Hollywood Hoofbeats. Audrey Pavia
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Autry in more than eighty films.
The Yodeling Cowboy
Born in 1907, a few miles outside the small town of Tioga, Texas, Gene Autry grew up around horses since his father, Delbert Autry, was a horse trader and livestock dealer. Blessed with a beautiful singing voice, Gene Autry was recruited for the choir in his Baptist minister grandfather’s church when he was just five years old. A little later, his mother taught him to play the guitar on a mail-order instrument. Young Autry was too practical, however, to consider music more than a hobby. Determined to avoid the financial insecurity that plagued his father’s life, he pursued more sensible ways to support himself. In 1924, the teenaged Autry was working as a telegrapher. On slow days, he would amuse himself by playing the guitar and singing. On one such day, legendary western entertainer Will Rogers came in to send a telegram. After hearing the young man sing, Rogers encouraged him to try his luck in show business. Despite his previous concerns, Autry decided to take the advice and eventually landed a job singing on Tulsa station KVOO and became Oklahoma’s Yodeling Cowboy.
Autry initially found success as a radio personality, songwriter, and recording artist. By the end of 1931, he was a star on the network National Barn Dance and had his own radio program, Conqueror Record Time. His first hit, “That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine,” became the first million-selling gold record. Deservedly known for his business acumen, Autry realized the wide commercial appeal of a clean-living cowboy and honed his image accordingly. He came to the attention of Mascot’s Nat Levine, who cast him in In Old Santa Fe. Billed as the “World’s Greatest Singing Cowboy,” Autry sang two songs in the film and had a few spoken lines. Despite his greenhorn status as an actor, moviegoers responded positively to Autry and his smooth, melodious voice.
Gene Autry sings from atop the original Champion, who is easily distinguishable from his successors by his three white stockings.
The Phantom Empire
Mascot subsequently signed Autry to star in a twelve-chapter serial, Phantom Empire, a kitschy combination of science fiction and Western genres that showcased the actor’s singing. To bring Autry’s riding ability up to snuff, the studio paid for lessons with former rodeo champion and stuntman Yakima Canutt.
In the Phantom Empire series, Gene Autry played himself as the cowboy star of the Radio Ranch radio program who gets involved with a subterranean colony of technologically advanced aliens, the Muranians. The series also featured a terrific young trick rider, Betsy King Ross. In the series, the Muranians have a mounted army that surfaces to pursue their foes. Dubbed the Thunder Riders by Betsy and her serial brother, Frankie Darro, the alien cavalry prompts the kids to start their own club of junior Thunder Riders. It’s quite something to see the caped and silver-helmeted Muranians galloping along the prairie, with a gaggle of kid mock aliens wearing customized silver buckets on their heads tearing along on their own horses. Autry’s mount in the series varied, but sometimes his horse is a blaze-faced sorrel with three stockings, sometimes one with four. Whether any of these horses went on to become the original Champion is not certain, but clearly Autry’s preference for the color combination was evolving.
Original Champion—Wonder Horse of the West
The success of Phantom Empire led to Gene Autry’s first feature-length star vehicle, Tumbling Tumbleweeds (1935), which also introduced Champion. Although uncredited, the original Champion is easy to spot because of his three white stockings and distinctive T-shaped blaze. A 1939 promotional spot showing Autry putting Champion through his paces revealed that the gelding also had a large patch of white on his belly, visible only when he rolled on his back.
There has been much confusion about the number of Champions, their markings, and their origins. Autry, probably hoping to perpetuate the myth of a single Champion among his fans, was not particularly helpful when questioned on the subject. In one interview, he stated that the original Champion had come from Oklahoma and in another that he had acquired Champion from the Hudkins Brothers Stables, a company that provided horses for Autry’s films. It has been widely accepted that the Hudkins brothers owned the original Champion and perhaps he originally came from Oklahoma. Regardless, the dark sorrel gelding was chosen because he photographed well. With three white stockings and one dark right foreleg, he can be easily distinguished from subsequent Champions, who all had four white stockings of varying height. The T-shaped blaze starting high on his forehead and extending over his muzzle further distinguishes the original Champion.
Autry and producer Armand Schaffer reportedly chose the name Champion, deciding that “Champion” reflected “the best of everything.” It was a fitting name for the clean living hero who championed a strict code of ethics known as the Cowboy Code. Champion first received billing in 1935’s Melody Trail. As his partnership with Autry solidified, the gelding began to be billed as the “Wonder Horse of the West.” Trained by Tracy Layne, he could untie knots, roll over and play dead, bow, nod his head for yes and shake it for no, and come to Autry’s whistle. Wearing his signature bridle featuring bit shanks in the shape of pistols, he carried Autry safely through many adventures. Sometimes he merely had to stroll along the prairie looking sharp while Autry sold a song from his saddle. That might sound like easy work, but it takes a special horse to mosey along carrying a singing cowboy while being photographed by a motion-picture crew and its attendant paraphernalia. Sometimes such scenes were photographed on a soundstage with the horse on a treadmill and the scenery projected in the background. On other occasions, Autry and Champion are clearly riding through the sagebrush outdoors.
The original Champion starred with Autry in all his Mascot and Republic Studios pictures until the actor’s screen hiatus during World War II. His last picture was The Bells of Capistrano (1942). It has been written that in 1943 Champion, approximately seventeen years old, died of an apparent heart attack on Autry’s Melody Ranch, while his master was in the army. Johnny Agee, who was employed by Autry to train and care for his horses, reportedly buried Champion. An obituary notice in the January 26, 1947, edition of the New York Times tells a different story, reporting that the original Champion was retired in 1943 and died on January 25, 1947, at age seventeen. Perhaps the former story was concocted to romanticize Autry’s loss of his original horse, who may well have been retired due to lameness—a not uncommon side effect of toiling in Westerns. Even though he had multiple stunt doubles, Champion did do quite a bit of galloping over hard ground in his early movies, which over time damages the tissues and bones of a horse’s legs.
Champion Jr. and Little Champ
Returning to films in 1946’s Sioux City Sue, Autry rode a new horse, who would be billed as Champion in Autry’s first three postwar films. In 1947’s Saddle Pals and Robin Hood of Texas, the same horse is billed as Champion Jr., but when The Last Round Up was released later that same year, the “Jr.” had been dropped and the mythical “Champion” returned.
Champion Jr., the second screen Champion, was a high-spirited sorrel stallion—who was eventually gelded—with a flaxen mane and tail and four high white stockings. He had a narrower blaze than his predecessor, and it ended in a snip on his nose. Remarkably, he also had a white patch on his belly. He was a show horse originally called Boots and owned by Charles Auten of Ada, Oklahoma. Having heard that Autry was looking for a new Champion, Auten supposedly hauled the four-year-old Boots to Fort Worth, Texas, when Autry was appearing at a rodeo there. The actor reportedly bought the horse for $2,500, even though he later claimed he had never paid more than $1,500 for a horse. The name Boots certainly seems an apt one for Champion Jr., as his flashy stockings extended well up to his knees.
Champion Jr. became known only as Champion, and his status was elevated from “Wonder Horse of the West” to “World’s Wonder Horse” when Autry moved from Republic Pictures to Columbia Studios. More highly trained than the original Champion, he could dance as well as perform an impressive array of tricks. He made some personal appearances with Autry and appeared with him at Madison Square Garden in 1946.
Starring as a wild stallion, Champion (Jr.) showed off his talent in a remake of the Ken Maynard vehicle The Strawberry Roan (1948), Autry’s first color film. The film also marked the debut of Little Champ, a foal supposed to