At the time of his death, ’30s star Will Rogers was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, but all he really wanted was to be a cowboy, according to his great-granddaughter, Jennifer Rogers-Etcheverry.
“I think the Hollywood scene paid the bills,” Rogers-Etcheverry, who lives in her great-grandfather’s native Oklahoma, where he is known as “Oklahoma’s favorite son,” told Fox News Digital.
“And he was contracted with Fox to make several movies, which he did not get to finish his contract, but he would crank them out just so he could go travel, go right on the ranch, go play polo, go do something.”
Rogers owned a 186-acre ranch in the Pacific Palisades, California, that burned down in January in the Los Angeles fires.
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“I don’t think that his passion was being a movie star,” Rogers-Etcheverry said. “His passion was out being with the people.”
Rogers was the highest-paid actor who had made more than 70 movies when he died in a plane crash in 1935 at 55 years old. But he was also an author and a newspaper columnist with more than 40 million readers a day, and he wrote six books.
“I don’t know when the man slept,” Rogers-Etcheverry joked. “But he just, he wanted to see everything. He wanted to go, and making the movies paid the bills.”
WATCH: ‘30s star Will Rogers was ‘highest-paid actor’ at the time of his plane crash death, but it wasn’t his passion
Despite being friendly with celebrities like Clark Gable and Walt Disney and hobnobbing with presidents and kings and queens, Rogers-Etcheverry says he was a “common man.”
“And he never forgot where he came from in Oklahoma,” she said. “He never forgot being a cowboy. That’s all he ever wanted to be was a cowboy. And I think he just stuck to his roots. And going from just being a cowboy on a ranch in Oologah, Oklahoma, to the No. 1 box office star … in Hollywood and just, he never got that attitude or that arrogance.”
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She said her grandfather always told her that when Rogers came back to his ranch, “he was Dad, he was not Will Rogers. And he just shut it all off and was a dad. He was just a nice, good ‘ol boy.”
Rogers got his start in the entertainment business by trick-roping in a Wild West show in Texas, and then he was hired for the Ziegfeld Follies in New York.
“As he said, he entertained the audience by trick-roping while the girls changed from nothing into nothing, and he was told not to say a word,” she said.
She said one time, when he messed up a trick that he joked, “‘Hey guys, sorry I got all my feet through but one,’ and the audience laughed, and he immediately fueled off that laughter.”
Rogers-Etcheverry said it was “at that moment where he knew he could entertain people.”
WATCH: ‘30s star Will Rogers got into Hollywood after making off-the-cuff remark while trick-roping in live show
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Soon after, he got a speaking role, quoting what he’d read in the newspapers, making fun of the president of the United States and more until celebrities started coming to his show, which were always sold out, she said.
“And it just led from there,” Rogers-Etcheverry said. “And then he eventually got contracted into the movies and moved to California.”
Aside from starring in dozens of silent films and talkies, like “A Connecticut Yankee” with Maureen O’Sullivan and “Steamboat Round the Bend,” Rogers was also an avid flying enthusiast who was friends with aviator Charles Lindbergh.
After the infamous Lindbergh baby kidnapping and murder, Rogers invited the aviator’s family to stay at his California ranch so they could have some privacy.
“Because, of course, the press was all over it,” Rogers-Etcheverry explained. “So, he kind of took them in and kept them there. And they did stay there. And I don’t know exactly how long they stayed there, but they did spend quite a bit of time there when all that was happening.”
Rogers died in a plane crash in Alaska while surveying mail routes with Oklahoma aviator Wiley Post in August 1935, and it “shut down not only the United States, it shut down the world,” Rogers-Etcheverry said.
“At the time of his death, he was not only the most famous person in America, he truly was the most famous man in the world. Everyone knew who he was, and he had visited every country. He was the unofficial humanitarian for the United States.”
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When she got involved in the family business, keeping Rogers’ memory alive, Rogers-Etcheverry said that people who were older told her they remembered being children when Rogers died.
“And they said to me, ‘That’s the only time I’ve ever seen my dad cry or my mom cry.’ They were devastated. And I think it was because he was a man that just, he made you feel good. He brought people together in a way that no one has ever been able to do since.”
WATCH: Early ‘30s star Will Rogers never forgot his cowboy roots in Oklahoma, great-granddaughter says
While he was a “common man,” Rogers frequently entertained celebrities at his California ranch.
Rogers’ widow, Betty, donated his ranch and land to the state in 1944, and it became Will Rogers State Historic Park, which still attracts celebrities to this day, Rogers-Etcheverry said.
She said she took over the role of family representative for Rogers years ago.
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“I want to keep his legacy alive. I have two children and two grandchildren, and if it wasn’t for me, they would have no idea who Will Rogers is,” she said.
“You know, in Oklahoma it’s a little bit easier. He’s Oklahoma’s favorite son, and there’s not anything back here that isn’t named after him. But you get outside the state, it’s a little more challenging.”
