Jimmy Dean (1928- )

Jimmy Ray Dean was born August 10, 1928, in Plainview, Texas. He loved to sing as a child and was active in music ministries at the Seth Ward Baptist Church in Plainview. As a visiting amateur singer, he was heard on the Hollywood Barn Dance and the All-Star Western Theater in the mid 1940s, when he was stationed in Southern California during his military career in the U.S. Army Air Forces/U.S. Air Force (the Air Force broke away from the Army before his discharge). When he was discharged from the Air Force in the late 1940s, he was in the Washington, DC, area. His prior work in Los Angeles helped him get work as a TV host on Washington television.

He had a very popular show, Town and Country Time, which was where singers Roy Clark (1933-) and Patsy Cline (1932-63) got their starts as professional entertainers. Roy Clark was fired for his constant tardiness and was replaced by Billy Grammer. He had one hit song at this time, "Bummin' Around." His time he spent in California in the 1940s helped him to have a liking for burritos.

Trying to improve his musical career, he moved to New York in the late 1950s. He got a recording contract with Columbia Records. This also helped him to have a morning radio program that aired on CBS before Captain Kangaroo on weekday mornings in 1958. There were many other shows. His program on ABC in the mid 1960s was the nation's introduction to Jim Henson's Muppets. (Both Jim Henson and Jimmy Dean got their starts in the Washington, DC, television market.) In 1961, he sang (actually SPOKE) his first hit song, Big Bad John.

In 1969, with brother Don and James M. Dean (a relative with connections to the Dean Milk Company, now known as Dean Foods), he began the Jimmy Dean Sausage Company.

Jimmy remained busy in the music industry through the mid 1970s. In 1971, he had an important acting role in the James Bond 007 film, Diamonds are Forever, as Willard Whyte, who was based on Howard Hughes.

In 1976, he devoted all of his time to the manufacture of his sausage. He was in charge of every aspect of creating the sausage and it became the best selling sausage in America. He also appeared in every television commercial for many years. Jimmy would later say that this was the biggest headache in his life and it caused a lot of distress and depression.

He sold the company in 1984 to Consolidated Foods (today known as Sara Lee). Jimmy would continue being the spokesman for the company in TV ads. In 2004, his contract was not renewed and he now has no connection with the company except that he started it. After this, he wrote his autobiography, 30 Years of Sausage, 50 years of Ham.

Today he lives in Richmond, Virginia, with his second wife Donna Meade. His three children came from his first marriage to Sue Wittauer.

Will Rogers (1879-1935)

William Penn Adair Rogers was born November 4, 1879, in Oologah, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), into a prominent Oklahoma family, on the Dog Iron Ranch. Both of his parents were of Cherokee heritage. Clement Vann Rogers (1839-1911) was a politician, attorney, and judge. His mother, Mary America Schrimsher Rogers (1838-90), died when Will was 11 years old. Clement would marry within two years.

Will was the youngest of eight children. Only four of the children survived into adulthood: Sallie Clementine, Maude Ethel, May (Mary), and Will. The children all attended the Willow Hassel School in Neosho, Missouri. Will began high school at the Kemper Military Academy in Boonville, Missouri, but quit after the tenth grade. He said he was more interested in cowboys and horses. After quitting school, he went to work at the Dog Iron Ranch.

Now the story starts getting interesting: In 1901, Will went to Argentina to work as a gaucho with a buddy. Unfortunately, the two young men lost all their money trying to live. Embarrassed to send home for more money, Will headed to South Africa where he got a job getting horses prepared for the Boer War with the British Army. But the war was over. So Will joined Texas Jack's Wild West Circus as a trick roper(this was in South Africa). Texas Jack was an experienced showman and Will liked him a lot. However, Will was interested in scoping out new territory. He moved to Australia. He got a letter of reference from Texas Jack and joined the Wirth Brothers Circus which went all over Australia and New Zealand.

