Gene Autry’s cowboy hat, grand piano to be auctioned off in May
Legendary singing cowboy Gene Autry, who grew up in Ravia and first appeared on the radio in Tulsa, will be the subject of an estate auction in Los Angeles next month, reports CMT.com.
Presented by Abell Auction Company, the sale will include the Steinway & Sons model M mahogany case grand piano, on which he wrote 640 songs, including the iconic Christmas song “Here Comes Santa Claus.”
Among many other items, Autry’s white Resistol cowboy hat and his sports jacket from the California Angels, which he founded, also will be up for bidding.
The music, TV and film star has five stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1969. In 1942, the small town of Berwyn in Carter County changed its name to Gene Autry.
Autry died in 1998 of lymphoma.
-BAM
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Great pic of my favorite cowboy–a crush from the first day I saw him on the screen when I was five.He was the American dream come true. Born int o poor family in Tioga Texas, his mother taught him to sing–he ought his first used guitar with money he earned cleaning out stables at the age of 10. Like most young singers growing up in the period following WW1, he sang a combo of working men blues and yodeling western songs made famous by Jimmie Rodgers.
But he was destined to become one of the most famous entertainers in the world. He earned every one of the 5 stars in Hollywood for entertainment, and with a keen business sense went on to become one of the richest actors in Hollywood–singer, composer, actor, he served in WW2 in the Air Force flying transport, supply planes for the troops.He loved his Angels baseball team, though he did not live long enough to see them win their first series. Long live the memory of Gene Autry–he was in evry sense a gentle man.
Chris