Villain of the Month: George “Gabby” Hayes
You never know just how an actor’s career will turn out. Take George Hayes, a vaudeville veteran who was adept at musical comedy became one of the most beloved of western sidekicks. His film career began in 1929 with Big News. But he quickly moved into B Westerns, most notably as a supporting player in John Wayne’s Lone Star films, where he alternated between playing father figures in The Lucky Texan (1934) and The Man From Utah (1934), and playing villains in Randy Rides Alone (1934) and Star Packer (1935). His only serial was Regal’s The Lost City (1935) playing the owner of a jungle trading post who wants to get in on the villainy of William “Stage” Boyd so that he can steal his scientific secrets and take over Africa. He has a change of heart at the end and comes over to the good guys’ side, shamefacedly admitting he’s “been a terrible rotter.”
The same year was a big turning point for Hayes. Replacing an ill Al St. John in Hopalong Cassidy (1935) he became a series regular as Hoppy’s sidekick appearing in Bar 20 Rides Again (1936), Rustler’s Valley (1937) and Bar 20 Justice (1938), among many others. But then in 1939 Hayes moved from Columbia to Republic Pictures and spent most of the next decade as the scruffy, toothless, irascible Gabby. Teamed with Roy Rogers, who was being promoted as an in house rival to Republic’s reigning Singing Cowboy Gene Autry, Rogers and Hayes pumped out innumerable hit films like The Arizona Kid (1939), The Ranger and the Lady (1940), and Red River Valley (1941). The series hit it’s stride in the early forties with the addition of feisty Easterner Dale Evans who would continue with the series well into the fifties, though Hayes himself left the series in 1947 after Home in Oklahoma.
He would continue in the western genre, appearing in films with Randolph Scott, Return of the Bad Men (1948) and The Caribou Trail (1950), and camp legend Sonny Tufts, The Untamed Breed (1948). But with the advent of television Hayes became a popular children’s host with the Saturday morning program The Gabby Hayes Show (1950-1954, 1956) where Hayes would introduce and close out serial chapters or edited western films. After the show went off the air Hayes was a popular guest on shows like What’s My Line and Dinah Shore, he eventually retired from acting and spent his Golden Years on his Nevada ranch.
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