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Will Rogers: Ziegfeld Follies
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Will Rogers made his first stage appearance in New York City in 1905. He first reached real fame in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1916. In 1918, he started his motion picture career. In 1934, he made his first appearance in a stage play in Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wildnerness!
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Born in Oklahoma into a prosperous ranching family of mixed Cherokee descent, the young Rogers was an expert rider and lariat stuntman. He appeared in Wild West shows throughout the world, and in 1905 he made his vaudeville debut. In vaudeville he enlivened his performances with off-the-cuff lectures on the art of roping. Rogers's humorous chatter, nonchalant delivery, and southwestern drawl proved a popular combination, resulting in an invitation to join the Ziegfeld Follies. His wife suggested that he vary and supplement his material with comments on contemporary personages and events. Following this advice, he delighted audiences with his homely philosophy and pungent remarks, becoming a renowned humorist and interpreter of the news.
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Rogers returned to the U.S. and continued as a Wild West show performer and trick roper with the Wirth Brothers Circus. He began to use his roping skills on the vaudeville circuit. A important event in Rogers' stage career was his one-week engagement in New York for Ziegfeld’s “Midnight Frolic" in 1915. That show drew numerous influential and regular patrons. He used his fondness for current events by adding comic commentary to his performances. That one-week spot ran into 1916, and Rogers' popularity resulted in an offer to be one of the comic acts in the more famous "Ziegfeld Follies."
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Not long after Rogers was asked to join the Follies, he was introduced to the world of motion pictures. Rogers became "a new star to filmdom" in 1918 when he starred in the film version of Rex Beach's novel, Laughing Bill Hyde (Yagoda, 162). The movie's success prompted Goldwyn Pictures to offer Rogers a contract. Thus, at the close of the Follies of 1918 tour, Rogers and his family moved to Los Angeles.
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Born William Penn Adair Rogers to parents of Cherokee heritage, he made his vaudeville debut with a rope-throwing act in New York City in 1905. Later he achieved wide popularity through the humorous monologues with which he accompanied his rope tricks. After 1914 Rogers appeared in several of the annual Ziegfeld Follies in New York City. He ... acted in numerous motion pictures and wrote a series of syndicated newspaper articles in which he poked fun at the great figures of the day and expounded his homespun philosophy.
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His run at the New Amsterdam ran on into 1916, and Rogers's obvious popularity led to an engagement on the more-famous Ziegfeld Follies. Ziegfeld saw comedians as mere 'stage-fillers' who entertained the audience while the stage was reset for the next spectacle of beautiful girls in stunning costumes. Rogers managed to not only hold his own, but achieved star status, with both his roping and his precise satire on the daily news. An editorial in the The New York Times said that "Will Rogers in the Follies is carrying on the tradition of Aristophanes, and not unworthily."[7] Rogers branched into silent films too, for Samuel Goldwyn's company Goldwyn Pictures. He made his first silent movie, Laughing Bill Hyde, filmed in Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 1918. Many early films were made near the major New York performing market, so Rogers could make the film, yet still rehearse and perform in the Follies.
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