How Texas Jack Jr. Found Will Rogers
- Matthew Kerns
- 13 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Transcript of an article from the San Antonio Express-News, published on February 22, 1925.
A lonely American cowboy adrift in South America happened to run plump into a typical Wild West show. Through this meeting—a sort of reunion with home folks—he was launched on a career which ended finally in his becoming one of the greatest—perhaps the greatest—wit and comedians of his day.
Few people know that Will Rogers helped the British to win the Boer war, and that, if it hadn't been for this circumstance, he might never have graced the stage. Fate, or luck as Will would put it, has a strange way of arranging many human careers. It went the limit in his case.
To begin with, it was a disruption of his plans that took him to South America. His early career in the cattle country of the American Southwest had led him to want to set up in business for himself in South America. But things went wrong there, the bottom dropped out, and Will, being so far from home, concluded it would not hurt to lengthen the distance for the time being. So he set off to take a shot at South Africa.
Manna From Heaven
A cattle boat furnished the means of transportation, and when he arrived he found plenty of opportunity for work of a sort which he understood better than any other. The Boer war was on. The British government needed men who could break horses for the army. Thus it was that Rogers came to help defeat the Boers.
The day arrived, however, when Will wanted and needed a new job. Here is where good luck intervened and introduced that highly important thing—the turning point—into his career.
"Texas Jack," a globe trotting tent man, had just arrived in South Africa from the United States with his Wild West show, bound on an around-the-world tour. It was like manna from heaven for Rogers to come in contact with this patch cut of his old life.
He sought a job with the outfit and "Texas Jack" gave it to him, little suspecting that in so doing he was paving the way for the creation of a jokesmith who would be the present-day heir to Mark Twain and Bill Nye.
At this period Will was not in the slightest sense an actor. He was merely a general helper about the show, glad to have a job and not dreaming of sharing in the applause and emolument that came to the performers.
But "Texas Jack" soon noticed that his new employee displayed astonishing virtuosity both at riding a Western pony and handling a cowboy's rope.
"Where are you from, boy?" he asked Will. The latter told him about his life in the Southwest.
"Like to do something in the show?" queried his interested boss. "Sure." "Practice up a bit and I'll put you on."
This was the beginning of the Will Rogers whose homely wit delights so many sophisticated audiences today.
Barnstorming Abroad
The "Texas Jack" show presently left South Africa for Australia and points east. In all, Will's globe-circling jaunt lasted two and a half years. It was a period of education for him, and in seeking to entertain all races he learned much that has been of much value to him.
It is 19 years since he returned to the U. S. A. These years have seen him advance from the tent show to vaudeville, from vaudeville to the Follies, and from the Follies to the newspaper columns as a humorous commentator on current, political and social events.
It was in vaudeville that he first began to employ the dry wit which soon began to be a bigger feature of his performance than his tricks with a rope. Will's "line" got him a job with Ziegfeld.
The movies came next. Now he is a National institution.
But all of this might never have happened if he hadn't met up with "Texas Jack" in South Africa.
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