Rogers, Will(iam Penn Adair)

Rogers, Will[iam Penn Adair] (1879–1935), comedian. The famed cowboy humorist was born in Olagah in Indian Territory (present‐day Oklahoma) and began his theatrical career with a traveling Wild West Show. He turned to vaudeville in 1904 and made his New York debut a year later. In 1912 Rogers made his first appearance in a Broadway show, The Wall Street Girl. However, playgoers recalled him best for his appearances in the 1916, 1917, 1918, 1922, and 1924 editions of the Ziegfeld Follies, where he spun out his witty, homey philosophy and comments while toying with a lariat. His last Broadway appearance was in Three Cheers (1928). Shortly before his death in a plane crash, he had appeared as Nat Miller in a 1934 West Coast production of Ah, Wilderness!. Rogers was also very popular in films and on radio and in the newspapers. The 1991 musical The Will Rogers Follies was an entertaining if simple‐minded retelling of his life. Autobiography: Autobiography of Will Rogers, Donald Day, editor, 1949; biography: Will Rogers: His Life and Times, R. Ketchum, 1973.