Will Rogers and other unknown famous people

[Amor de Cosmos]

Superficially I've known who Will Rogers was forever. An authentic "Man of the People." The folksie Okie with a quip for every occasion. The biggest film star of all in a period when film was king. The man who would certainly have been president if he'd chosen the job, but whose life was cut short in a tragic air crash. However, beyond all that, I've never really known much about him as a person, and apparently there are very few people left who even know his name. There are scores of books, literally. But most are collections of his pithy sayings and anecdotes that have been trodden on several times. Surprisingly there are very few well researched biographies, if any. I was moved to check all this out by a quote from his son, Will Rogers Jr. to screenwriter Budd Schulberg in 1942, just seven years after his Father's death:

“My father was so full of shit, because he pretends he’s just one of the people, just one of the guys,” Rogers told Schulberg. “But in our house the only people that ever came as guests were the richest people in town, the bankers and the power-brokers of L.A. And those were his friends and that’s where his heart is and he (was) really a goddamned reactionary.”

So where does the truth lie? In the well tended myth, or in a son's resentful comment? Or someplace else? Does it even matter anymore? I can't answer the first question yet, but the second is important. It matters because of what we're living through right now. When people place their trust in someone they give them something important. When that trust is betrayed the betrayal can never be undone, nor can it easily be admitted.

Who else's fame has burned brightly but dimmed rapidly, leaving the truth subject to conjecture?

[Hot Pepsi]

Bill Cosby

[Gangster Octopus]

Jimmy Savile.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Cosby was "found out" before he died though. There are few, if any, doubts about him left. Rogers OTOH is a myth. Most, if not all, the primary sources are now gone.

Savile is the same as Crosby, except he was dead before he was exposed, but there can be little conjecture about him at this point.

[Satchmo Distel]

Rogers used the N-word four times in his first radio broadcast, leading to a complaint by the NAACP.

Elitists pretending to be salt of the earth types: Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan.

Racists in Hollywood: Harold Lloyd was a segregationist

Writers: Faulkner defended segregation.

Eugenics: H.G. Wells

[ursus arctos]

Michael Jackson was once widely considered to be the best known person in the world, yet I am far from sure that we will ever really "know" what made him tick.

[Gangster Octopus]

He also used to be black.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Rogers used the N-word four times in his first radio broadcast, leading to a complaint by the NAACP.

Rogers was an Oklahoma Cherokee, from a period when the tribe was wealthy from oil exploration. But how his family were placed I've no idea. One of his closest friends was Stepin Fetchit, so I'm also not sure how he felt about segregation and other racial issues of the time.

[Patrick Thistle]

JD Salinger was a total recluse.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Michael Jackson was once widely considered to be the best known person in the world, yet I am far from sure that we will ever really "know" what made him tick.

Probably true of almost anyone. But he was interviewed frequently, there have certainly been biographies and will be more with contributions from people who knew him. It's also doubtful whether he'll be as dramatically forgotten as Rogers has been. He was the highest paid film star in Hollywood, but I don't think I've ever seen one of his films.

[ursus arctos]

That isn't terribly unusual for the period.

The terrific You Must Remember This podcast regularly provided deep dives into forgotten stars.

[Amor de Cosmos]

JD Salinger was a total recluse.

He really wasn't. Not entirely, though he rarely left home. Married three times, with at least one complicated relationship with Joyce Maynard. He also had friends, such as Lilian Ross of the New Yorker who he'd invite over for movie evenings. But it's true he was never a public figure in the same way that Rogers, Jackson or even Cosby was. Authors rarely are.

[Amor de Cosmos]

That isn't terribly unusual for the period.

The terrific You Must Remember This podcast regularly provided deep dives into forgotten stars.

I'll check it out. Though I still suspect Rogers was a bit exceptional. I get the impression that for many people he embodied the idea of democracy, or maybe American democracy, during the interwar period. Certainly not just any other celebrity.

[ursus arctos]

I agree with that.

As you noted with Jackson, the sheer volume of material produced now w/r/t any major celebrity means that we start at a rather different place.

[Hot Pepsi]

Weren’t most Hollywood cowboys full of shit? John Wayne, for example?

[ursus arctos]

Will Rogers wasn't really a cowboy, though

Roy Rogers was

[Hot Pepsi]

Apparently, Will Rogers did try to do some cowboying in South America and South Africa before starting his rope trick career in Australia.

[Eggchaser]

Weren’t most Hollywood cowboys full of shit? John Wayne, for example?

Slim Pickens, however, was most assuredly not full of shit when it came to the horse wrangling.

[3 Colours Red]

Daft Punk?

[Nefertiti2]

[Satchmo Distel]

Charles Lindbergh was on the wrong side of history but his aviation feats seem to have protected his name from total disgrace.

Forgotten: Theda Bara, Fatty Arbuckle?

[Sits]

Daft Punk?

I used to theorise that Daft Punk were actually fellow French duo Air, and that DP was their electro dance persona.

[Sporting]

I'm a bit puzzled as to the intention of the thread. Are we talking about famous people about whom not much is known or those whose reputations are sullied in some way (examples in previous posts)?

[Satchmo Distel]

People the public thought they knew but actually didn't, for various reasons. Some of those will never be truly knowable while others have been exposed as secret rapists or racists, etc.

[Benjm]

On the domestic front, DJ and TV presenter Simon Dee was often cited as someone whose brief but intense period of stardom was hard to explain to anyone who hadn't witnessed it, so swift and complete had been his fall into obscurity.

As far as mystery goes, when I first heard about him in the late '70s and '80s, it was difficult to see any archive footage of him in action to get a sense of what his fame was based upon. There were also various rumours about the degree of privation into which he had descended.

When he did resurface, on a tribute of some kind, it turned out that he was just a cheesy proto-Partridge who was slightly bitter about the way that the business had spat him out. The public had happily let him go, perhaps because he was too closely associated with a particular time when it passed and came to be viewed with the embarrassment saved for recently expired popular culture.