Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are going
to pull on a thread that I think a lot of us
recognize instantly, but almost none of us actually
understand it. Yeah, it's one of those things
hiding in plain sight. Exactly. So I want you
to do something for me. I want you to close your
eyes and just picture the Old West. We should
clarify, not the real history books, right? We're
not talking about, you know, Oregon Trail dysentery
or complex land disputes. Right. No, definitely
not the academic version. I'm talking about the
Hollywood West, the myth, the Saturday matinee
version. Oh, absolutely. The classic setup. You
know the one. You've got the hero. He's stoic,
jaws square, hat tipped low. And he's probably
sitting on a horse that looks better groomed
than most people I know. Which is saying something.
It is. But look just to his left. Who is standing
right there? The sidekick. The sidekick. And
not just any sidekick. I mean, the absolute archetype
of the role. You know, the bearded, cantankerous,
toothless old coot shouting, what is it? Oh,
concern it. Yes, concern it. And you're darn
tootin'. And always complaining about persnickety
females and young whippersnappers. He's the comic
relief. Yeah. The grounding force. Basically
the guy who makes the hero look even more heroic
just by standing next to him being kind of a
mess. Right. And if you close your eyes and picture
that guy, whether you realize it or not, you
are picturing one specific human being. George
Gabby Hayes. Without a doubt. I mean, he is the
template. He's the blueprint for literally every
Western sidekick that came after him. From old
cartoons to modern parodies, they're all basically
just chasing the ghost of Gabby Hayes. But here
is the hook. And this is why we're dedicating
this entire deep dive to this specific guy today.
We have this image of him as this dusty, uneducated,
grizzled prospector who probably smelled like,
I don't know, mule sweat and chewing tobacco.
Or campfire beans. Exactly. Campfire beans. That
is the cultural imprint he left behind. And it's
a very potent brand. It really is. But the reality,
the actual man behind that massive beard, he
was the complete opposite. It turns out George
Hayes was an incredibly intelligent, articulate,
well -groomed, wealthy man who, and this is the
part that gets me, he didn't even know how to
ride a horse until he was almost in his 40s.
It is genuinely one of the great paradoxes of
Hollywood history. The gap between the man and
the mask is so wide you could drive a stagecoach
right through it. It's the ultimate performance.
So our mission today is to really unpack this.
We aren't just doing a simple biography of cowboy
actor. We're looking at the invention of a persona.
A total fabrication from the ground up. Yeah,
we're going to look at how a very successful
vaudeville actor completely reinvented himself
after losing everything in the Great Depression.
I mean, literally everything. And how he navigated
the brutal business of the studio system to become
a brand that actually outlasted some of the heroes
he supported. And we absolutely have to talk
about his lasting impact on culture later on.
From Blazing Saddles all the way to Toy Story
2. Oh, the Toy Story 2 connection is honestly
my favorite part. But we will get there. I think
that business aspect you mentioned is really
key here. We tend to think of these character
actors as just sort of happening. Like they just
wandered onto the film set out of the Mojave
Desert. Just walked in off the street with a
pickaxe. Right. But Gabby Hayes was a master
of branding before we even used that word in
a marketing context. He really was. He understood
that he was a product. And he managed that product
better than almost anyone else in the industry
at that time. So let's start at the beginning.
And the beginning is definitely not on a ranch
in Texas or, you know, a silver mine in Nevada.
If you want to find the origin of the ultimate
Westerner, where do we actually have to look?
You have to go to Standards, New York. Upstate
New York. That's right. He was born George Francis
Hayes on May 7th, 1885. Now, you will see some
sources and even Hayes himself at times claiming
his birthplace was Wellsville, which was the
slightly bigger town nearby. But legally, standards.
Got it. And I want to set the scene here because
this was not a dirt floor cabin situation. This
wasn't Frontier living in the way his movies
would have you believe. No, from what I'm seeing
in the research we pulled, his family was actually.
pretty established like they were prominent citizens
they were very prominent his father clark hayes
was a significant figure in the local economy
he didn't just run a hotel the hayes hotel naturally
he was also heavily involved in petroleum production
wait petroleum in new york i always think of
texas for that yeah people often forget this
but The oil industry was just beginning to boom
in that part of the country at the time, sort
of spilling over from the Pennsylvania oil rush.