Returning to the United States in 1904, Will entered vaudeville. He became one of the best known entertainers throughout the country. At New York City's Madison Square Bowl, when he was trying to rope a steer, the animal broke loose and started climbing up the viewing stands. Will was able to rope the steer and pull it down. There were no other incidents. Will was written up in several newspapers and was declared a hero. When Oklahoma became a state in 1907 he helped make sure that the shows would go to Oklahoma and the folks there were some of the best audiences.

Will married Betty Blake (1879-44) in 1908. They lived in New York but spent summers in Oklahoma. Eventually, they would move to California. The couple had four children. The first was William Vann Rogers (1911-93). He was known as "Bill." After Bill finished his B.A. at Stanford University, he became the publisher of the Beverly Hills Citizen. He was elected as a Democratic congressman from California, but his political career was interrupted by military service. He enlisted as a private but was soon an officer in the U.S. Army Field Artillery. Wounded in action while fighting in Europe, he received a Bronze Star and was honorably discharged in 1946. He remained in politics and continued as newspaper publisher until 1953. He portrayed his father in two movies under the stage name, Will Rogers, Jr. Mary Amelia Rogers (1913-89) was a Broadway actress in the 1930s. As Mary Rogers, she starred in two Broadway comedies. She became an actress completely without her father's help. Before and after leaving Broadway, she acted in about 30 small roles under the names Mary Howard, Mary Thompson, and Mary Rogers. She married three times before marrying Walter Booth Brooks, III, in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1950 at the age of 37. It was a short, rocky marriage, but she would never marry again. For the rest of her life, she was known as Mary Amelia Rogers Brooks. By many popular historians, Mary Rogers is considered the Paris Hilton of the 1930s. James Blake Rogers (1915-2000) was known as Jim. He worked with his brother Bill on the newspaper. He also acted in a few movies. In the waning years of World War II, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. Fred Stone Rogers (1918-20) died of diphtheria at the age of two. In 1911 Will bought a ranch near Claremore, Oklahoma, for $500 an acre. This became the family's summer home.

In 1915, Will joined Zigfeld's Follies. His act was very simple: He started talking to the audience, as talking to friends. He'd be spinning a rope, a lariat, a lasso. Every once in a while, he'd do a few rope tricks. Some were great. This simple presentation became the hit of the whole show.

This launched Will into the motion picture industry. At this time in history, many of the movie studios were still in New Jersey. He got a contract with the Samuel Goldwyn Studios. His first film was Laughing Bill Hyde (1918). He remained with the Zigeld Follies until 1925.

In 1919, Will moved permanently to California. The family moved into a mansion in Pacific Palisades, a neighborhood in the city limits of Los Angeles.

Will's life was getting exciting. He was doing live shows in New York City, acting in Hollywood movies, and touring the world. He had such an easy going personality that no one could hate him.

In 1932 he added a new medium to his repertoire: radio. He was first heard on the radio version of Zigfeld's Follies. As this was performed in front of a live studio audience, he did his famous rope tricks while he was talking. The audience would often make sounds, oohs, ahhs, and so forth when the listener had no idea what was happening.

Eventually, Will had his own radio series, the Good Gulf Radio Program, which was heard on the NBC Blue Network. When it moved to CBS in 1935, it was known as the Gulf Headliners. On the Gulf show, Will didn't do the roping anymore, he just talked. Some people who hear him today consider him to be sort of a Rush Limbaugh with a heart. Actually, that's not true. Will didn't only condemn Democratic politicians. Well, that should be rephrased. He didn't condemn anyone. He only condemned their actions. Will Rogers found something wrong with all politicians. He was never arrogant or pretentious. He merely reported on what people said or what they did and asked questions. And it was entertaining.

