(Billy Burns (George "Gabby" Hayes) is prone to tall tales...)
Billy Burns (George "Gabby" Hayes) is prone to tall tales. He can tell you about the sprawling ranch of Brandyhead Jones. Or about grasshoppers so big and tough they pick their teeth with barbed wire. But one thing Billy can never overstate is his friendship with Bat Masterson - and how he's sure Bat will honor his request to come to Liberal, Kansas, and stop the festering range war between wheat farmers and cattlemen.
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(The owner of the Rams Head Ranch is found murdered on the...)
The owner of the Rams Head Ranch is found murdered on the property of the Whirligig Cattle Syndicate, and tensions between Texas cattlemen and sheep herders threaten to escalate into a full-fledged range war. Roy Rogers is sent in from Chicago to investigate and finds an ally in Jill Delaney (Dale Evans), who has inherited the sheep ranch from her slain uncle. With the two sides preparing for battle, Roy takes a job at the Ram's Head Ranch to get to the bottom of the matter and discovers a devious conspiracy that may put Jill's life in jeopardy.
The Cariboo Trail (Fully Restored Special Edition)
(Newly restored in HD! Western icon Randolph Scott (Wester...)
Newly restored in HD! Western icon Randolph Scott (Western Union, Canadian Pacific) co-stars with Bill Williams (TV s The Adventures of Kit Carson) as cowboys leading a small herd of cattle from Montana to the Northwest Territories, one looking for rangeland the other for gold. While driving their cattle along The Caribou Trail, the two men encounter a toll bridge run by the local cattle king (Victor Jory, The Miracle Worker) and his henchmen. But when the men refuse to pay the toll, their cattle is stampeded and all hell breaks loose in this action-packed western that has it all. George Gabby Hayes (Tall in the Saddle) leads the supporting cast that includes Karin Booth (Tobor the Great), Douglas Kennedy (The Amazing Transparent Man), Jim Davis (TV s Dallas) and Dale Robertson (TV s Tales of Wells Fargo). Directed by Hollywood veteran Edwin L. Marin (A Christmas Carol).
Bonus Features: Restoration Documentary | Cariboo Trail on 8mm | Trailers
(Randolph Scott ("My Favorite Wife") stars as straight-sho...)
Randolph Scott ("My Favorite Wife") stars as straight-shooting Sheriff Mark Rowley, who's searching for his missing brother and takes on a band of outlaws invading the Oklahoma panhandle. He acquires the help of a newspaperwoman, played by Ann Richards ("Sorry, Wrong Number"). Gabby Hayes ("Love Me Tonight") does a wonderful job as the Coyote Kid in this enjoyable western.
When sold by Amazon.com, this product will be manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.
(Ex-confederate officer Clay Fletcher jumps at the chance ...)
Ex-confederate officer Clay Fletcher jumps at the chance to reunite with his once
lady-friend, Susan Jeffers, when his father, Judge Fletcher, sends him on an errand to El
Paso, Texas to get the signature of Susan's father, Judge Jeffers, on a legal document.
Once there he finds the judge has become a drunk and a laughing stock, doing the bidding
of local magnate Bert Donner and his running dog, Sheriff La Farge. Just as Clay starts straightening out the town's problems, events occur which force him to abandon the legal system and instead adopt the murderous tactics of a vigilante.
(The Oklahoma Land Rush means free land - and a cadre of o...)
The Oklahoma Land Rush means free land - and a cadre of outlaws amassed to prey on the newly prosperous territory. Perhaps the vilest of these lurking bad men is the shoot-first Sundance Kid (Robert Ryan). Vance knows there's no room in the wide-open spaces for cold-blooded killers like the Kid, and he'll shoot holes in any contrary notion. He'll bring peace and justice to the prairie.
When sold by Amazon.com, this product will be manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.
George Francis Hayes was an American actor. His career in radio, film, and television spanned from the late 1920s into the 1950s and included different roles in numerous Western films as the colorful eccentric sidekick to the leading man.
Background
George Francis Hayes was born George Francis Hayes on May 7, 1885 in Willing, near Wellsville, New York, United States. His father, Clark Hayes, operated the Hayes Hotel in Stannards and was also involved in oil production; his mother was Elizabeth Morrison. His uncle, on his mother's side of the family, was George F. Morrison, vice president of General Electric. Despite his later association with westerns, Hayes did not come from a cowboy background; he did not know how to ride a horse until he was in his forties and had to learn for film roles.
Education
Hayes grew up in Stannards and attended Stannards School. He played semiprofessional baseball while in high school.
At eight Hayes began appearing in school theatricals and as a teenager played professional baseball in Wellsville and Olean, New York.
