Roy Rogers

Black and white photograph of a man in a cowboy hat with a scarf around his neck on a yellow background and black text

Actor and singer Roy Rogers, a Western star, appeared in more than 100 movies and in multiple radio and television shows in the 1940s and 1950s. Roy Rogers was born Leonard Franklin Slye in 1911 in Ohio. He began his music career in 1931 as a member of the Rocky Mountaineers in California. Four years later he started acting in movies, primarily Westerns. He won a contest to become a singing cowboy film star in 1938, and Republic Pictures gave him the performing name Roy Rogers. He played the supporting role in the movie Dark Command with John Wayne, and then went on to star in a number of Roy Rogers movies and The Roy Rogers Show. Roy Rogers had action figures, cowboy adventure books, and a comic strip created after his character. He was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum and elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, and has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He died in California in 1998.