Silver Screen Heroes

NOTE: This week's column is dedicated to the memory of Sharon Miller, who passed from this life on January 11, 2009. She was the eldest daughter of Louie Klein.--Percival

While starting out my young life in Flint, Michigan, my heroes were the on-screen cowboys. I always had plenty of places to go to see my favorites of the silver screen. Theaters in Flint were on almost every corner of downtown and plenty to be had in the surrounding areas. Flint was the working city for General Motors, AC Spark Plugs, Chevrolet, and a few other giants of the early auto manufacturers. Those workers needed entertainment to let off steam after working all week in the sweat houses they called factories.

Grand names of the famous Vaudeville era, like the Capitol and the Palace, were huge in size and had screens as large as some of the drive-in movies offered on the outskirts of town. They had the adornments of the finest designers and the plushy effects that made them what they were. They also still had their original stages where actors, comedians, and specialty acts performed in the early 20's and 30's.

Other movie houses, like the old Strand, the Regent, the Rialto, the Centre, the Rex, the Northtown, the Michigan, the Orpheum, and others, gave us a weekly taste of serial episodes like Jungle Jim, Flash Gordon, the Three Stooges shorts, and, of course, a feature cowboy episode. Men and women in the movie industry like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, Rex Allen, The Cisco Kid, Annie Oakley, and others made sure that you were on the edge of your seat at times. They made sure that you always went away happy and contented that justice prevailed and that the good guy won.

I was very fortunate in my earlier years to come face to face with some of my childhood heroes. I met Roy Rogers and Dale Evans at their museum in Victorville, California in the early 60's while crisscrossing the United States. What a super guy Roy was; he always took time from the tour of his museum to personally answer everyone's questions and sign pictures and, best of all, shake hands with each and every one of us that was in the tour. Roy, like a lot of the superstars of the silver screen, was a Mason and a Shriner, attaining the 33rd degree. It is the highest that one can go in the various stages of learning.

I also watched television a lot as a young guy, and it helped to mold my persona into what it is today. TV in the early 50's had the cowboys like the ones mentioned above. There was a host of other people that made their living by entertaining folks on the new venue that was taking audiences away from the old theaters and bringing the same quality entertainment into living rooms. A lot of the old versions of vaudeville were played out on the Dumont and CBS and NBC networks.

Milton Berle, Jackie Gleason, Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, Ted Mack, Laurel & Hardy, Howdy Doody & Buffalo Bob Smith, Groucho Marx, and others were the founders that modern day shows learned from. They did LIVE shows on a weekly basis and kept fans very happy. They were specialists in the world of entertainment who had started their careers in struggling times of heavy unemployment and the great depression era of the 30's.

I have often wondered what the world might be like without the heroes of yesterday coming to light on the silver screens and television. To be without the guidelines that they set for the youth of America and the world to follow. To be without their stories they unfolded before us. Lastly, to be without their smiles as they rode off into the sunset to pursue another adventure that they would bring us next time.

To all those silver screen cowboys, actors, and comedians that helped to mold me into the gentleman I am today … Thank you from the kid in the fifth row to the right of the screen.

Percival A. Friend, Retired
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