So George grows up in this environment of business,
hospitality, and heavy industrial growth. So
he's walking through a nice hotel lobby, seeing
businessmen, seeing travelers. He's not panning
for gold. Not at all. And his mother, Elizabeth
Morrison, came from a family that had some really
serious connections too. Right. I saw this note
about his uncle. This completely blew my mind
when I read it. It's a fantastic detail. George's
uncle on his mother's side was George F. Morrison.
Now, that name might not ring a bell today, but
back then he was the vice president at General
Electric. General Electric. So we are talking
about a family that is deeply, deeply embedded
in the industrial rise of America. This is respectable,
upper middle class stock, oil and electricity.
Exactly. They were the establishment. And the
family had a really strong sense of duty and
service as well. It wasn't just about making
money. It was about standing for something. It's
really worth mentioning his brother, Morrison
Hayes, to kind of illustrate this family ethos.
Yeah, that's a pretty heavy part of the family
history. It is. Morrison was a corporal in the
U .S. Army during World War I. He was tragically
killed in action in France in 1918. He was actually
awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary
heroism. Wow. Yeah, the American Legion post
in Wellsville is actually named after him to
this day. So you have this backdrop of very serious,
hardworking, respectable people. And George,
where does he fit into this lineup of serious
people? Well, he was the third of seven children.
He attended standard school. He played semi -pro
baseball in high school. On paper, he was on
a very conventional, successful path. He could
have easily gone into the oil business or taken
over the hotel from his dad. And then came the
rebellion. The big plot twist. The first rebellion,
really. Right. Because at 17, George Hayes does
something that sounds like it's ripped straight
from a storybook. He runs away from home. He
does. He leaves the hotel. He leaves the oil
money, the baseball, and he joins a stock company.
He even traveled with a circus for a time. I
love that imagery so much. He went from the quiet
hotel lobby straight to the circus tent. Do we
know why? Was it just the allure of the stage?
It seems to be that classic bug. Yeah. You know,
once you catch it, you just can't shake it. He
wanted to perform. He wanted an audience. And
this is really where he starts to cut his teeth.
This is his entry into the vaudeville circuit.
We hear about vaudeville a lot when we talk about
early Hollywood, but I feel like we don't fully
appreciate what a grinder it actually was. We
really don't. And we should pause on vaudeville
for a second because understanding it is crucial
to understanding his later success. Vaudeville
was absolute boot camp for entertainers. It was
constant, right? Constant. You were traveling
nonstop, sleeping on trains, performing in different...
Sometimes hostile towns every single night. And
the audiences were tough. You had to be quick.
You had to be loud. And you had to have a shtick
that communicated who you were to the back row
immediately. Because there were no microphones.
No microphones at all. You had to project from
your diaphragm. You had to have perfect diction.
And you had to have a character that read instantly
to the crowd. You didn't have 20 minutes to explain
your intricate backstory. Right. You couldn't
be subtle. And did he have a specific character
back then? Was he already doing the cowboy thing?
Not a cowboy per se, but he was definitely experimenting
with a rural archetype. He had a very popular
sketch where he played a character called the
Rube Constable. The Rube Constable. Sounds a
little familiar, doesn't it? Yeah, it really
does. It was this comedic, slightly bumbling
authority figure, a rural guy who absolutely
thinks he's smarter than he actually is. This
was the seed of everything that came later. He
was learning how to play local color, the rural
character, even though he himself was this sophisticated
guy from a wealthy family. It's interesting.
He's channeling the people who probably saw in
the countryside. around upstate New York, but
exaggerating them for comedic effect. Exactly.
He was a keen observer of people. And he wasn't
doing this alone for long either. In 1914, he
married Olive E. Ireland. Was she in the business
too? She was. She was a glass finisher's daughter
originally, but she took the stage name Dorothy
Earl, and they became a team. Like a double act.
