Will Rogers - Fort Worth, TX
Posted by: 
WalksfarTX
N 32° 44.770 W 097° 21.981
14S E 653052 N 3624327
He started out as a cowboy and wild west shows paved his way into vaudeville. He became a member of Ziegfeld Follies. He went from rope tricks to comedian. He became a syndicated columnist, a radio personality and movie actor.
Waymark Code: WMYAHZ
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 05/20/2018
Views: 1
The life size bronze bust sits on a pink granite pedestal in the tower of Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum. The bronze plaque on the pedestal reads:
WILL ROGERS
1890 - 1935
Presented to the
City of Fort Worth
- By -
E. E. Bewley
Marvin Leonard
John W. Herbert
W. M. McFadden
Charles Roeser
Lew Wentz
A. J. Duncan
Will Stripling
Amon G. Carter
imdb.com
Born
November 4, 1879 in Oologah, Indian Territory, USA [now Oklahoma]
Died
August 15, 1935 in near Point Barrow, Territory of Alaska, USA (plane crash)
He attended Kemper Military School & College in Boonville, Missouri.
His first real job was in the livestock business in Argentina where he transported pack animals across the South Atlantic from Buenos Aires to South Africa for use in the Boer War (1899-1902).
He stayed in Johannesburg for a short while, appearing there in Wild West shows where he drew upon his expertise with horse and lasso. Returning to America, he brought his talents to vaudeville and by 1917 was a Ziegfeld Follies star. Over the years he gradually blended into his act his unique style of topical, iconoclastic humor, in which he speared the efforts of the powerful to trample the rights of the common man, while twirling his lariat and perhaps chewing on a blade of straw.
Although appearing in many silents, he reached his motion-picture zenith with the arrival of sound. Now mass audiences could hear his rural twang as he delivered his homespun philosophy on behalf of Everyman. The appeal and weight of his words carried such weight with the average citizen that he was even nominated for governor of Oklahoma (which he declined).