Gene Autry Biography

The only entertainer to have five stars on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, one each for radio, records, movies, television and live performances including rodeo and theater appearances, Gene Autry parlayed an $8 mail order guitar, charm and smooth voice into a career as Hollywood's first singing cowboy, debuting in Ken Maynard's "In Old Santa Fe" (1934). The singer, who had first made his mark on the radio with his pleasant tenor voice and modest, genial personality, caught on quickly in films as the star of dozens of enjoyable B-films for Republic Studios through the 1940s with his horse Champion and sidekick Smiley Burnette. Autry's popularity was largest in small towns, the Midwest, the West and South, and even though Republic was not one of the eight "major" Hollywood studios (it WAS the biggest studio on Poverty Row), he actually made the annual exhibitors' poll of top ten box-office stars an impressive three years in a row in 1940, 1941 and 1942.