Fans Remember Real Buckaroo
Most of us were at some point broomstick buckaroos. Hard-riding, tough-talking little cowboys and cowgirls, who with a six-shooter and a white hat could triumph over all of the bullies and bad guys in town--if only in our fantasies.
Gene Autry defined the ethos of that world. And on Sunday, a few hundred current and former broomstick buckaroos gathered at the Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Griffith Park to pay tribute to one of America’s premier singing cowboys.
Autry, 91, died Oct. 2 at his home in Studio City after a long illness. His career spanned more than 60 years--as a film star, as a broadcast executive and as the owner of baseball’s Angels.
But what his friends remembered most was a man of good humor, honesty, humility and gentleness.
Jerry Scoggins said he first met Autry in Dallas in 1945, when he was singing with the Cass County Boys and Autry was an Army Air Corpsman stationed at Love Field. Scoggins talked Sunday about Autry’s cowboy 10 commandments. Among them: The cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man or take unfair advantage; he must always tell the truth; he must be gentle with children, the elderly and animals.
And the thing about it, said Scoggins, was that Autry fulfilled his impossibly decent cowboy code in real life.
That was the refrain of speaker after speaker.
“He lived the virtues he embodied on screen: fairness, integrity, kindness, courage and generosity. He was a beloved friend and hero to millions,” tribute host Johnny Grant read from a letter. The note was addressed from Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Mayor Richard Riordan attended and called Autry “a great icon of the city of Los Angeles” and a “Renaissance man.”
“His was a true American success story,” Riordan said.
Autry especially touched the hearts of children, Riordan said, noting that of the more than 300 songs he wrote or co-wrote, two of the most popular were “Here Comes Santa Claus” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
“It’s only fitting that his baseball team was called the Angels,” Riordan said. “For the 91 years that Gene was on Earth, he played fair and touched all the bases.”
Autry was remembered as one of baseball’s great fans, who as an owner never lost touch with the common folks in the bleachers.
A former baseball commissioner, Peter Ueberroth, recalled Autry’s excitement over this year’s home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.
“But he told me what this is really about is a freckle-faced Irishman and a dark-skinned Latino who genuinely respect each other,” Ueberroth said.
“And he said, ‘What you see is that they are always recognizing the fans--turning around to wave, tipping their hats. More and more players will be emulating that.’ ”
At the end of Sunday’s tribute, all of Autry’s friends gathered around. Together they sang one of his biggest hits, “Back in the Saddle Again”:
Ridin’ the range once more,
Totin’ my old forty-four
Where you sleep out ev’ry night
where the only law is right,
I’m back in the saddle again.