Precisely. She joined his act, and they toured
together. And they were incredibly successful
at it. I mean, this wasn't just scraping by and
eating beans. They were making very good money.
They were headliners on their circuit, and they
actually stayed together until she passed away
in 1957. So things are going great. He's escaped
the family expectation. He's made a name for
himself. He's married. He's making bank. And
that brings us to what I think is the most shocking
part of this timeline. We are moving into Act
2 now. The crash. This is the massive turning
point of his life. This is the moment where the
story really could have just ended, but instead
it restarted. Because usually when we hear about
actors going to Hollywood in that era, it's the
story of a young, hungry kid trying to make it
big. But George Hayes had already made it. He
completely made it. By 1928, George is 43 years
old. Now, in the entertainment world of that
time, and honestly, even today, that is getting
up there. especially for a very physical comedian.
He had been so successful in vaudeville that
he actually decided to retire. He retired at
43. That is the dream. That was the plan. He
bought a beautiful home on Long Island in Baldwin,
New York. He had a very substantial nest egg
built up. The plan was to just live off his savings,
maybe, you know, trim the hedges, enjoy the quiet
life with Olive. No more trains, no more cheap
hotels, just peace. And the year is 1928. 1928.
Oh, no. I think we all know what happens next.
The music is about to stop entirely. The 1929
stock market crash. It wiped him out. Completely
and totally. All that vaudeville money, the savings,
the beautiful retirement plan. Gone almost overnight.
That is just devastating. I really want you to
sit with that for a moment as a listener. You
are 44 years old. You thought you were done.
You did the grueling work. You saved the money.
And suddenly the scoreboard resets to absolute
zero. It's a profound trauma. A lot of men in
that specific era didn't recover from that at
all. Suicide rates spiked. Clinical depression
was rampant. But this is where the character
of the man really shows. He didn't wallow. And
Olive, his wife, was actually the one who pushed
for the next step. She persuaded him to try his
luck in films. Go West, young man. Or in this
case, go West. Middle -aged, retired vaudevillian
who just lost his shirt. Exactly. So they picked
up and moved to Los Angeles. But think about
the sheer risk involved here. It's not just the
bad economy. The film industry itself was undergoing
a violent revolution right at that moment. Taki's
movies with sound were just coming in. He's starting
over from scratch in a town that worships youth,
right in the middle of a massive technological
upheaval. But wait, didn't you say he had a great
voice from vaudeville? That is the key. The Taki
revolution was actually his salvation. The silent
film stars were losing their jobs left and right
because they didn't know how to speak for an
audience. Their voices were squeaky or they didn't
know how to enunciate. George Hayes was a stage
-trained vaudevillian. He knew projection. He
knew comedic timing. So the very thing that destroyed
the old Hollywood establishment was his golden
ticket in. Precisely. But he still needed a lucky
break. He had a chance meeting with a producer
named Trem Carr. Later in interviews, Hayes said
Carr just liked his look. He had a great face.
Even before he grew the massive beard, he had
character. He looked like he had lived a life.
Carr gave him work. And over the next six years,
Hayes did 30 roles for him. 30. And here's what's
really fascinating. He wasn't the sidekick yet.
He played villains. He played generic townsfolk.
Sometimes he even played two entirely different
roles in a single movie. just to help fill out
the cast. Two roles in one movie. How does that
even work? Oh, it's classic low -budget filmmaking.
You put on a sick mustache, you're the bartender
in scene one, take it off, put on a different
hat, you're the sheriff in scene four. The ultimate
utility player. Exactly. But he soon found a
niche. The Western genre was absolutely exploding.
It was the superhero movie of its day. The studios
were churning them out by the dozen. And Hayes
realized that if he wanted steady work, If he
wanted to rebuild that lost retirement fund,
he needed to fit into that specific world. But
there was a problem, a pretty big technical problem
for a Western actor. A very significant one.
He had absolutely no cowboy background. Zero.