Career
Though Hayes' parents expected him to enter the family business, he left home at seventeen to work in traveling shows. After performing briefly with a small circus, he joined the Burke-McCann repertory company, touring small towns for one-week engagements and playing multiple roles in some forty productions.
About 1904 Hayes entered burlesque as a singer and dancer. He was popular in travesties of popular musical comedies as a comic small-town constable with a false goatee, foreshadowing his later film success in "old codger" character roles. Hayes teamed in 1910 with Alice Hamilton in The Spirit of '76, a vaudeville sketch about the reunion of high school sweethearts after sixty years. The act played for several seasons in B. F. Keith theaters and twice at the Palace in New York City.
At the age of twenty-five Hayes had embarked on a career of portraying old men. With the decline of vaudeville in the 1920s, Hayes found fewer engagements; and his wife worked as a clerk to supplement their income. In 1928, after seeing a sound film, she advised Hayes to leave the stage, and the couple moved to Los Angeles.
In 1929 Hayes appeared in The Rainbow Man and played a small role in Smiling Irish Eyes, a silent film with Colleen Moore. With the coming of the Great Depression his career faltered; in 1930 he appeared briefly in For the Defense, his only known work for that year. At a party in 1931 Hayes met Trem Carr, a producer of low-budget westerns, who recalled Hayes's vaudeville impersonations of old men. Carr suggested that Hayes play similar parts in Carr's films, on condition that Hayes use his own beard to save time and expense in makeup. As Hayes said later, "It was either that or sell pencils. " At forty-five Hayes had never ridden or handled a horse, but he learned rapidly and made five pictures in 1931, twelve in 1932, and seventeen in 1933, most of them westerns directed by W. P. McCarthy. Hayes was featured not as the irascible but amiable geezer for whom he later became famous but often as the villain. The familiar character began to appear in 1934, particularly in the musical In Old Santa Fe, in which Hayes played Ken Maynard's sidekick. Harry Sherman at Paramount saw the film and signed Hayes to appear as Windy Halliday, William Boyd's garrulous companion in the "Hopalong Cassidy" series. The character proved popular, and from 1935 to 1939 Hayes made twenty-two pictures with Boyd.
Late in 1938 Sol Siegel of Republic Pictures signed Hayes to work in Roy Rogers westerns. Because Paramount refused to allow Hayes to use the name Windy, with which he had become identified, he became Gabby at Republic and made twenty-six pictures with Rogers from 1939 to 1942. The studio then reassigned Hayes to help establish a new series starring Wild Bill Elliot; retaining the well-established Gabby character, Hayes made ten pictures with Elliot in 1943 and 1944.
The blend of Hayes's crustiness and Rogers' geniality had worked so well that in 1944 Republic reunited them for fourteen more films. In 1943 he had been named one of the ten most popular western stars, and in 1945 theater owners voted him second only to Rogers. This period is generally considered Hayes's best. He had substantial parts, notably in Don't Fence Me In (1945), and displayed his talent not only for comedy but also for light drama.
In 1946 Hayes left Republic Pictures. He subsequently made seven more pictures, most of them with Randolph Scott, and retired from films in 1950, after having appeared in 177 features. From 1946 Hayes performed on the weekly Roy Rogers radio show, and in 1950 he had his own network television program, which featured patriotic stories introduced by Hayes. During the series' two-season run, NBC gave him another program on which he introduced western movies. His last regular television work was in 1954-1955 on the children's program "Howdy Doody. "
He died in 1969 in Burbank, California.
Achievements
Although his career included a few outstanding films, such as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and The Plainsman (1937), Hayes is best remembered for his ongoing screen character, which personified the Wild West ideal of unpretentious, untutored American virtue enlivened by comic mischief and unruliness. He was so recognizable that in the late 1940s comic books featured his western character's shabby dress and rustic talk.
Two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame commemorate Hayes's work in the entertainment industry: one for his contribution to radio, at 6427 Hollywood Boulevard, and one for his contribution to television, at 1724 Vine Street. In 2000, he was posthumously inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Quotations:
"I was never much of an actor, but I was loud, and that made up for a lot of things. "
Personality
Fans who met Hayes in person were surprised to find him a polished, well-read gentleman of dapper appearance.
Interests
In retirement Hayes traveled, made public appearances, and devoted himself to gourmet cooking, baseball, and other hobbies.
Connections
On March 4, 1914, Hayes married Dorothy Earle (Olive Dorothy Ireland), a musical comedy actress; they had no children. She performed with Hayes in sketches but retired shortly after their marriage. After his wife's death in 1957, he lived in seclusion.
