Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry

I was born in 1931 -- just about the time Gene Autry was starting his singing career. When I was old enough to go to the local Movie Theater alone I would not miss a Gene Autry movie, and we just had to listen to the Gene Autry weekly radio program. As I grew older I attended Gene's appearances in Pittsburgh, PA. He was always courteious to us kids. Even though we were there every day he smiled, talked to us and autographed our books again, and again, and again. Gene never hurried us. He spent time talking to us and making us feel special. This is a book I could not lay down. Holly George did a wonderful job telling us of his personal life. His successes and failures, his fights with Republic Studios. His drinking problem and womanizing. She showed us the man, a very human man, with perfection and flaws, just like the rest of us. If you want to know the REAL, behind the mask, Gene Autry, this is the book. Holly George tells it well and let's us make our own decisions as to the type of person he was. I think he was a good man. I think Holly did a great job researching this book and writing it in an informative and interesting manner. Dorothy W. Rossa Chicago, IL

This excellent biography of Gene Autry puts him back in the saddle again for more than 300 pages. "Public Cowboy No. 1" offers an in-depth insight into the Saturday-afternoon hero of millions of boys and girls, many of whom are now mature men and women, who can devour this bio with a nostalgia that is, in part, bitter-sweet, but always enjoyable. You'll discover how Gene Autry developed into not only one of the most popular entertainers of him time, but also a shrewd businessman, which made him one of the richest of his time. This biography is a well-documented, informative read. So, pretend it's Saturday afternoon again, saddle up and take another thrilling ride down memory lane with Public Cowboy No. 1. You'll be glad you did.

Public Cowboy No.1: The Life And Times Of Gene Autry, by Holly George-Warren A book review by Jerry Rojo, May, 2007 Gene Autry, An American Idol Holly George-Warrne's biographic tome is a definitive must-read, not only for the worldwide legions of the American cowboy moviegoing public, young and old, but also, anyone interested in a prototypical American dreamer on a lifelong trek, as defined by the arts and entertainment industry's dream factories from Hollywood to Madison Avenue. George-Warren's impeccably researched Gene Autry story, interestingly, is somewhat reminiscent of Doris Kerns-Goodwin's recent Abraham Lincoln book, Team Of Rivals, that chronicles the president's rags-to-riches life in the political arena. Both authors masterfully use the biographic form to convey their respective visions, yet provide the reader scholarly researched stories to ponder any number of themes and ideas about their subject. Like Lincoln, Autry was dirt poor, grassroots, self-made and ambitious; carefully grooming his career with a lifelong, unrelenting, innate ability to charm colleagues, friends and the public at large. Lincoln, too, was a performer. He cherished the spoken/written word, and the theatre, to the chagrin of his aristocratic, snobbish cabinet. Ironically, he was assassinated by a Shakespearean actor. The Autry book, like Lincoln's, defines his respective context/time in America. The political-rodeo arena is a metaphor for our country's so-called "culture", epitomized by the American Idol phenomena, with its demigod-like celebrities from respective realms of, popular entertainment, sports, politics. religion and, now a days, big corporations, all of which defines the current American ethos. My can't-put-down read of George-Warren was fueled not only by her writing, but by my own childhood spent idolizing Gene Autry while growing up in Illinois, and, my subsequent professional interest in dramatic arts adds to the attraction. A compelling aspect of the book traces Autry's genealogy from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to pre-great depression Texas/Oklahoma, where Autry's story begins. During that period, one is amazed by his personal and professional character development, growing up in a family of six in abject poverty, with an on-and-off absentee, hard-drinking father, and by contrast, a deeply religious and nurturing mother. Everyone knows Autry's interest in the great American pastime, baseball, but a telling tidbit reveals that he was a pretty good sandlot player, and was offered a chance to play for a minor league team, but, declined because he was making more money working on the railroad and needed to support his family. That anecdote helps define this complex man. His devotion and generosity to family, friends and associates throughout his long life was always balanced by his knack for good judgment when it came to decisions about human welfare and the busine