He's from New York. He played baseball. He knows
about oil refineries and vaudeville stages. He
didn't know how to ride a horse. That seems like
a fundamental prerequisite for the job. You would
certainly think so. He had to learn to ride in
his 40s. Just imagine that. You are trying to
break into Westerns, you are surrounded by actual
stuntmen and former rodeo guys, and you are gripping
the saddle horn for dear life whenever the camera
isn't rolling. That is dedication. It really
emphasizes that this was a job for him. It was
a craft. He wasn't living the cowboy lifestyle.
He was performing it for a paycheck. And that
leads us perfectly into the construction of the
persona, act three. Because he wasn't just learning
to ride. He was deliberately crafting a very
specific character to hide the fact that he was
an eastern gentleman. The codger. The grizzled
codger. He started intentionally developing these
verbal tics. Consarn it. Dadgum it. Constantly
complaining about young whippersnappers. And
the darn persnickety females. Right. It was a
complete caricature of an old prospector. But
remember, the real George Hayes was intelligent,
articulate. and well -groomed. He was creating
a mask that was so incredibly effective, people
eventually refused to believe it wasn't him.
It's like if we found out today that Santa Claus
was actually a slender corporate lawyer who hated
cookies. That's a very fair analogy. He even
took out his dentures to make his face collapse
a bit for the cameras. He grew the scraggly beard.
He stopped shaving entirely. So this persona
really starts to get traction. It does. Paramount
Pictures takes notice and puts him in the Hopalong
Cassidy series, which started around 1935. He
plays a character named Wendy Halliday. Okay,
so Wendy implies he talks a lot, full of hot
air. Exactly. Wendy Halliday was the sidekick
to William Boyd, who played Hopalong. And this
is where the codger archetype really crystallized.
He played that specific role from 1935 to 1939.
He became a total fixture in the culture. But
then drama strikes. And it's not gunfight drama
on the set. It's contract drama in the back office.
It is always contract drama in Hollywood. In
1939, Hayes got into a major dispute with Paramount
over his salary. He felt, and arguably he was
completely correct, that he was a major box office
draw. People were coming to see Wendy just as
much as they were coming to see Hopalong. So
he asked for a raise. Paramount absolutely wouldn't
budge. So he walked? He walked. He left Paramount
and moved over to Republic Pictures. But here
is the catch, and this is a master class in intellectual
property that every creator today should listen
to. owned the legal rights to the name Wendy
Halliday. Ah, so he's the actor. He has the face
and the voice and the mannerisms, but he legally
cannot use the name. Correct. He could not be
Wendy. So Republic Pictures had to solve this
problem quickly. They basically took the exact
same character, same beard, same missing teeth,
same voice, same concerns, and they just renamed
him. And what name did they choose? Gabby. Gabby
Whitaker. And the rest is literal history. The
ultimate irony is that that forced name change
is what actually solidified his brand forever.
He became Gabby. It fit him even better than
Wendy ever did. And it was virtually the exact
same character. This transition at Republic is
what launched him from being a working character
actor to a true icon. So now he is Gabby. He's
at Republic Pictures. And this brings us to act
four, where he really becomes the undisputed
king of sidekicks. I was looking at the career
numbers here before we started and they are staggering.
They really are. We are talking about 174 Westerns.
174. That is a lifetime of riding horses you
barely know how to ride. And it wasn't just the
sheer volume of films. It was his popularity.
There were polls taken of moviegoers back then.
The Motion Picture Herald and Box Office Magazine
polls. These publications track the top 10 money
-making Western stars every year. And usually
that list is just the handsome heroes, right?
The guys on the movie posters holding the guns.
Usually, yes. But Gabby Hayes was on that top
10 list for 12 consecutive years. Wow. 12 years
as a sidekick. And get this. He made the list
a 13th time in 1954. Wait, 1954? Hadn't he stopped
making movies by then? He hadn't made a single
film in four years. That is how incredibly powerful
his brand was. He was often as popular or even
more popular than the actual leading men he was
supposed to be supporting. That's incredible.
It's like people were going to the theater to
see the movie for the sidekick and the hero was
just there to push the plot forward and shoot
the bad guys. In many cases, yes, that's exactly
what was happening. The hero was the fantasy,
the stoic ideal of manhood. But Gabby was the
fun. Gabby was the humanity and the humor. Let's
talk about those heroes he worked with. It's
basically a who's who of Hollywood Westerns.
