Will Rogers was really good at rope tricks

In the morning Linda and I went to a coffee house, the Coffee Cartel, to mooch their internet. Behind us on couches a half dozen men and women were meeting in what sounded like the inaugural get-together of a dating support group. One tall and rather glamorous blonde woman said, “so that was my first husband, and that didn’t go well, and then my second husband and I got divorced, but then we got married again....”

Later we drove up along the coast to Will Rogers State Park, in Pacific Palisades. The park was the Rogers’ family ranch, until his widow deeded its 187 acres to the state in 1944 (Rogers died in 1935). Most of the land is scrub-covered hills, but there’s his big rambling house too, bordering a large greensward and polo grounds surrounded by towering eucalyptus trees.

We went on a two-mile loop up to Inspirational Point and a hazy view of Los Angeles and the ocean. But the highlight of the visit was the house tour, led by a docent named Lester, a fiftyish man in jeans and boots and white t-shirt and originally from Brooklyn. He talked almost non-stop for the whole hour and everything he said was worth hearing.

The eight of us on the tour stepped first into the main room, which was long and high with gray and weathered wood-plank walls and wood rafters. Mission-style couches and chairs were scattered about, cowboy art was everywhere on walls and shelves--drawings and sculptures and paintings, several by Charles Russell--two ornate saddles were draped on a wooden form, with a coiled whip hanging off the pommel of one; a stuffed calf stood by the fireplace, over which loomed the mounted head of a full-grown longhorn steer; there was Indian regalia too, an Apache headdress, a couple long pipes, and a portrait of Sequoiah, creator of the Cherokee alphabet. Rogers was part Cherokee himself, born and raised in Indian Territory, before it became the state of Oklahoma.

Will Rogers could afford the big house--two wings, ten or so bedrooms--because for a time in the twenties and thirties he was the most popular entertainer in America. And all his wealth and popularity, his great success, started with a seemingly minor if impressive skill--the man could do some fancy roping.

As a young man he had worked as a cowboy on ranches in Oklahoma, first his father's, then several others till he'd raised a bit of money; he traveled to Argentina to try to establish his own ranch, and when that failed he got a job on a ship transporting livestock to South Africa. In South Africa he put his cowboy skills to a whole different use, hooking up with a traveling wild west show--and thus his entertainment career began. He did what was called a "dumb act," silently roping cows and goats and horses and pretty girls, completing moves that even seen in slow motion in old newsreels seem impossible--say, throwing three ropes simultaneously, one over a galloping horse's front legs, another over its head, a third around the rider. He worked for various wild west troupes--a still quite popular genre in the first years of the twentieth century--before moving to vaudeville and the Ziegfeld Frolics. Here the roping act promised only a brief longevity, so he began to speak as he roped, commenting on the events of the day (he'd read daily newspapers for material). And that was his breakthrough--people loved his folksy charm and humor. The rope tricks eventually became less important: the main thing was to hear what he had to say.

He parlayed the act into a radio and film career (he made 72 films and was the top-grossing star for three consecutive years in the early 1930s); he took up writing and composed a daily column for the New York Times, which was soon syndicated all over the country; he wrote six books and traveled all over the world on lecture tours. Lester, our docent, called him "the first multi-media celebrity."

But if he did less roping in public, he kept his hand in at home. Any vistor walking through the front door was likely to have a lasso thrown over his or her head. Rogers and his wife entertained Hollywood stars, bigwig politicians and industrialists, and they all got the rope treatment, when arriving, when sitting around the living room, when eating at the dinner table, or just whenever they attracted Rogers' attention, which was often. The man was obsessed with roping. In a basket by the door are a couple of his ropes, still ready to go; these were his indoor ropes, as his wife wouldn't let him bring in the dusty ropes he'd been using outside.

The stuffed calf had been a gift from a wealthy friend, who hoped Rogers would shift his rope throwing from his visitors to the calf (which was/is on wheels). Rogers was fond of the gift, wearing the ears right off the calf, but he continued to lasso his guests too (Lester said that today we might say Rogers had ADD; he hardly slept and almost never stopped moving).

Rogers died at the height of his popularity, at the age of 55, in a plane crash in northern Alaska. He'd been headed from Fairbanks to Point Barrow because he wanted to visit the continent's northernmost point. "People in their eighties and nineties will tell you," Lester said, "that they remember where they were and what they were doing when they got the news of his death." The nation mourned.

At the end of the tour everyone shook hands with Lester. We all were half in love with him and wanted him to tell us more stories, but he had to start the next tour so we were on our own.