10 Things You Didn’t Know About Gene Autry
He did more than ride horses and sing.
When I was a kid, the big three TV cowboys were The Lone Ranger, Roy Rodgers and Gene Autry. Roy and Gene were both double threats as cowboys and singers, whereas The Lone Ranger, while not a singer, did have the most flamboyant outfit. I have to admit, the idea of watching those three cowboys was more enjoyable than actually watching them. When I was about five years old, listening to cowboys sing wasn’t all that thrilling. Now that I’m in my 60s, it’s still not thrilling. Plus, how many ranches were there to be saved?
With that aside, here are some things you didn’t know about Gene Autry.
1: Gene’s first marriage was to Mae Spivey, but he had a sustained affair with actress Gail Davis.
Davis played Annie Oakley on the TV show of the same name. While that didn’t pose a career problem at the time, his drinking did. Showing up drunk led his radio show’s sponsor, Wrigley’s Gum, to pull the plug on his show. A couple of things come to mind.
If you have a drinking problem wouldn’t chewing gum help you hide it? So wouldn’t that have made Wrigley’s an ideal sponsor for Autry? I guess not.
