The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-08-21
nx KoRERr RuRKHARDT


 (Copyrfght 1885 By United Press).
 Hollywood, Aug. 21.-(U.P)- An accident started VIII Rogers on his way to fame.
 It was during a return engage ment at Hammerstein's Roof of the vaudeville act of "Will Rogers ana Company" consisting of win, a little show horse named Teddy and Buck Mckee, horseMan.
 rIt was just thirty years ago." Rogers recalled recently while vis- iting the McKee's that we started out together at Hammerstein's and kept goin' for five solid years. Only lay offs we had was on tho ocean making our two trips to Europe"
 It was Mckee, Rogers said, who started him off talking to his audiences.
 Hc Made Wisecracks
 He used to make wisecracks to me as I stood in the wings," Buck explained, ''and sometimes the first two or three rows of the orches- tra would. hear them. They al. ways laughed, and tried to get Bill to talk louder, but he was bashful.
 "one day a theater manager, wondering what was going on, stood beside me and he got a lot of laughs, too. Why don't you put that out to the audience? he asked, and Rogers, thinking he meant the roping loop he was throwing out over the audience, explained it was the longest he had, but he'd try it some time."
 Mrs. Rogers finally urged Will to try talking to his audience. With this moral support. he re. marked one night, about the man. agement not allowing cowboys to cuss freely when muffing a rope trick. That was his first crack and it went over.
 Next Came Roosevelt
 His next was during the late Theodore Roosevelt's regime when the country was split by partisan ship. People either hated Roose- welt or loved him. This gave Rog- CTS an idea, and he coupled 1t with the fact that T. R. was then seek ing the River of Doubt in South America.
 Will would twiri his rope and say, T wonder whatever became of that fellow?" The antl-Roose- velts would roar.
 With laughter added to his pre- viously dumb" act, Rogers be- came a head-liner and bounded up the ladder to fame and fortune. Florenz ziegfeld signed him for his famous "Follies" and for six years, without a night off, Will changed his stuff at every per- formance, developing his tech. nique in finding laughs in the days news.
 He continued to gravitatc from Ziegfeld shows to vaudeville and back again, making several trips abroad and scoring as big suc- cess in London and Paris and Ber- lin as he did in the larger Ameri- caia cities.
 Shucks I Can't Write
 A little more than 20 years ago, V. V. McNitt, president of news- paper syndicate. invited Bill to dinner after seeing him perform at the New Amsterdam theater in New York city, and proposed that the cowboy comedian write daily anecdote for newspapers.
 "Shucks, can't write," Will re. sponded. But McNitt was insist ent and Rogers agreed to try. Thus was born the daily Will Rogers newspaper feature.
 When Rogers left the stage in 1919 for Hollywood, Florenz zieg- field warned him to Look out for those movie cuties."
 Heck" Rogers replied, If your gals couldn't break me down in all these years, what chance has those in Hollywood got?"
 The comedian made three silent features, including "Jubilo," "One Glorious Day" and "The Texas Steer" and a number of comedies most famous of which was his travesty on "The Covered Wagon," which he titled, 1.-TWO Wagons Both Covered" His gag about the "Escrow Indians" from Los An. geles, is still repeated.
 Returns to Follies
 His silent pictures, minus his familiar drawl and inimitable wisecracks were not successful and he returned to the "Follies" in 1929, remaining on Broadway for another seven years.
 With the development of talk ing pictures, Winfield Sheehan persuaded will to try the movies a second time, and with consider able skepticism he agreed to make just one picture as try out. II was Homer Croy's "They Had to See Paris" and immediately estab- lished Rogers as big box office favorite.
 Before he could start his second picture, Fred Stone, his friend for