Back to Childhood, Then the Old West at Autry Museum

I drove to Griffith Park in Los Angeles this week to sign a huge birthday card for Gene Autry. It’s in the foyer at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage there, where he will appear at a special gala in his honor Monday night.

That’s because on that day, the Singing Cowboy, the Oklahoma Yodeler, the man who brought major league baseball to Orange County, will celebrate his 90th birthday.

“Thank you for adding to my childhood memories,” one woman wrote on his card.

He was born in Tioga, Texas, right at the Oklahoma line. Fate played quite a hand in Autry’s future. In 1927, he was a young railroad telegraph operator in nearby Chelsea, Okla., when in walked Will Rogers, who heard him playing the guitar. Rogers, visiting a sister in Chelsea, urged Autry to take his raw talent to New York and make a stab at radio.

That’s what he soon did. Radio success with Western ballads led to a movie career, then success in ranching and broadcasting. Sidekick Pat Buttram once said: “Autry used to ride off into the sunset; now he owns it.” Autry’s only significant failure: His California--now Anaheim--Angels haven’t made it to the World Series in his 37 years as owner. Maybe next year.

As my own private tribute to Autry, I spent four hours touring his museum. (Gun lovers should add another two hours. The Autry museum has lots of weaponry.)

The museum includes a little something for everyone. There’s a hands-on children’s room and a place where youngsters can hop into the saddle and watch themselves on TV riding alongside the Lone Ranger. Magnificent Western sculptures and paintings abound on the museum’s two floors. There’s an 1853 painting by John M. Stanley, called “Crossing the Milk River,” that’s so enchanting I found myself coming back to it repeatedly during my visit.

The museum is a classy tribute to the West, not a glorification of the Autry name. Thousands of artifacts displayed there make the development of the American West seem more real.

One display case contains an original 1845 “Hastings’ Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California.” Its significance: Mistakes in that guide helped lead to the tragedy of the Donner Party, dozens of snowbound settlers who died in the Sierra Nevada the next year.

Personal possessions of New Mexico Sheriff Pat Garrett are on display. Included is the pocket watch given Garrett, inscribed “from grateful citizens of Lincoln County,” for killing Billy the Kid in 1881.

For us baby boomers and those a little older, parts of the museum take you back to your childhood.

There is a quick clip of the old TV Western “Maverick” that took me back 35 years to thoughts of my late father. He and I would close the door to the TV room, blocking out my mother and two sisters, so we could watch “Maverick” together. It was his favorite show, and it was my favorite time of the week, being alone with him.

Many of the museum’s old movie posters would no doubt evoke childhood memories for some of you too. Roy Rogers and the Cisco Kid, of course. Remember Rex Allen, the Arizona Cowboy? I’d forgotten that Tex Ritter’s horse was named White Flash. “Tex pays off hired killers with lead slugs from his flaming .45’s,” blared one poster headline.

There are pictures of Smiley Burnette and Pat Buttram, Autry’s two favorite sidekicks. There is Patsy Montana singing “I want to be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart.” There is a replay of the shootout at the OK Corral. You don’t want to miss the blown-up photograph of a young boy peeking through a hole in the fence, gazing wide-eyed at four members of the real Dalton gang stretched out dead. They’d been gunned down in an aborted train robbery.

You see a film clip of Barbara Stanwyck as the Montana queen. Another shows Tom Mix nailing his share of bad dudes. I got a kick out of a poster for “Twilight on the Rio Grande” showing Adele Mara, the female lead, with fourth billing. Top bill was for Gene Autry, second was his horse Champion, and even Sterling Holloway, the comic element, was billed above the love interest.

I spent a lot of time reading comments from visitors in a book provided for that purpose. Most gushed about what a great museum it was. But one person wrote: “Wyatt Earp is in my opinion nothing 2 talk about.” It was signed “Virgil Earp.”

Song & Saddle: One suggestion: The museum needs a little more Autry, maybe a room showing continuous Autry movies, or some of those old cable TV clips of Autry discussing various scenes. But maybe the museum is low-key on Autry because that’s how he felt about his career.

He notes in his 1978 bio, “Back in the Saddle Again,” that he was selected as the top cowboy star in Hollywood six years in a row, from 1937 to 1942. But he adds: “I had no illusions about my films. Nor did I consider myself anything special as an actor or a singer. . . . In those days, movies were a way of getting your mind off real life.”

How He Got His Halo: The only time I ever met Gene Autry was in court. In the late 1980s, he stopped the city of Anaheim’s loony idea of building a parking garage at Anaheim Stadium as part of a redevelopment plan. At a court hearing on the issue, Autry let us reporters know that baseball was the love of his life.

In “Saddle,” he explains how he got into the sport: “Walter O’Malley decided in 1960 to take a summer home in the hills above Lake Arrowhead. Otherwise, I might not be in baseball today.”

The Dodgers owner had yanked his team’s games off Autry’s KMPC radio station because he couldn’t pick up the reception at his Arrowhead home. Autry writes that he decided to seek an American League expansion team--he got the Angels--so KMPC could keep its reputation as a sports station and broadcast its games.

In 1966, he moved the Angels from Los Angeles to Anaheim, he writes, because “Anaheim was a fresh and delightful place; I found out you can’t buy a pennant, but a new stadium can make the fans more comfortable while you try.”

Wrap-Up: I wrote down these words about cowboy movies I saw somewhere at the museum: “flashy image, escapist plots and wholesome values that captured the heart of middle America.” A pretty good description of an Autry movie, and my childhood was the better for it. I hope he has a great birthday.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711 or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com