It is. The biggest partnership was obviously
with Roy Rogers. They worked together over 40
times. Films like Southward Ho and Old Caliente.
They had this amazing natural chemistry. Roy
was the singing cowboy, clean cut, very wholesome.
Gabby was the grumpy uncle figure who kept him
grounded. And he worked with John Wayne too,
right? 15 times with the Duke. And those are
really interesting because they show Hayes' range
before he got fully locked into the Gabby persona.
For example, in a movie called Randy Rides Alone
in 1934, Hayes actually plays the villain. A
villain. A character named Matt the Mute. You
won't believe this. He has a shaved face. A clean
-shaven, villainous Gabby Hayes. That sounds
kind of terrifying. It's very unsettling if you're
used to the Yerdurn Tootin version of him. He
plays a mute killer who communicates only by
writing on a slate board. It's genuinely creepy.
It really proves he was a real, classically trained
actor, not just a clown repeating catchphrases.
That is a deep cut. I definitely need to find
that movie. He also played the traditional sidekick
to Wayne in Blue Steel. And there's one really
unique film, Dark Command, from 1940. It's directed
by Raoul Walsh. It stars John Wayne, Gabby Hayes,
and Roy Rogers in a supporting role. All three
of them in one movie. That's like the Avengers
of Westerns. It really was a huge crossover event
for that era. He also worked with Randolph Scott
in six films, Wild Bill Elliott in 14 films,
Gene Autry in seven films. He was basically the
universal donor of screen chemistry. You could
put him in a scene with anyone, and he made them
look better. That's a really great way to put
it. He made the hero look more heroic by being
so unheroic. himself exactly he provided the
necessary contrast if the hero is tall strong,
and silent? The sidekick needs to be short, scruffy,
and loud. It accentuates the hero's virtues perfectly.
So we get to the late 1940s, Act V. The Western
genre in movie theaters starts to cool off a
little bit, or at least the business model is
changing. It is. The B -Westerns were definitely
declining. The studio system was shifting toward
bigger budgets and television. Hayes made his
last film, The Caribou Trail, in 1950. He was
getting older. The industry was changing rapidly.
But remember, this is a man who completely reinvented
himself after the 1929 crash. He knows how to
pivot better than anyone. And the new frontier
isn't the Wild West anymore. It's the living
room. Television. He starts the Gabby Hayes show.
Right. Running from 1950 to 1954 on NBC and then
a slightly different version on ABC in 1956.
What was the actual format of the show? Was it
him riding horses around? No. It was brilliant
in its simplicity and cost effectiveness. It
was basically an anthology series. They would
show old western clicks or slightly recut stories.
But the wraparound segments feature Hayes. He
would introduce the show, often just sitting
there whittling on a piece of wood, looking straight
into the camera and telling tall tales to the
audience. He's just being pure Gabby. He is bringing
the persona directly into your house. He became
a sort of surrogate grandfather figure to the
entire baby boomer generation. And this is where
the real marketing genius kicks in. The show
was sponsored heavily by Quaker Oats. The oatmeal
people. The oatmeal people. And they had this
specific slogan for their puffed wheat and puff
rice cereals, shot from guns. I remember hearing
about that slogan. It sounds really violent for
a breakfast cereal. It does sound a bit dramatic
today. So Gabby Hayes, ever the consummate showman,
would incorporate this directly into the live
action segments. Yeah. He would look at the camera
and tell the little kids watching at home to
stand back from the screen. Stand back. Why?
Because he would then fire a literal cannon loaded
with cereal directly at the camera lens. No way.
Yes. To visualize the shot from guns slogan.
Just imagine being a seven -year -old in 1952.
You were sitting on the rug in your living room.
Gabby Hayes tells you to back up because it's
going to blow and then boom, cereal cannon right
in your face. That is immersive advertising.
