Will Rogers

Acting

Will Rogers

Born 1879-11-03 · Oologah, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma)

William "Will" Penn Adair Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) was an American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer and actor and one of the best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s. Known as Oklahoma's favorite son, Rogers was born to a prominent Cherokee Nation family in Indian Territory (now part of Oklahoma). He traveled around the world three times, made 71 movies (50 silent films and 21 "talkies"), wrote more than 4,000 nationally-syndicated newspaper columns, and became a world-famous figure. By the mid-1930s, Rogers was adored by the American people. He was the leading political wit of the Progressive Era, and was the top-paid Hollywood movie star at the time. Rogers died in 1935 with aviator Wiley Post, when their small airplane crashed near Barrow, Alaska. His vaudeville rope act led to success in the Ziegfeld Follies, which in turn led to the first of his many movie contracts. His 1920s syndicated newspaper column and his radio appearances increased his visibility and popularity. Rogers crusaded for aviation expansion, and provided Americans with first-hand accounts of his world travels. His earthy anecdotes and folksy style allowed him to poke fun at gangsters, prohibition, politicians, government programs, and a host of other controversial topics in a way that was readily appreciated by a national audience, with no one offended. His short aphorisms, couched in humorous terms, were widely quoted: "I am not a member of an organized political party. I am a Democrat." Rogers even provided an epigram on his most famous epigram:     When I die, my epitaph, or whatever you call those signs on gravestones, is going to read: "I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I dident like." I am so proud of that, I can hardly wait to die so it can be carved. Description above from the Wikipedia article Will Rogers, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

The Golden Age of Comedy poster
7.1

A compilation featuring comedic stars of the silent era including Will Rogers, Laurel and Hardy, and the Keystone Cops.

The Golden Age of Comedy

1957

No artwork available
NR

Bob's favorite memories and funniest moments on TV The biggest Stars! ... The biggest laughs! On DVD for the first time, this special 90 minute collection proves that laughter is the universal language with a sidesplitting salute to slapstick, satire, sketch comedy and zingers. Featuring Bob's funniest moments on television, this tribute includes a virtual who's who of legendary entertainers like Bing Crosby, Jackie Gleason, Roy Rogers, Ingrid Bergman, Bob Newhart, Lucille Ball, Ann-Margret, Jack Benny, Angie Dickinson, Steve Allen, Johnny Carson, Danny Thomas, Don Rickles, Milton Berle, Redd Foxx, Dorothy Lamour, Frank Sinatra, John Wayne, Dyan Cannon, Debbie Reynolds, Lassie and more.

Bob Hope's World of Comedy

1976

Going Hollywood: The '30s poster
9.0

Robert Preston hosts this documentary that shows what people of the 1930s were watching as they were battling the Depression as well as eventually getting ready for another World War.

Going Hollywood: The '30s

1984

Happy Days poster
6.3

In Fox's contribution to the all-star revue cycle of early talkies, showboat singer Margie, hearing that the show is in arrears, goes to New York to gather all of the former stars to stage a minstrel show as a benefit.

Happy Days

1929

Tiptoes poster
9.0

A silent film version of the Gershwin stage musical

Tiptoes

1927

Honest Hutch poster
8.0

Ort Hutchins is a confirmed loafer who spends all of his time fishing while his wife toils over the washtub. One day, while digging for worms, Hutch uncovers a box containing $100,000 in bills, the loot of a bank robbed in the next town. Realizing that he cannot spend the money without arousing suspicion, Hutch resigns himself to taking a job for cover. ...

Honest Hutch

1920

Mr. Skitch poster
7.3

After losing their Missouri home during the Great Depression, the Skitch family pulls up stakes and heads west to California to begin life anew. Comedy, released in 1933.

Mr. Skitch

1933

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? poster
6.3

Period music, film clips and newsreel footage combined into a visual exploration of the American entertainment industry during the Great Depression.

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

1975

Hollywood poster
9.0

Angela comes to Hollywood with only two things: Her dream to become a movie star, and Grandpa. She leaves an Aunt, a brother, Grandma, and her longtime boyfriend back in Centerville. Despite seeing major movie stars around every corner, and knocking on every casting office door in town, at the end of her first day she is still unemployed. To her horror, when she arrives back at their hotel, she finds that Grandpa has been cast in a movie by William DeMille and quickly becomes a star during the ensuing weeks. Her family, worried that Angela and Grandpa are getting into trouble, come to Hollywood to drag them back home. In short order Aunt, Grandma, brother, boyfriend and even the parrot become superstars, but Angela is still unemployed...

Hollywood

1923

No artwork available
7.5

Don't Park There was one of a series of two-reel comedies Will Rogers made for producer Hal Roach during the 1923-4 season. The story amounts to little more than a one-joke anecdote, but oddly enough the joke is more relevant now than it was in 1924: this is the tale of a man who can't run a simple errand in the city because he can't find a parking space.