According to Will Rogers, the greatest thing in the world was flying. He became friends with an aviator from Oklahoma named Wiley Post (1898-1935). When he was off one summer Wiley took Will with him on a flight which was going to take him around the world. Unfortunately, after experiencing some problems at Point Barrow, Alaska, the airplane (which was laden too heavily) crashed on takeoff. Wiley and Will slammed into a nearby lagoon and the men died on impact. It was August 15, 1935. Will was 55 and Wiley was 36. At the time Will died, he was the number two ranked Hollywood film star after number one Shirley Temple.

Will was buried first at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. However, when his widow Betty died in 1944, he was exhumed and moved to the ranch in Claremore, Oklahoma, which is now the site of the Will Rogers Museum. The cemetery there includes sons Fred and Jim, as well as daughter Mary. Son Bill is buried in Tubac, Arizona.

Charlie Ruggles (1886-1970)

Charles Sherman Ruggles was born February 8, 1886, in Los Angeles, California. His parents were Charles Herman Ruggles, a pharmaceutical salesman, and the former Maria Theresa Heinsch. They had two sons. After his mother was killed in a robbery attempt, his father left with his two sons from L.A. and they grew up in San Francisco. Charlie began acting in stage plays in 1903, at the age of 17, in community projects.

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was the biggest event in his life. One evening, while the family was eating outside on the sidewalk (their house wasn't destroyed, but they were afraid of aftershocks), a police officer approached Charlie and asked if he knew how to use a firearm. He said he did and the officer gave him a loaded revolver. "Be careful, son."

In 1913 he had a major role in L. Frank Baum's The Tick Tok Man of Oz, at the Majestic Theater in Los Angeles. He moved on to Broadway plays one year later. And he became active as a motion picture actor one year after that. At this time, he married silent movie actress, Adele Rowland (1883-1971). Charlie divorced Adele in 1921.

He had a brother, Wesley H. Ruggles (1889-1972), who had been acting in some popular comedy films around 1915 when he shifted his interest to directing movies. After immense success as a silent film director in the 1920s, when movies had sound, Wes had some minor success directing minor comedies. After World War II, the J. Arthur Rank Organsation of the United Kingdom put him on a contract to create musicals for British audiences. The first such movie was London Town (1946) and featured Petula Clark. It was the first high budget British film made in Technicolor. It was also the biggest financial flop in British motion picture history. After it premiered and played to booing crowds in England, Wes proverbially tucked his head between his legs and never made another movie. He reedited that movie and released it in the United States as My Heart Goes Crazy in 1953.

But Charlie was successful. He was willing to portray almost any character. Appearing in more than 100 films, he developed into a mature, yet naive, character who could be drunk, rich, poor, or scatterbrained. His trademark line became, "Oh, my, my, my!"


During this time, Charlie worked in his best known movie, Ruggles of Red Gap (1935). Despite sounding to the contrary, the title role of was played by Charles Laughton. Charlie's role was Egbert Floud.


In 1941, being confident in his abilities as a comedian, he hosted his own radio comedy series, Barrel of Fun. It was heard over the Mutual Broadcasting System and the shows were produced at radio station KHJ on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.

In 1942 Charlie married Marion La Barba, the ex-wife of featherweight boxer Fidel La Barba. Marion was a small, beautiful woman. Past her childbearing years, the Ruggles turned their Hollywood home into a literal zoo, having some 94 animals.

When television became popular, Charlie had a popular situation comedy in the early 1950s, The Ruggles (1949-1953). In it, he was married with four children. His wife was Margaret, played by Irene Tedrow (1907-95) in the first year, then Erin O'Brien-Moore (1902-79) subsequently. Their children were Sharon (a student at UCLA), Tom (a high school student), and nine year old twins Donald and Donna. One of the few programs of its type that had a planned ending, daughter Sharon got married in the final episode. In 1957, ABC (the American Broadcasting Company) had a couple of episodes of a radio series with the same premise made as pilots. The part of Margaret was played by Lurene Tuttle (1907-86).

Proving he didn't just act in movies and television, in 1958 he won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his part of Mackenzie Savage in the Broadway comedy, The Pleasure of His Company.

