Lester Alvin (Smiley) Burnette (
March 18,
1911 –
February 16,
1967), an
American singer-songwriter who could play as many as 100 different musical instruments, was a successful comedy actor in
Western films over three decades.
Burnette was born in Summum, Illinois. He began singing in childhood and learned to play a variety of instruments while still a boy. In his teens, he worked in
vaudeville and at a local radio station. His break came when he was hired to perform on the
National Barn Dance on Chicago's
WLS radio station where
Gene Autry was the show's major star.
At a time when Hollywood was searching for talent for Western films, Burnette and Autry got their first small role in the 1934
Ken Maynard Republic Pictures film,
In Old Santa Fe. Burnette appeared in several bit parts until the following year's release of the
Rin Tin Tin hit film,
The Adventures of Rex and Rinty in which he had a secondary but more prominent role. By then, Autry was already being cast in a lead role and the rotund Burnette would team up with him as a lovable comedy
sidekick named
Frog Millhouse (or plain Frog and sometimes as Smiley). Their association would produce more than 60 feature-length musical Westerns.
The popularity of Burnette's Frog Millhouse character, with his trademark floppy black hat, was such that when Autry left for World War II service he did sidekicks duties with Eddie Dew, Sunset Carson and Bob Livingston, plus nine other films with
Roy Rogers. After leaving Republic Pictures in 1944, Burnette became the sidekick to
Charles Starrett at
Columbia Pictures in the long
Durango Kid series. Starrett starred in the series from 1944 until 1952, and that pairing resulted in more than 50 films. After the Starrett series was over, Burnette joined Autry for his final six films, all released by Columbia Pictures in 1953.
Burnette wrote over 400 songs and sang a significant number of them on screen. His compositions have been recorded by numerous popular singers, including such diverse ones as
Bing Crosby and
Ferlin Husky.
Radio and television
He made guest appearances on
country music shows such as the
Louisiana Hayride, the
Grand Ole Opry and the
Ozark Jubilee, and also produced his own 15- minute radio program,
The Smiley Burnette Show, in the 1940s through RadiOzark Enterprises, Inc. In the late 1950s he hosted a 15-minute radio show on KWTO-AM (Keep Watching the Ozarks) in
Springfield, Missouri.
When the cowboy movie genre waned, Burnette was able to retire, but he continued to entertain at
rodeo events for children. In the mid-1960s he made several TV appearances on
Petticoat Junction (106 episodes) and
Green Acres (7 episodes) as
railway engineer Charley Pratt. His ailing health caused him to leave his role as Pratt before both shows ended.
In the early 60's, Smiley was a guest of Dewey Brown and the Oklahoma Playboys at their Friday Night Dance at Jump's Roller Rink in Fairfax, Oklahoma. After the dance, I drove Smiley back to his hotel in Tulsa in my tiny Triumph Standard 10 automobile. He sat in the back and every time he moved, the car would swerve. He was a nervous passenger, so we kept it below 40 mph. It took us most of the night to get to Tulsa. Now, I play piano with the JJ Cale Band and we often start or end the show with "Mama Don't (A)llow" (no guitar playin' 'round here), a song written by Smiley. -Rocky Frisco
Death
At age 55, Burnette died in
Encino, California, from
leukemia and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park at Hollywood Hills in
Los Angeles, California.
Legacy
In 1971, he was inducted posthumously into the
Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Smiley Burnette has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6125 Hollywood Boulevard.
Burnette is mentioned in the Statler Brothers' 1973 top-20 country music hit, "Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?" (which later became the title of a 1994 Scott biography).
["Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?" lyrics]
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