CMT Blog: Archive

War in Iraq. Corporations pay millions to fired CEOs, then lay off hundreds of workers to pay for it. Children are hurt by cheaply manufactured goods from China. It’s easy to read the news and get discouraged about the fate of humanity, especially if you look back at the “good ol’ days” when times were simpler. For many, silver-screen cowboy Gene Autry represents that nobler era. He always wore a white hat; he owned a major-league team in baseball, a sport so all-American it’s been called the national pastime; and he lived by the Cowboy Code of ethics.

Autry, best-remembered musically for the Western classic, “Back In The Saddle Again,” was always a good guy on screen, and mostly one off-screen, too, though he had his flaws, including a tendency toward too much alcohol and an apparent series of affairs. A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, his heroism was strong enough that Toby Keith name-checked him in “Should’ve Been a Cowboy.” This Saturday (Sept. 29) marks the centennial of his birth, which will be celebrated with a Riders in the Sky concert in Gene Autry, Okla., and has already been recognized with the release of Holly George-Warren’s excellent biography, Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry.

World War II, conducted at the height of Autry’s popularity, was worse than anything we’ve seen this decade. His public battle with Republic Pictures chief Herb Yates shows that businessmen putting profits over people is nothing new. And a public relations catastrophe in which children were burned by flammable playsuits marketed with Autry’s name demonstrates that defective products have left scars before. While you can’t help but like Autry after reading Public Cowboy No. 1, it also leads to some rhetorical questions. Did the world really used to be a better place? Or do we simply get exposed to more of it now that we have instant news 24/7? It’s hard to know the answer, but it’s comforting to see that Autry navigated it, despite his flaws, in a way that suggests nice guys don’t really have to finish last.