The following year, he was honored by being the guest of honor on Ralph Edwards's This is Your Life. When, on the series, he realized that he was the guest for the evening, his reaction was, "Oh, my, my, my!"

During the 1960s, Charlie gave Aesop his voice on the Bullwinkle Show. He was also Milburn Drysdale's widowered father in law on the Beverly Hillbillies. He was also on many other TV series.

Knowing that his career was winding down (as well as his life), he donated several personal artifacts to UCLA in 1965. As most everything he attempted in his life was seemingly successful, he was interviewed by a reporter. When asked what his next big project was going to be he calmly replied, "Forest Lawn. After you've played everything I've done, there ain't no more."

Suffering from terminal cancer in 1970, he regretfully divorced his wife so he could live his last days alone. He was admitted to St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica on September 30, 1970. He died there on December 23. (Most Internet sources state that he died at his Hollywood home; however, the death certificate states that he died in the hospital). With no children and no wife, he was utterly alone. His wife still loved him. She bought the tombstone, which had the wrong year put on it. He's buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Ben Alexander (1911-69)

Nicholas Benton Alexander, IV, was born May 26, 1911, in Goldfield, Nevada. Bennie's family moved to Los Angeles in 1915. Involved in the entertainment industry, Bennie was acting in films of D.W. Griffith as soon as he got there, at the age of three. Actually, his real career started a little later, when he was 15. His best known film of his youth is All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).

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Despite working in movies, Ben went to regular classes at Hollywood High School. He wasn't one of the best students at Hollywood High but he did graduate. Ben was well liked by everyone and the girls thought he was good looking.
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In this page from the 1928 edition of the Hollywood High School yearbook, Ben Alexander is seen in the second row, second person. It's easy to see that, reading his comments about himself, he never took himself seriously.

Ben worked steadily in the movie industry until about 1943, when he began working as a writer for radio programs. He would also appear as a support cast member.

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When television broke out in Los Angeles (1947), Ben was working as a host and interviewer in several shows. He was part of the cast of the Martin and Lewis Show from 1949 to 1953. During this time, Barton Yarborough, who played the part of Ben Romero on Dragnet, who died in December 1951. Barney Phillips played the first of Joe Friday's relief partners, Ed Jacobs. His second partner was Frank Smith. Frank was originally played by Herb Ellis. But after a few months, it was decided to have Ben Alexander to do the part. One of the reasons for this was that Ben was a capable writer and would be able to write scripts for both the radio and the television versions of the program. Also, Ben was already under contract to the Marin and Lewis Show, which had the same sponsor as Dragnet.

This might seem a bit strange today, but sponsors actually used to be sponsors. When a company sponsored a radio or TV show, it owned it and, usually, all the members of the cast, as well. The sponsor of Dragnet was Liggett and Myers, the company that made Chesterfield and Fatima cigarettes, as well as L & M cigarettes.

When Ben would look back at the six years he spent on Dragnet (on both radio and TV) he often mentioned it was the best time he ever had in show business.

However, when Dragnet returned to the air in 1967, Ben had an obligation as he was already working in a police show, Felony Squad, on ABC. That would be Ben's last work as an actor.

Ben died at the age of 58 in Los Angeles.

One of the things about Ben that most people didn't know about was that he liked to stay busy. In 1953, Ben bought a car dealership. Until 1969, Ben Alexander Ford was one of the highest grossing Ford dealerships in America. It's one reason why, on all of the Dragnet shows (even the ones in the 1960s) the police cars were all Fords.

Robert L. Ripley (1890-1949)

Leroy Ripley was born Christmas Day, December 25, 1890, in Santa Rosa, California. His parents were Isaac Ripley and the former Lillie Belle Yocka. The oldest of three children, his father died in 1905 and Leroy dropped out of Santa Rosa High School. Leroy played for a semi-pro baseball team in his native Santa Rosa before moving to the big city to play for the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League in 1906. He also began selling his first cartoon work at this time for money. Leroy was given a job as cartoonist for the San Francisco Bulletin (later for the San Francisco Chronicle. He quit baseball briefly in 1908 to draw cartoons for Life magazine and to stay in Santa Rosa to care for his mother and young brother, Doug.