Don't Park There

1924

The Headless Horseman poster
5.2

The village of Sleepy Hollow is getting ready to greet the new schoolteacher, Ichabod Crane, who is coming from New York. Crane has already heard of the village's legendary ghost, a headless horseman who is said to be searching for the head that he lost in battle. The schoolteacher has barely arrived when he begins to pursue the beautiful young heiress Katrina Van Tassel, angering Abraham Van Brunt, who is courting her. Crane's harsh, small-minded approach to teaching also turns some of the villagers against him. Soon there many who would like to see him leave the village altogether.

The Headless Horseman

1922

They Had to See Paris poster
6.4

Oklahoma mechanic Pike Peters finds himself part owner of an oil field. His wife Idy, hitherto content, decides the family must go to Paris to get "culture" and meet "the right kind of people." Pike and his grown son and daughter soon have flirtatious French admirers; Idy rents a chateau from an impoverished aristocrat; while Pike responds to each new development with homespun wit. In the inevitable clash, will pretentiousness and sophistication or common sense triumph?

They Had to See Paris

1929

Screen Snapshots (Series 22, No. 10) poster
NR

The edition of Screen Snapshots celebrates 25 years of production. It looks at the content of edition #1, then a tribute to movie people who have died in those 25 years. Finally there are tributes to the Screen Snapshots series by Cecil De Mille, Walt Disney, Louella Parsons and Rosalind Russell.

Screen Snapshots (Series 22, No. 10)

1942

Judge Priest poster
6.4

Judge Priest, a proud Confederate veteran, restores the justice in a small town in the Post-Bellum Kentucky using his common sense and his great sense of humanity.

Judge Priest

1934

Steamboat Round the Bend poster
7.5

A Louisiana con man enters his steamboat into a winner-take-all race with a rival while trying to find a witness to free his nephew, about to be hanged for murder.

Steamboat Round the Bend

1935

A Connecticut Yankee poster
6.1

Making a delivery to a mysterious mansion in a rainstorm, radio salesman Hank Martin is knocked out when a suit of armor topples on him. Upon awakening, Hank finds himself in the time of King Arthur. At Camelot Castle, Hank uses a cigarette lighter and his skill with a lasso to save himself from being executed as a demon. Hank so impresses Arthur that the king orders him to joust with one of his knights to save the life of Princess Alisande.

A Connecticut Yankee

1931

Down To Earth poster
7.5

Husband and father Will Rogers tells his spoiled wife and children that they have to economize.

Down To Earth

1932

The County Chairman poster
6.0

Based on George Ade's play which, in part, was based on an incident in a 1902 election in Wyoming, with women's-right-to-vote playing a large role. Here, Jim Hackler, local party-boss in a Wyoming county, has to decide to do what's right and lose the election, or what's wrong and win it.

The County Chairman

1935

So This Is London poster
7.0

Hiram Draper is an all-American self-made man with a profound distaste for everything British. Yet he must travel to London with his family. When Junior falls in love with an aristocratic girl, whose father despises Americans with equal intensity, fireworks are just about to start.

So This Is London

1930

The Strange Boarder poster
10.0

Honest Arizona rancher Sam Gardner, goes with his motherless son Billy to the city, where he is cheated out of ten thousand dollars by a band of crooks. Taking up residence in a boardinghouse where he meets Jane Ingraham, Sam decides that the only way to regain his losses is by gambling. To achieve this, he makes friends with gambler Kittie Hinch who takes him to Jack Bloom's gambling house. When Bloom begins flirting with Hinch's wife Florry, the injured husband kills his rival and the evidence points to Sam as the killer. Jane tries to provide him with an alibi, but fails. Just as things look grim for the rancher, a wire arrives from Hinch, now in Mexico, confessing to the crime. His faith in mankind thus rewarded, Sam is free to marry Jane

The Strange Boarder

1920

Cupid the Cowpuncher poster
10.0

Alec Lloyd, the foreman of the Sewell ranch, is nicknamed "Cupid" because of his propensity for matchmaking. When Macie Sewell returns from boarding school, Cupid himself falls victim to love, but Macie has aspirations to go to New York and become an opera singer, and so ignores his advances. However, Leroy Simpson, a poor doctor who is enamored of Macie's father's money, encourages her ambitions....

Cupid the Cowpuncher

1920

No artwork available
7.0

Hal Roach produced comedy has Will Rogers playing the title character, a rather slow, dimwitted man who works on a ranch where he usually gets pushed around at. A woman (Marie Mosquini) comes to town looking for someone to help her photograph some of the animals so she picks Hank and soon regrets it.

Hustlin' Hank

1923

No artwork available
NR

Slapstick experts host this look at the life and films of Charley Chase with rare film clips and photos.

The Parrott Chase

2009

Life Begins at Forty poster
10.0

A small-town newspaper publisher finds himself in opposition to the local banker on the return to town of a lad jailed possibly wrongly for a theft from the bank.

Life Begins at Forty

1935

Behind the camera