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Sheb
Wooley was born in Erick, Oklahoma, on April 10, 2004 and
became an American character actor of Westerns. He also was
successful in country-western music. Raised in Oklahoma where
he spent his youth as a cowhand, Sheb’s musical ability led to
radio work and subsequently movies. He played minor supporting
roles for a dozen years starting in 1950, including one of the
villains of “High Noon.” In 1958, he had a giant hit record
with his own song “The Purple People Eater,” and he followed
it with a string of similar humorous country ditties, often
recorded under the name Ben Colder. For a number of years he
was best known as scout Pete Nolan on the hit TV series
“Rawhide” (1959). He worked infrequently as an actor after the
Sixties, concentrating mostly on the music business.
Sheb
Wooley was an avid rider from an early age and was competing
in local rodeos before he was ten years old. By the time he
was a teenager Sheb was one of the best young riders on the
circuit. Music was also one of his interests, and Sheb got his
first guitar when his father swapped a shotgun for the
instrument. The family was poor, and living was very tough
during the 1930s; more than once their crops were virtually
blown away by the dry dust bowl winds.
In
1945, he made his first records for the Bullet label in
Nashville, and began appearing as a singer/guitarist on WLAC;
the job paid nothing, but allowed him to get paid work
elsewhere. His Bullet sides were cut at WSM, home of the Grand
Ole Opry, but they saw almost no play or exposure of any kind.
In
the late ‘40s Sheb decided to take acting lessons in the hope
of getting some work on the screen. He succeeded more than he
could have hoped in this capacity, appearing in small parts in
40 feature films, beginning with “Rocky Mountain,” Errol
Flynn’s final Western, in 1949. His most notable screen came
two years later in the classic “High Noon” (1952), in which he
played Ben Miller, the leader of the outlaw gang gunning for
town marshal Gary Cooper. He also played an important
supporting role in the historical drama “Little Big Horn”
(1951), starring Lloyd Bridges and John Ireland, and was seen
in “The Man Without a Star” (1955), “Giant” (1956), and “Rio
Bravo” (1959), starring John Wayne.
In 1958, Sheb was cast in the role of Pete
Nolan in the television Western “Rawhide,” starring Eric
Fleming and Clint Eastwood, which premiered in January of
1959. He later wrote some scripts for the series as well, and
in 1959, in order to fulfill public demand for a recording of
the series’ title song, he recorded his own version of the
Rawhide theme song and an entire album of Western songs, which
failed to chart.
Along the way, Sheb create the drunken
character, Ben Colder, to record the song “Don’t Go Near The
Eskimos,” which was a joke parody to Rex Allen’s hit “Don’t Go
Near The Indians.” Sheb’s song did not catch on but the
character, Ben Colder did, and he had to share the spotlight
with his creation for the rest of his career. In 1969, when
the country music showcase “Hee Haw” went on the air, Sheb
became the show’s resident songwriter, providing the series’
comic musical numbers.
In
1998, Sheb was diagnosed with leukemia and spent the next few
years in and out of hospitals battling the condition. On
September 16, 2003 Sheb Wooley passed away at the age of 82.
The previous year, Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson honored
Sheb, referring to the singer/songwriter/actor as an “American
treasure.”
Sources:
MSN Entertainment
Sheb Wooley’s Website
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