opposite markings. Rogers approved, and Evans gave Soda a try. Quick and athletic, he was challenging to ride, but the “Queen of the West” was up to the task. She purchased Soda from Glenn Randall, who retrained him for the movies.
Soda needed a more theatrical name. On location in Lone Pine, California, the site of hundreds of Westerns, Evans and wrangler Buddy Sherwood were admiring the sunset. Sherwood remarked that the mottled milky clouds looked like “clabber.” Evans reportedly replied, “You mean buttermilk?” Thus she was inspired to rename the buckskin Buttermilk Sky.
Buttermilk Sky became known simply as Buttermilk, and Evans rode him in the remainder of Rogers’s films and the television series. He was not only smart and fast but also exceptionally quick off the mark. As soon as he heard “Action!” Buttermilk would spring forward, and Evans had to rein him back to let Trigger get ahead in films.
Buttermilk had a long, successful career supporting the superstar Trigger. Buttermilk also stands mounted at the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum, alongside Trigger, Trigger Jr., and Roy and Dale’s German Shepherd, Bullet. Originally in Apple Valley, California, the museum is now in Branson, Missouri.
The Queen of the West, Dale Evans, and Buttermilk Sky display the charm that made them a perfect complement to Roy and Trigger.
Trainer Glenn Randall in a rare portrait aboard Soda before he became Buttermilk Sky.
The Second String
The immense success of Gene Autry and Champion and Roy Rogers and Trigger pushed many more singers into the saddle. Some of these “singing cowboys” were good horsemen but couldn’t sing—like John Wayne, whose voice was dubbed in his brief career as Singin’ Sandy Sanders. Others were decent crooners, but their cowboy personas were strictly Hollywood fantasy.
Popular star Eddie Dean could sing all right but he did not have a particular equine partner. Even though his various mounts were virtual unknowns, the studio still gave them cobilling: the mere fact that they were horses helped sell Dean’s films.
Broadway star Tex Ritter was tapped for the movies by Grand National Pictures in 1936 and quickly brushed up his horsemanship for his new career as a singing cowboy. Following the formula, Ritter was paired with White Flash, a studio invention played by different rental horses. It wasn’t until 1941 that Ritter purchased a permanent White Flash. Like his role models, the white horse with brown eyes went into training with Glenn Randall. Consequently, scenes were written for White Flash that enabled him to show off his tricks.
Crooner Monte Hale made a number of films for Republic during the 1940s. His equine partner was, appropriately, named Pardner. Despite an appealing singing voice and an affable persona as a gentleman cowboy, Hale never hit the big time. He maintained a sense of humor, however, and well into his eighties in 2005 when he received a star on Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame, was still passing out stickers commemorating the most ridiculous line of dialogue he ever had to utter, “Shoot low! They may be crawlin’.”
Herb Jeffries and Stardusk
One of the most unusual singing cowboys was jazz musician Herb Jeffries. Born in 1911 in Detroit, Jeffries inherited his light brown skin from his father’s Ethiopian ancestors. He learned to horseback ride on his grandfather’s farm and enjoyed watching Tom Mix and Buck Jones Westerns.
Jeffries began singing professionally as a teenager and toured with some of biggest names in jazz. While traveling through the South in 1934, Jeffries noticed that blacks-only movie theaters played all-white Westerns. Unfortunately, the trend started by the Norman Company and rodeo star Bill Pickett in the 1920s had not resulted in more Westerns about African-American cowboys.
One afternoon, in an alley behind a jazz club, Jeffries spotted some children playing cowboys and Indians. He noticed a little boy crying because his friends wouldn’t let him play. The child told Jeffries that he wanted to be Tom Mix, but his friends wouldn’t let him “because Tom Mix isn’t black.” Deeply touched, Jeffries determined that black children ought to have a cowboy hero who looked like them. He approached independent producer Judd Buell with an idea for a musical Western with a black hero. Buell agreed to finance such a film.
The challenge was finding a black actor who could sing and ride a horse. Jeffries wound up with the lead role by default. Because his skin was light brown, he applied dark makeup so black audiences would better relate to him. With the release of Harlem on the Prairie (1936), Jeffries—billed as Herbert Jeffrey—became the first black singing cowboy hero in a feature film. Of course, the hero had a four-legged friend. Jeffries chose a white horse named Stardusk. A hit with the kids, this pair made movie history.
Part Arabian, Stardusk had been bred on a ranch in Santa Ynez, California. When preparing for their first film together, Jeffries and Stardusk spent two weeks getting acquainted. By that time, Jeffries said, “We were pretty much in love with each other.”
After shooting wrapped on Harlem on the Prairie, Stardusk was returned to his owners in Santa Ynez. Jeffries, who was living in a Los Angeles boarding house, would visit regularly. As soon Jeffries arrived at the ranch, Stardusk would start whinnying for him. When producer Richard C. Kahn approached Jeffries with a deal for three more movies, the star made the purchase of Stardusk a condition of his contract. Together they made Two-Gun Man from Harlem in 1938 and two films in 1939, Harlem Rides the Range and The Bronze Buckaroo. Jeffries later moved to France and gave Stardusk back to his original owners, and the former thespian equine enjoyed the rest of his life in Santa Ynez.
Rex Allen and KoKo
An Arizona rancher’s son named Rex Allen would be the last of the singing cowboys. Like Autry and Rogers, the handsome blond Allen was signed by Republic Pictures after a career in radio. And like his predecessors, Allen knew he needed an extraordinary horse. Glenn Randall, meanwhile, had recently acquired KoKo, a stunning dark sorrel stallion with a flaxen mane and tail, from a female trick rider in Missouri. A Quarter/Morgan cross, KoKo had originally been purchased for Dale Evans but had proved too much horse for her.
The minute he laid eyes on KoKo, Allen fell in love with him. An accomplished rider, Allen found that the horse just needed a firm hand and some fine-tuning to get him ready for the movies. He bought KoKo from Glenn Randall in 1950 for $2,500. Randall continued to work with KoKo and Rex Allen during their short but successful career.
Allen’s first film, The Arizona Cowboy (1950), featured KoKo in an uncredited role, but in their next film, Hills of Oklahoma (1950), KoKo received billing. Dubbed the “Miracle Horse of the Movies,” he costarred with Allen in nineteen films for Republic, including Silver City Bonanza (1951), Rodeo King and the Senorita (1951), and their swan song, The Phantom Stallion (1954).
His unusual coloring destined KoKo to do nearly all of his own stunts. Although doubles were used for galloping long shots, they required considerable work to look anything like the stallion, even from far away. White horses were dyed a rich chocolate with vegetable coloring, with only a blaze, mane, tail, and stockings left white. Consequently, KoKo was worked hard, according to Allen, who once lamented, “I just had to run KoKo to death on nearly every film because we just couldn’t double him that close.”
KoKo only worked in movies for five years, from 1950 through 1954, during and after which time he also went on personal appearances with Allen. KoKo was retired in 1963 after foundering (the
