Will Rogers Will Rogers William Penn Adair Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) was an American stage and motion picture actor, vaudeville performer, American cowboy, humorist, newspaper columnist, and social commentator from Oklahoma. He was a Cherokee citizen born in the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory. Known as "Oklahoma's Favorite Son", Rogers was born to a Cherokee family in Indian Territory (now part of Oklahoma). As an entertainer and humorist, he traveled around the world three times, made 71 films (50 silent films and 21 "talkies"), and wrote more than 4,000 nationally syndicated newspaper columns. By the mid-1930s Rogers was hugely
Will Rogers cameos in both the 1936 film "The Great Ziegfeld", and the 1937 film "You're a Sweetheart". Rogers was portrayed by his son, Will Rogers, Jr., in a cameo in the 1949 film "Look for the Silver Lining", and as the star of the 1952 film "The Story of Will Rogers". James Whitmore portrayed Rogers in eight runs of the one-man play "Will Rogers' USA" between 1970 and 2000, including a limited run on Broadway in 1974, and as a television film in 1972. Whitmore changed the monologue each time he performed it, using quotations from Rogers as commentary on events