The Will Rogers story seems, in retrospect, so tailor-made for the movies that is remarkable the tale took nearly twenty years to reach the silver screen. The death in an air crash in August 1935 of the cowboy turned humorist and movie star had sent the nation reeling in the waning years of the Depression... and Hollywood studio moguls scrambling to cast the perfect actor in the part. With rights to the memoirs of Rogers' widow going to Warner Brothers, it fell to in-house director Michael Curtiz to match the leading man to the legend. Negotiations and false starts slowed progress on the project for over a decade, as such actors as Fredric March, Gary Cooper, and Joel McCrea either turned down the opportunity flat or suffered a last minute change of heart (as was the case with McCrea, who had appeared in a few early films with Rogers), fearing they could not do the American icon justice. Finally, Curtiz hit upon the notion of casting Rogers' won, Will Jr., in the role, and with that The Story of Will Rogers (1952) went before the cameras in the first months of 1952. A dead ringer for his father in appearance and mannerisms, Rogers lacked only his father's experience, prompting Curtiz to pack his supporting cast with seasoned players, among them Jane Wyman (as Mrs. Will Rogers), Eddie Cantor (as himself), and Noah Beery, Jr., as Wylie Post, Rogers' pilot and companion on his fateful final tour.

By Richard Harland Smith