When Dad’s contract with Republic expired, he went to Paramount to co-star with Bob Hope and Jane Russell in “Son of Paleface.” This film was released on Aug. 1, 1952.
If you haven’t seen this, it is a really good comedy. Just seeing Trigger in bed with Bob Hope is an experience. Dad said that Mr. Hope was really nervous and said to him several times, “He won’t hurt me, will he?” Meaning Trigger. It couldn’t have been easy for him to be in a large bed with a full grown horse next to him!!!
Working at Paramount Studios, Dad also found out what it was to be treated like a star. Dad’s dressing room at Republic had been the size of a walk-in closet, his dressing room at Paramount was a small cottage!
“The Greatest Show on Earth” was being filmed on the Paramount lot at this same time. I tried every trick that I had learned over the years on the Republic lot to get onto the set to see the wonderful Ringling Bros. performers up close. That was a wonderful movie and Dad let me go with him to the movie’s premier since Mom was sick that night.
Dad next worked on a Universal short film called “The Big Test.” The film was made for Chrysler Corp. and was a marketing film made for their dealers. At that time, Dad’s radio show was sponsored by Dodge, a subsidiary of Chrysler.
The Roy Rogers family was featured in “Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Small Fry” which was a short film made by Columbia and featured stars and their offspring. This was released during February of 1956.
Next project, also released in 1956, was a cartoon for Disney titled, “A Cowboy Needs A Horse.” This is so very adorable and you can now find it on YouTube. It is a very cute song and Dad was in great voice!
These last two projects were made while Dad was busy working for himself on “The Roy Rogers Show.”
Next, Dad did a cameo on Bob Hope’s United Artists film, “Alias Jesse James.” Dad and Mr. Hope belonged to the Lakeside Gold Course and Club and they had been friends for many years.
However, Dad was used to working at the fast pace at Republic Studios where they normally shot well over 30 scenes in a day. In Mr. Hope’s films, they usually managed only around 8 or 9 scenes, and sometimes not even that many. Also, Dad was used to people saying the lines that the writers had written for them. Mr. Hope rarely said what was in the script and he ad libbed almost every scene. It took Dad a bit to catch on to that.
During the making of all of these projects, Mom and Dad were guest starring on almost all of the musical variety shows that were so popular during those years. I will tell you about those appearances in another post.
Remember, you can always comment on these posts and please feel free to ask me questions. I will try my best to answer them as quickly as I can. Even though I don’t post on a regular basis (Ha! Ha!), I do check my website and messages every day that I am at home. Yours, Cheryl