Whatever Holly George-Warren says in her new biography of Gene Autry; however much detail she covers; however many previously unpublished facts she unearths, she is never going to please everyone. Even a monumental biography such as this one, packed to bursting as it is with dates and names and stories, will never record everything that we, the readers, will want to see. The problem is not Ms George-Warren's. When she says she could have written a book twice this size, I believe her. No, the problem was created by Autry himself. He lived to a mighty age, and into that great expanse of time he packed enough life experiences to fuel any number of books and magazines and newspaper articles. One glance at George-Warren's footnotes and bibliography shows how the world has been flooded with Autry newsprint throughout a career - no, several careers - that spanned 70 years. And that doesn't take account of his austere childhood (a story in itself that George-Warren tells in remarkable detail), or the vast amount of Autry material that has appeared since his death in 1998: the DVDs, the CDs, the books, the websites - even the belated victory of his Angels team in the World Series. Look at any of the online auction sites any day of the week and you will get an idea of just how much stuff Autry left behind: the supply seems endless, and endlessly varied, and all of this is merely an illusion of the man's actual working life. Autry was a workaholic, driven, it seems, to be always doing something. When his contemporaries Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy and Tyrone Power finished their day's work at the studio, they went home and put their feet up. Not Autry. As George-Warren records in breathless detail, even while shooting a movie, Autry would be called to the phone to deal with some other business in which he was involved elsewhere: or he would receive commercial partners for discussions on set. There simply weren't enough hours in the day for him. This handsome biography could never hope to cover everything in such an industrious life, and some of the material that is missing has been judiciously excised for purely logistical, editorial reasons. Quite rightly, the author almost completely eschews Autry's involvement in baseball (a blessed relief for those of us not interested in sports), and instead concentrates a good deal of time to his early radio and recording work. A fascinating account of Autry's notorious shoot-out with Herb Yates at Republic Studios, usng the evidence of surviving documents, brings that painful episode to vivid life. George-Warren skirts around the hackneyed stories, veracious or otherwise, that Autry told so many times that he eventually believed them himself. She neither confirms them or denies them, but puts them into a sort of context from which the reader may draw his or her own conclusions about their probability. Not that any of this matters, except insofar as how it paints a picture of a man who was as much a media creati

Gene Autry, my childhood hero and that of millions of others, finally has gotten his due, on the eve of what would have been his 100th birthday. Autry was as unmistakably American as Will Rogers or Walt Disney, and every bit as remarkable. This book, the first full-length biography of Autry and superbly written by Holly George-Warren, explores every nook and cranny of his long, busy and productive life, telling of things that many of us already knew -- but in much more fascinating detail; exploding a few myths that Autry had encouraged about himself over the years; and adding more than a few revelations about his life that will shock the more naive of his fans. Gene Autry got the name in Hollywood of being a tightwad -- but that's not the picture we get from this book. Yes, he loved money with the passion of many people who had little or none of it growing up. But once having amassed a fortune in show business, he was for the rest of his life a "soft touch" not only for charities, but for old friends down on their luck, people who had helped him when he really needed it as a young, struggling performer -- and family members such as his ne'er-do-well father and brother. He spent countless hundreds of hours over the years visiting children's hospitals to chat with, sing to, and encourage the smallest of his fans, many of them with terminal illnesses. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force in World War II when his studio had promised to get him a deferment so he wouldn't have to serve at all. He took flying lessons on his own time so he could qualify to be co-pilot of supply planes going to combat zones, when he could have spent his service time simply entertaining the other troops. Gene Autry was a giver, an extraordinarily generous man, first, last and always. The portions of the book about Autry's drinking problem and his "steppin' out" with numerous women during his marriage, provide a human element to this great entertainer who wrote his own "Cowboy Code" but sometimes had trouble living up to all of it in his own life. Yes, folks, he was mortal after all, and not perfect. None of us are. If you look at the photo of a smiling Gene Autry on the cover, posed with his famous guitar, you'll note the two dark shadows he throws on the backdrop -- perhaps the author's deliberate choice to symbolize his twin demons of liquor and lust. Far more important is what Gene Autry achieved, as documented meticulously by George-Warren. His records, movies, radio and TV programs, and personal appearances are discussed in intimate detail. Gene appears to have been an almost tireless human dynamo, on the go from morning to night. The less-admirable things he did were the other end of the equation -- he worked hard, AND played hard. Aspects of his personality that are not well known are discussed, also. He was a gregarious person, a practical joker and teaser, witty at times, and a gifted mimic who became known in Washington circles before and during Wor