lane, a longtime Phoenix broadcasting and advertising executive who became a partner with Chauncey and Autry at KOOL-TV and knew the entertain-er well. In contrast with his smooth film and radio personality, Autry “was not a good public speak-er and was nervous before speaking in front of crowds,” Lane said.

And crowds, large and small, there were; at the annual Florence Junior Parada, one of America's premier junior rodeos, where the cowboy entertainer often rode in the parade and donated buckles and spurs as prizes, and in Phoenix and Filmed at Sedona in 1947, The Strawberry Roan, costarring Gloria Henry, was one of Gene Autry's first independent productions after World War II. While his prewar films were all black and white, Autry filmed this picture in cinecolor to capture the spectacular scenery of Arizona's Red Rock Country.

OF ARIZONA, AUTRY SAID AT THE TIME, 'I'D LIKE TO RETIRE THERE WHEN MY MOVIEMAKING DAYS ARE OVER.'

Tucson, where he assisted in the annual Easter Seals campaigns.

Del Haverty of Benson, winner of All Around Cowboy honors at the 1946 Parada, still has the spurs and the belt buckle Autry donated that year as top prize. Haverty, who went on to a championship career in professional rodeo, and Autry share an honor in common: Both were inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.

In 1950, Autry had brought his "Melody Ranch" stage show and both Champion and Little Champion to Phoenix and Tucson for big outdoor shows to help kick off a statewide Easter Seals campaign. He visited youngsters at the Arizona Convalescent Home for Crippled Children. "Most of the little patients were taking in the sun in their beds and wheelchairs when the singing cowboy appeared," wrote a reporter for The Arizona Republic. "He was recognized at once and a cheer went up."

Of Arizona, Autry said at the time, "I'd like to retire there when my moviemaking days are over." Yet there was no thought of retirement when his motion picture days ended.

By the early 1950s, as television was replacing radio and the B-Western, Autry had already saddled up to blaze a new trail of his own. Even before he ended his movie and radio career, Autry's Flying "A" Productions pioneered the new medium by putting him into a television series, as well as developing and producing several other series. He expanded his media empire to include radio stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Antonio. He partnered with John Wayne in a Texas oil well. He formed a new rodeo and stockcontracting partnership in Colorado. At the time, it appeared Gene Autry had professionally and personally left the Grand Canyon State behind.

Then an old dream brought him back. In 1961, the cowboy who had once hoped to be a professional baseball player became the owner of a major league baseball team. The onetime American Legion shortstop who had been offered a $100-a-month contract to play for a St. Louis Cardinals farm team in Tulsa, anteed up $2.1 million for the right to own an American League expansion team, the Los Angeles Angels.

While Easterners brought big-league baseball west from Brooklyn and New York, it seemed fitting for the cowboy in the white hat to be the first to settle a new major league team in the West. Although the Angels trained in Palm Springs, the team played midweek games in Phoenix, Mesa, and Scottsdale.

In the fall of 1971, Autry hired Harry Dalton of Carefree as the Angels' general manager, a position he held through 1977. "He didn't talk much about himself," Dalton remembers of his boss. "He was a very gentle, humble person. He was very knowl-edgeable about the game. He liked to come down to the clubhouse and talk to the players.

GENE AUTRY Arizona

"He loved people," Dalton continues. "And wherever he went, he was lavished with praise. Watching the people look at Autry, it was amaz-ing to see the adoration." To the public, Dalton adds, "he was an absolute hero."

Four years ago, Gene Autry made his last visit to Florence and the Clemans fam-ily. "During our visit," Dr. Clemans remembers, "my son Tim asked him if he would come to a weekly lunch that day at the Rotary. Gene accepted and stayed at the meeting to sign autographs for everyone. He was just one of the greatest guys you'd ever want to meet."

During his lifetime, the actor-businessman donated an estimated $176 million to charitable causes, always without fanfare. He also created a lasting memorial to the American West when another dream, the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage, opened in Los Angeles in 1988.

In 1993, the Angels made Tempe their permanent spring training facility. In keeping with Autry's commitment of giving back to the local community, Angels Care, his charitable division of the Angels baseball team, created the Gene Autry Courage Awards. In partnership with the Tempe Sports Authority, the awards are given annually to men and women in sports who have demonstrated heroism in the face of difficulty or danger.

In the spring of 1999, the Angels named their training diamond "Gene Autry Field."

Through the years, Autry's diverse public honors included the Hubert Humphrey Humanitarian of the Year Award and the Songwriters Guild Life Achievement Award. In addition to the Cowboy Hall of Fame, he was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame, the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame, and the U.S. Army's Enlisted Man's Hall of Fame.

"I tipped my hat and slowly rode away," Autry once sang. And so he did, at the age of 91, on October 2, 1998. After his death, the Hump Pilots Association noted that Autry, Life Member No. 939, had been refunded $5 on his dues. He had overpaid.

"I belong in the West," Gene Autry once told his "Melody Ranch" radio audience. "That's where I fit." Arizona would agree.

Editor's Note: For more information, visit www.autry-museum.org online, or write: Autry Museum of Western Heritage, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles, California 90027-1462; or phone (323) 667-2000. The museum is dedicated to preserving and interpreting the history and traditions of the American West.