Why is tex ritter famous

Throughout this period he was recording regularly for Decca, without too much success. When his filming career declined, he turned to touring and concentrated on his recording career, alongside his two regular radio series. Featured in the Walt Disney movie Melody Time, it provided him with a top twenty hit the following year.

Though High Noon, proved to be a massive pop hit in , and reputedly sold a million copies, it failed to make an impact on the country charts. Woodward, lived in the San Angelo, Texas area. One day, he was called to help in the birth of a male child. The family, not knowing what gender was expected, had not chosen a name, so in honor of the good doctor's service, they named him Woodward Ritter. Later, he would be known more widely as "Tex" Ritter.

McFarland, His horse in his earlier movies was called White Flash. Woodward Maurice "Tex" Ritter came from a long line of Texas horsemen. Benjamin saw action in the saddle in Texas and Louisiana. After meeting members of a touring operetta company in Austin, he joined them, finally arriving with the company in a Depression-gripped New York. He possibly sang on Broadway In The New Moon in September , although some accounts place his arrival in the city a year later.

Without financial backing, he soon found himself unable to continue with the course and left to join a touring production of The New Moon in After a test run in Boston, the company opened on Broadway on 26 January , with Tex not only singing four songs as Elam but also understudying leading actor Franchot Tone.

The play was very successful it was later converted into the musical Oklahoma! In the early 30s, Ritter also worked on various radio programmes. In , Grand National Pictures decided that they, like other companies, should make some singing cowboy westerns.

Unfortunately they had no singing cowboy under contract, but Edward Finney, a producer working with the company, promised he would find one. Ritter was drawn to his attention and Finney signed him to a personal contract, thus becoming his producer-agent. The challenge of Hollywood was too good to refuse; Ritter found himself a horse, White Flash, and although more than competent with the singing aspect of his new career, he was coached by one-time outlaw Al Jennings on how to look equally convincing with a gun and his fists.

When his contract with Finney expired, Ritter decided to look after his own affairs and signed with Columbia Pictures. Financially, things improved, and in , he co-starred with Bill Elliott in eight more films. He and White Flash moved to Universal, where he starred in seven films with Johnny Mack Brown and once again suffered by the double billing.

In , Brown moved on, leaving Ritter to star alone in his next three films, the last being Oklahoma Raiders. In , he joined PRC Producers Releasing Corporation , where he made a series of eight films that were later described as being little better than the low-budget Grand National series. He was greatly influenced by the folk music knowledge of, and cowboy folksongs collected by UT professors J. Frank Dobie, Oscar J. Fox, and John A.

In , he toured with a band throughout the South and Midwest. The following year, he joined the New York Theater Guild and appeared in Green Grow the Lilacs the play that later served as the basis for the musical Oklahoma.