As a kid, Suzanne Gould rode around Tulsa’s Maple Ridge neighborhood on her bicycle.
In her mind, that bike was a horse, and she was Rowdy Yates.
Yates was Clint Eastwood’s character in “Rawhide,” a Western cattle drive-based TV series that began in 1959 and continued through 1965.
“I was a huge fan of ‘Rawhide’ when I was a kid,” Gould said. “I’d race home from Lee Elementary School in time to watch reruns, and was madly in love with Rowdy Yates.”
Oklahoma native Sheb Wooley, who played Pete Nolan in “Rawhide,” was just some other cast member she barely noticed.
Decades later, Gould is Wooley’s biographer.
The former Tulsan is the author of “An American Cowboy: The Biography of Sheb Wooley,” which documents Wooley’s odyssey from impoverished Oklahoma farm boy to songwriter, music artist and actor. Wooley’s most famous song is the 1958 novelty smash “The Purple People Eater” and his motion picture work included “High Noon,” “Giant,” “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” “Hoosiers” and “Distant Drums,” a 1951 film where he is credited with originating the Wilhelm Scream, a sound effect used in countless movies, including chapters of the “Star Wars” franchise.
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Fans of Wooley should be glad Gould wrote a comprehensive look at his life and career. Why did she write it? “Rawhide” put her on the trail. In addition to digging Eastwood’s character, she loved the action and values demonstrated on the show.
“As an adult, I’m a big biography reader and wanted to challenge myself to write one,” said Gould, who previously wrote a Old West-based novel, “Plainesville.”
“Around 2014 I wanted to read biographies of the main ‘Rawhide’ actors. Of course, I had read a couple of Clint Eastwood bios. At that time, there was virtually nothing known about Eric Fleming that could be verified, as he left almost no family, wife or children, and understandably no biography of him had been written. I didn’t consider writing his, as it seemed too daunting a task and I didn’t know that I could fill more than a few pages on his life.”
Wooley’s story, however, was ripe for the telling.
“A few years before, I had seen him in ‘High Noon,’ and my jaw dropped in amazement at his performance,” Gould said. “I couldn’t believe that was Pete Nolan! So, I had become interested in him as an actor. I looked for a biography of him and learned there was none. I immediately decided his would be the biography that I’d write.”
Gould began research and connected with Wooley’s daughter, Chrystie, who provided the foreword. Gould learned Wooley’s life had many elements of drama, including a childhood of deprivation and abuse, the struggles of growing up in Dust Bowl-era Oklahoma (minus running water and electricity) and, all the while, clinging to a dream of becoming a country band leader and singing cowboy actor. Wooley’s father, Bill, expected all four of his sons to quit school after the eighth grade and work full time on the family farm. The “rebels” among them, Sheb and Bill Jr., were the only sons to graduate from high school.
“Then there was his decades-long struggle with alcoholism, which he finally overcame, and the surprising element of the lives he saved — at least seven that I came to know about,” Gould said.
“His career brought him in contact and led to friendship with many big stars in Nashville and Hollywood. So there turned out to be quite a lot to tell, and I felt his story was both entertaining and important as an inspiration and motivation to others. With the mixture of drama, history and show business, I knew I could present a compelling and entertaining portrait of his life.”
Here are a dozen selected nuggets from the biography:
Wooley’s mother, Ora, was 13 when Bill Wooley approached her dad and asked for her hand in marriage. She became a mom at 16 and gave birth to four other children, all raised near Erick in southwestern Oklahoma. When a home she loved burned down, a chicken house on the property was expanded and the family moved into the chicken house. A lean-to was built so the males would have somewhere to sleep.
Wooley’s brothers served in World War II. Wooley registered for duty two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but, to his disappointment, was rated 4F due to injuries from his rodeo days. One of his brothers, Logan, did not return. He was inside a medic tent having an injury treated when the tent took a direct hit from a bomb. He died at age 26. A Purple Heart recipient, Logan is buried at Fort Gibson National Cemetery.
Wooley drove to Hollywood with his first wife (a high school sweetheart) in 1949 to pursue acting. He took lessons alongside Eastwood and Mary Tyler Moore. Wooley was acting in plays almost immediately and was offered a screen test and contract by Warner Bros. Wooley’s six-decade film career began with the 1950 Western “Rocky Mountain,” and he became Errol Flynn’s drinking buddy.
Wooley was in the 1956 Academy Award-nominated film “Giant,” but he lost the role he wanted because it had been promised to James Dean, who died in a car crash before the film was released. Wooley accompanied Dean for a ride in Dean’s Porsche Spyder on the Warner Bros. lot in September of 1955. Dean’s fatal accident came a few hours later.
MGM initially did not want to release “The Purple People Eater.” After relenting, the novelty song became the first single to reach No. 1 after just two weeks on the chart. The Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love” did the same thing six years later. Citing a story in the San Francisco Examiner, the book said Wooley had earned more than $50 million with “The Purple People Eater” by 1988. “It put a lot of taters on my table,” he said.
Wooley was supposed to be in “Rio Bravo” with John Wayne, Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson but wound up on the cutting room floor. Wooley shared a movie screen with Wayne the following decade in “The War Wagon.”
Here’s a factoid for lovers of “Six Million Dollar Man” lore: Wooley’s home in Ojai, California, was used for exterior shots of the home of bionic woman Jaime Sommers’ parents.
Anyone remember this? In 1962, Wooley returned to his home state and did a “telerama” for the March of Dimes in Tulsa. He was joined by Bob Denver (then Maynard G. Krebs on “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis” and Abby Dalton (the female lead in the sitcom “Hennesey”).
Wooley’s only No. 1 country hit, 1962’s “That’s My Pa,” really was about his pa. The song painted a picture of his father returning home on Saturday nights after partying in Erick. Said the book, “For anyone who knew Bill, it was a brutally accurate description.”
Wooley created an alias — Ben Colder — for his many novelty songs and albums. Colder’s “Fifteen Beers Ago” in 1971 (a parody of Conway Twitty’s “Fifteen Years Ago”) was Wooley’s last song to chart. Also from the comedy aspect of Wooley’s life: He wrote the theme song for the television series “Hee Haw” and was part of the cast during the debut season.
Mod isn’t a word you might use to describe Wooley, who built a career in the Western genre, but he made a rare guest appearance in a TV series when he showed up in a 1969 episode of “The Mod Squad.” He played an alcoholic-has been country singer, Wild Bill Hannachek.
Wooley became motivated to kick alcoholism and get sober after disappointing his young daughter. Details? Check out the book.