Rex Allen

Cremated, his ashes were scattered near the Rex Allen Museum in Wilcox, Arizona where most of his memorabilia is on display. As an adult, he has had a successful career as a radio announcer and co-host of The Other Half, a daytime talk show positioned as a complementry show to The View. Rex Allen died in 1999 in Tucson, Arizona from injuries received when his caretaker accidentally ran over him in the driveway of his home. They have two children together. In 1989 his life story was told in the book Rex Allen: "My Life" Sunrise to Sunset - The Arizona Cowboy written by Paula Simpson-Witt and Snuff Garrett. They married that same day (Bonaduce claims he only married her so he could sleep with her). For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Rex Allen was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6821 Hollywood Blvd. In 1990, he met his wife, Gretchen, on a blind date.

Allen was gifted with a rich, pleasant voice, ideally suited for narration and was able to find considerable work as a narrator in a variety of films especially for Walt Disney Pictures wildlife films and TV shows. He was married to Setsuko Hattori until 1988 when they divorced. As other cowboy stars made the transition to television, Allen tried too, cast as Dr. Bill Baxter for a half-hour weekly series called Frontier Doctor. He was a good match for Dave Madden who played the Partridge Family manager. He has the distinction of making the last singing western in 1954. Danny Bonaduce played the role of wisecracking Danny Partridge in the 1970s series. Late in coming to the industry, his film career was relatively short as the popularity of westerns faded by the mid 1950s. He originally gained recognition by starring in the television series The Partridge Family from 1970 to 1974.

Over his career, Rex Allen wrote and recorded many songs, a number of which were featured in his own films. Danny Bonaduce (born August 13, 1959) is an actor and disk jockey. Allen's comic relief sidekick in first few pictures was Buddy Ebsen and then character actor, Slim Pickens. One of the top-ten box office draws of the day, whose character was soon depicted in comic books, on screen Allen personified the clean cut, God-fearing American hero of the wild west who wore a white Stetson, loved his faithful horse named "Koko" and had a loyal buddy who shared his adventures. Beginning in 1950, Allen starred as himself in nineteen of Hollywood's western movies.

When singing cowboys such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry were very much in vogue in American film, in 1949 Republic Pictures in Hollywood gave him a screen test and put him under contract. " In 1948 he signed with Mercury Records where he recorded a number of successful country music albums until 1952 when he switched to the Decca label where he would continue making records into the 1970s. He got his start in show business on the East Coast as a vaudeville singer then found work in Chicago as a performer on the WLS Radio program, "National Barn Dance. Born Rex Elvie Allen on a ranch in Mud Springs Canyon, forty miles from Wilcox, Arizona, Rex Allen would grow up to become a popular entertainer known as the "The Arizona Cowboy." As a boy he played guitar and sang at local functions with his fiddle-playing father until high school graduation when he toured the southwest as a rodeo rider.

Rex Allen, born December 31, 1920 - died December 17, 1999, was an American actor, singer, and songwriter.