In 1912, he left San Francisco to move to New York to work for the New York Globe (where he had was also a sports writer) and to try out for the New York Giants, but he injured himself during the tryouts in early 1913. He took his first trip to Europe in 1914. He married his wife, Beatrice Roberts, in 1919 (they were divorced in 1926 and had no children). Later that year, on December 19, his first regular cartoon strip, Chumps and Champs, first appeared in the Globe, which became very famous throughout the country.

He hired an agent who said that his given name, Leroy, sounded too feminine, so he added the first name Robert. In most public venues, he was called Bob, but in private and among his closest friends, he was Rip.

Rip traveled all over the world to find information on weird sports for his cartoon column. In 1929, William Randolph Hearst commissioned him to create a new column, Ripley's Believe It or Not. This opened a whole new empire.

In his November 3, 1929, column, Rip wrote that the United States had no national anthem. He liked the idea of having John Philip Sousa's stirring march, The Stars and Stripes Forever, serve in that capacity. However, President Herbert Hoover, who was a regular Believe It or Not reader, suggested that The Star Spangled Banner (by Francis Scott Key) be used, with the tune of an old English drinking song. Of course, when Congress approved Hoover's wishes in 1930, the fact that the American national anthem was an old English drinking song was also mentioned in Rip's column.

Later in 1930, he began his radio show, which was nothing like the later television shows. It was more of a variety show which featured lots of music (either B.A. Rolfe or Ozzie Nelson leading the orchestra) with songs sung by a pretty girl (either "lovely" Linda Lee or Ozzie's girlfriend, and later wife, Harriet Hilliard). But it did give lots of information about strange facts, complete with sounds, remote broadcasts, and interviews. The program began on CBS in 1930. There are only about 50 episodes left of the series, which lasted until Rip's death. It had a variety of sponsors: Post Huskies (similar to Wheaties, endorsed by Lou Gehrig, a frequent guest of the show); the Bakers' Union; Royal Crown Cola (interesting in that while the drink was only sold in the South at that time, the show was performed in New York City... the bottles of RC which were used for the show were hauled in from Maryland); Fleischmann's Yeast; Post 40% Bran Flakes; Pall Mall cigarettes; Philco Electronics; and many were sustaining.

After taking a trip to Asia in 1932, Rip opened his first "odditorium" in Chicago at the Century of Progress International Exhibition (Chicago World's Fair). This was his first of many which would be seen around the world. Unlike most museums, the odditoriums were a display of ideas, not actual exhibits, although, most of the things shown in Chicago were real.

In 1932, he published the first cartoons of a little boy from his home town of Santa Rosa, California, about a beagle dog. That boy was Charles M. Schulz (1920-2000), best known for his strip, Peanuts.

Rip was seen in a number of motion pictures produced by Warner Brothers/Vitaphone in the early 1930s.

A collector of all kinds of "junk," including a Chinese junk, it was said by his ex-wife, "either the junk goes or I go." She went.

In 1949, Rip began a syndicated television series, which was filmed at his mansion on Long Island. While he was working on his thirteenth episode, he succumbed to a heart attack. He was reporting on the history of "Taps," the bugle call used at military funerals. It was May 29, 1949. Rip had been lying about his age all those years, telling people he was born in 1893. So when his death announcement came out in newspapers the following day, his age was listed as 55. He was 59.

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Death has not diminished Rip's popularity. Rip's personal files of odd trivia have not yet been exhausted, although new information is being gathered by the organization that still puts out his comic strip every day in newspapers all over the world.

There have been other TV series, the latest from a few years ago with actor Dean Cain as host.