Post by topbilled on Apr 23, 2024 14:48:33 GMT
Will Rogers headlined films at Fox (before it became 20th Century Fox). His down-home folksy humor worked well in rural stories like STATE FAIR released in 1933, and he was directed several times by friend John Ford– in pictures like JUDGE PRIEST and STEAMBOAT ROUND THE BEND. Rogers’ career in the movies had actually begun in 1918, so by the mid-1930s he was well-established. Much of his shtick had been honed as a stage performer and humorist with written columns that were syndicated nationally. A plane crash took his life in 1935, and in the 1950s his lookalike son Will Rogers Jr. portrayed him in a biopic about his life.
Check out:
DOUBTING THOMAS (1935)
LIFE BEGINS AT 40 (1935)
STEAMBOAT ROUND THE BEND (1935)