Decades before we even had a word for it. It
was incredibly effective. He became the face
of Quaker Oats for a whole generation. If you
ask people of a certain age today, they don't
necessarily associate him with John Wayne. They
associate him with puffed wheat. And it wasn't
just cereal, right? The merchandising machine
was in full swing. Oh, absolutely. Comics were
huge. There were Gabby Hayes Western comics published
by Fawcett Publications from 1948 all the way
to 1957. There was also... Gabby Hayes Adventure
Comics by Toby Press. Quaker Oats even gave away
mini comics right inside the cereal boxes. And
I saw something in the notes about a summer camp.
Yes. He lent his name and likeness to a children's
camp in New York. The Gabby Hayes brand was literally
everywhere. He wasn't just a character actor
anymore. He was a whole industry. It's fascinating
because he essentially took this character who
was structurally supposed to be a marginal figure,
a sidekick, a fool, and made him the center of
a multimedia empire. He monetized the sidekick
better than most heroes monetize the hero. Which
goes right back to the intelligence of the actual
man. He understood the immense value of the character
he created. He knew that Gabby was a highly profitable
commodity. So let's move to Act 6. The television
show ends, the comics run their course eventually.
What does retirement look like for the man who
already retired once back in 1928? Well, after
the TV series ended, he really did retire from
show business for good. He didn't try to hang
on or do cameos. He had successfully rebuilt
his fortune, he had the money again, and then
some. Did he stay in California? Yes, first he
lived at a beautiful ranch on Toluca Lake, and
later he actually owned a 10 -unit apartment
building. He lived in one of the units and personally
managed the place. Imagine your landlord being
Gabby Hayes. You knock on the door because the
kitchen sink is leaking. The pipes are busted,
consarnus. You're darn tootin' I need that rent
check on the first. But on a more serious note...
his personal life became much, much quieter.
The great tragedy of his later years was the
loss of his wife, Olive. She died in 1957. Yes.
They'd been together since the early vaudeville
days. They were a true team for over 40 years.
They never had any children. She was his partner
in every possible sense of the word. So after
she passed, he was essentially alone in that
apartment building. That's really sad. It paints
a picture of a man who achieved absolutely everything
he set out to do, but lost his partner right
at the finish line. It is heartbreaking. He lived
quietly for another 12 years. In early 1969,
he entered St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank for
cardiovascular disease. And on February 9th,
1969, George Gabby Hayes died at the age of 83.
A long life. A very long and full life. He's
buried at Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery.
But, and this is Act 7, the story definitely
does not end in 1969 because the character he
created, it became immortal. It did. It completely
transcended him. When you create an archetype
that strong, it enters the cultural DNA. It stops
being a singular performance and starts being
a recognized category of human. And the biggest,
most obvious example of that has to be Mel Brooks.
Blazing Saddles. 1974. You cannot talk about
Western parodies without talking about Blazing
Saddles. And there is a character in that movie
that is a direct, loving homage to Hayes. Gabby
Johnson. Gabby Johnson, played perfectly by Jack
Sparrow. It's a brilliant piece of satire. The
central joke in the movie is that his speech
is so frontier, so authentic to the Old West,
that it is completely unintelligible to everyone
else. Authentic frontier gibberish. Exactly.
Mel Brooks is taking Gabby Hayes' verbal tics,
the concern it's growling, and the endless growling
and pushing them to their logical, absurd conclusion.
But the key to that joke is this. It only works
because everyone in the theater audience knew
exactly who they were making fun of. You didn't
need to explain the reference. Everyone knew
Gabby. And then fast forward to 1999, Toy Story
2. This is my absolute favorite connection. And
I think this is actually the most profound one
we've talked about. Because it's so incredibly
meta. It is. You have the character Sneaky Pete
the Prospector. Voiced by Kelsey Grammer. Right.
And just think about the casting there for a
second. Kelsey Grammer, Frasier Crane, a voice
of ultimate sophistication, high culture, and
eloquence. Playing a chubby bearded prospector
toy trapped in a cardboard box. And the joke
in the movie is that the toy, Stinky Pete, is
actually incredibly intelligent, manipulative,
and remarkably well -spoken. He deeply hates
that he is seen as just the colorful comic relief
on the box. He resents the fancy space toys getting
all the attention from kids. Wait, I never fully
realized that. That is literally the real life
of George Hayes. It is a perfect mirror. The
intelligent, sophisticated man trapped inside
the packaging of a grizzled prospector. Pixar
absolutely nailed that dynamic. Whether they
intended it as a direct biographical commentary
or not, it captures the central paradox of his
life perfectly. Stinky Pete is George Hayes.
