Name | George "Gabby" Hayes |
---|---|
Caption | Publicity photo of Gabby Hayes (left) and Roy Rogers from the early 1940's |
Birthname | George Francis Hayes |
Birth date | May 07, 1885 |
Birth place | Wellsville, New York, U.S. |
Death date | February 09, 1969 |
Death place | Burbank, California, U.S. |
Occupation | Actor |
Yearsactive | 1902–1956 |
Spouse | Olive E. Ireland (March 4, 1914 – July 5, 1957) |
George Francis "Gabby" Hayes (May 7, 1885 – February 9, 1969) was an American radio, film, and television actor. He was best known for his numerous appearances in Western movies as the colorful sidekick to the leading man.
Hayes married Olive E. Ireland, daughter of a New Jersey glass finisher, on March 4, 1914. She joined him in vaudeville, performing under the name Dorothy Earle (not to be confused with film actress/writer Dorothy Earle). She convinced him in 1929 to try his luck in motion pictures, and the couple moved to Los Angeles. They remained together until her death July 5, 1957. The couple had no children.
Hayes was the nephew of George F. Morrison, Vice President of General Electric.
Hayes, in real life an intelligent, well groomed, and articulate man, was cast as a grizzled codger who uttered phrases like "consarn it", "yer durn tootin", "dadgumit", "durn persnickety female", and "young whippersnapper".
Hayes played the part of Windy Halliday, the sidekick to Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd), from 1935 to 1939. In 1939, Hayes left Paramount Pictures in a dispute over his salary and moved to Republic Pictures. Paramount held the rights to the name Windy Halliday, so a new nickname was created for Hayes' character; Gabby. As Gabby Whitaker, Hayes appeared in more than 40 pictures between 1939 and 1946, usually with Roy Rogers but also with Gene Autry or Wild Bill Elliott, often working under the directorship of Joseph Kane.
Hayes was also repeatedly cast as a sidekick to western icons Randolph Scott (6 times) and John Wayne (15 times, some as straight or villainous characters). Hayes became a popular performer and consistently appeared among the ten favorite actors in polls taken of movie-goers of the period. He appeared in either or both the Motion Picture Herald and Boxoffice Magazine lists of Top Ten Money-Making Western Stars for twelve straight years and a thirteenth time in 1954, four years after his last movie.
The western film genre declined in the late 1940s and Hayes made his last film appearance in The Cariboo Trail (1950). He moved to television and hosted The Gabby Hayes Show, a western series, from 1950 to 1954 on NBC, and a new version in 1956 on ABC. He introduced the show, often while whittling on a piece of wood and would sometimes throw in some tall stories. Half way through the show he would say something else and at the end too but he did not appear as an active character in the stories themselves. When the series ended, Hayes retired from show business. He lent his name to a comic book series and to a children's summer camp in New York.
Hayes has also been portrayed in impressions by Fred LaBour (Too Slim), during Riders in the Sky performances.
Gabby was mentioned in the Simpsons episode Radioactive Man, where Milhouse becomes Radioactive Man's sidekick, "Fallout Boy", the producer of the film comments that Milhouse is "going to be big, Gabby Hayes big!"
Every year in April at the beginning of trout season in Pennsylvania, the Gabby Hayes Memorial Fishing Expedition is held by a group of long-time friends and so named in whimsical homage to the man whose early career began in the environs of his boyhood New York home near the northern Pennsylvania border. The first "expedition" was held in 1969, coincidentally the year of Hayes' death."
Moreover, every year in early July, from 1983 to at least 1989, "Gabby Hayes Days" were celebrated in Wellsville, New York. The event featured a street sale, square dancing, and Gabby Hayes look-alike contests for adults and children. But this celebration was eventually merged into the more popular mid-July Wellsville Balloon Rally and gradually disappeared. A street is also named after him there, Gabby Hayes Lane.
Category:1885 births Category:1969 deaths Category:Actors from New York Category:American film actors Category:American radio actors Category:American television actors Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills) Category:Cardiovascular disease deaths in California Category:People from Allegany County, New York Category:RCA Victor artists Category:Vaudeville performers Category:Western (genre) film actors
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