That is mind -blowing. The layers of pop culture
there are just so dense. And we should also quickly
mention Johnny Carson. Oh, sure. The Mighty Carson
art players on The Tonight Show. Johnny loved
doing his Gabby Hayes impersonation. He would
do these elaborate sketches with Roy Rogers.
It kept the memory of the character alive for
late night audiences well into the 70s and 80s.
And he has been honored formally by the industry,
right? Two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Front.
One for radio and one for television. Interesting,
not film. Well, his impact on radio and TV was
massive. and perhaps even more distinctive because
of the voice acting. And in 2000, he was officially
inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers.
And we can't forget the fishermen. The Gabby
guys. Please tell me about the Gabby guys. This
is the wholesome content I really need right
now. This is true. Pure fandom. Since 1969, the
exact year he died, a group of fishermen has
traveled to Kettle Creek, Pennsylvania, every
single year for the Gabby Hayes Memorial Trout
Fishing Tournament. No way. That's still happening.
Yes. They actually celebrated their 50th anniversary
in 2019. It's a testament to how universally
lovable this guy was. He wasn't just a movie
star on a screen. He was a buddy. People wanted
to hang out with Gabby. And they still do. That
is amazing. It shows that he wasn't just a character.
He was a feeling. A feeling of comfort and nostalgia.
There was also Gabby Hayes days in Wellsville,
New York for a while in the 80s. They even have
a Gabby Hayes lane there today. He is forever
the local hero. So we've covered the runaway
teen, the vaudeville star, the crash victim,
the movie icon, the TV pioneer and the pop culture
legend. It's quite a journey for a guy who just
wanted to trim his hedges on Long Island. in
1928. As we wrap this up, what is the big takeaway
for you? When you look at the entirety of the
life of George Hayes, what really stands out?
For me, it's the idea of the business of being
a character. George Hayes proved that you don't
have to be the leading man to win the game. He
realized that the codger was an incredibly valuable
product. He refined it, he protected it, like
when he changed the name to Gabby to keep working,
and he sold it across every available medium.
He turned a stereotype into an empire. He outlasted
and out -earned many of the pretty boy heroes
who came and went. That's a great point. We so
often think of typecasting as a trap. Actors
complain about it all the time. You hear, oh,
I'm always playing the villain or I'm always
the sidekick. Right. But Hayes embraced the trap.
He decorated the trap. He made the trap comfortable
and highly profitable. He understood that familiarity
is what audiences actually crave. Yeah. They
wanted to see him. They honestly didn't care
about the plot. They just waited for Gabby to
lose his temper on screen. My takeaway is the
resilience of the man. To lose absolutely everything
at 44 and age, where let's be honest, you feel
like you should have it all figured out, and
to completely reinvent yourself in a brand new
industry, learning new physical skills like riding
a horse. That takes a very special kind of grit.
The character was fake, but the grit was real.
Absolutely. It was an act, but the survival instinct
underneath it was entirely genuine. Huh. So here
is a final thought for you to chew on as we close
out. We talked about Stinky Pete in Toy Story
2, the genius trapped in the box of a fool. Think
about the people you see in media today, the
loud personalities, the eccentric sidekicks,
the people who seem to be one -dimensional caricatures
on TikTok or reality TV. Modern types. Exactly.
How many of them are actually the smartest business
minds in the room? How many of them are George
Hayes firing cereal out of a cannon, knowing
exactly what they're doing to build an empire?
Well, we just sit back and laugh at the funny
voice. It really makes you wonder who is actually
running the show. It certainly does. Thank you
for joining us on this deep dive into the wild,
weird and incredibly smart world of Gabby Hayes.
We will see you next time. Dead gummit. See you
later. Concern it. Goodbye.