Biography of Rufe Davis By James W. Davidson   Years ago, say you were strolling down Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, or the main street in your home town, and you heard the sound of a steamboat whistle, a foghorn or a train right behind you. You needn't have had to scream or run.....you would have just looked around for a mild looking man with innocent blue eyes and a cherubic face with a slightly mischievous grin. It might have been Rufe Davis, former entertainer, movie star and member of the cast of "Petticoat Junction", the Filmways TV series that aired weekly on the CBS Television Network. Rufe, who portrayed the conductor-fireman-brakeman of the Hooterville Cannonball and partner-in-blunders with engineer Charley Pratt (played by old friend Smiley Burnette), was an accomplished imitator of more than 200 sounds, all realistic enough to cause considerable confusion among innocent bystanders. In addition, his friends habitually egged Rufe on to give his penetrating quacking of a duck just to see heads pop out of windows in buildings, buses and cars....or the shrill police whistle which is so realistic that it once caused some boys stealing something belonging to Rufe to drop their loot and run like mad. Rufe Davis, who sang and played musical instruments, actually owed his career to the mischievous "funning" he and his brother Matthew engaged in when Rufe was a three year old on his father's farm near Vinson, OK. The older brother, nicknamed M.A., took little Rufe along on expeditions to tease their four older sisters. When their sisters were coming home from school the boys would hide in the tall grass and Matthew would jump out at the girls while Rufe would squeal like a cat. This maneuver resulted in such screeching on the part of the young ladies that the boys decided to make their talents pay when their sisters entertained their boy friends in the family parlor one evening a week. Matthew would scratch on the window and Rufe would utter his eerie yowl until the four young callers, desperate, would hurry outside and each bribe the brothers with a nickel to desist. This automatically guaranteed the little imps twenty cents per week. "My first salary", admits Rufe modestly. Rufe was actually born Rufus Eldon Davidson on December 2, 1908 near Vinson, Harmon County, Oklahoma. He was child number 8. When Rufus was 10 years old his mother Didama died in fire in the storm cellar on the farm. By that time there were 12 children and they needed a mother so his Dad, William Monroe Davidson, married their housekeeper Tiny McCain and one more half-sister was born bringing the family on the dirt poor farm to 13 children. Who knew that Rufus was destined to be the one child out of the 13 that would later become quite a unique celebrity in show business. Rufe was Oklahoma tough....he was a fullback on the Mangum High School varsity football team. He scored many a touchdown by putting his head down and plowing ahead. He later said that was why his nose was the way it was....because he would just plow ahead until he fell forward on his nose. As it turned out, with work on the farm taking precedence, he never graduated high school. He left home at the age of 19 in 1927 with a couple of dollars in his pocket from his dad and finally in 1928, he gravitated into show business doing singing, yodeling and imitating. He also bought an old guitar and taught himself to play well enough to accompany himself. His first professional entertainment job was a two week hitch with the Dubinsky Brothers Stock Company tent show starting in Pitcher, Oklahoma and winding up in Springfield, Missouri. He had planned to become a bearded whistler, but he was too young and his beard refused to grow. To earn $15 a week he had to learn a new song to sing each week which he did by visiting record shops and playing a record until he learned it. In 1928 the famed Weaver Brothers and Elviry were touring with their Home Folks show. In September they saw Rufe in Springfield and asked him if he would like to join the tour in February of 1929. When they told the boy from the farm about the interesting places he would be playing with them, including the "Palace", he accepted eagerly. To him the word "Palace" meant only one thing......he would perform before a king and queen. "I didn't find out until we got to New York that the 'Palace' was the famous Palace Theater.....with no king and queen in the audience", he said with a reminiscent grin. On the Weaver tour he sang with Lennie Ayleshire, then Charlie Weaver, thenBill Baker. This engagement lasted four years until 1932. He then toured with the Larry Rich band, and in the same year went before his first motion picture camera. This was for a Warner Brothers short subject, "Songs of the Hills." Tom Kennedy, a well known talent booking agent saw Rufe and signed him with the Radio Rubes. He appeared with them for another four years. During this time Rufe clearly was the one with the emerging star talent, so the quartet eventually became known as Rufe Davis and the Radio Rubes...they were quite successful. His first big break was to play the part of the jailer in "The Big broadcast of 1938"...which was released late in 1937. As it so happened, this was also the first big movie for Bob Hope. The film also included Bing Crosby, W. C. Fields and Dorothy Lamour. Also in 1937 he appeared in "This Way Please" with the lovely Betty Grable, and Fibber McGee and Molly. At this point his unique comedic talent was rapidly being noticed. In 1938 he appeared in "Cocoanut Grove" with Fred McMurray, and he appeared in "Dr. Rhythm" with Bing Crosby and Andy Devine. Among the myriad of engagements in 1939 Rufe played the State and Lake Theater in Chicago, the Chicago Theater, the College Inn in Chicago for seven weeks, and in New York, the Hollywood Restaurant and the Paramount Theater at the same time. This left him very little time for sleep....yet he appeared in three movies that year...Rhythm Romance with Bob Hope and Gene Krupa, "Ambush" with Lloyd Nolan, and he auditioned successfully for a Paramount movie, "Mountain Music" with Bob Burns, Martha Raye and Gabby Hayes. In 1940 when he was still 31 he appeared in "Barnyard Follies" with Alfalfa. Then that same year he started appearing in one of the best old movie western series ever made..."The Three Mesquiteers". This Republic Pictures series had started in 1935. There were always three Mesquiteers...Stoney, Tucson and Lulabye. The first to appear in the three leads were Bob Livingston as Stoney, Ray Corrigan as Tucson and Sid Saylor as Lulabye. Several actors played these roles including John Wayne as Stoney for eight episodes. Rufe took over the Lulaby Joslin role in 1940 and appeared in 14 episodes into 1942. During this period Bob Livingston and Tom Tyler both played Stoney, and Bob Steele played Tucson. Some critics say that the trio of Livingston, Steel and Davis was the most impressive with its advanced comedy and professional acting. In the role of Lulabye as in his other movie appearances, Rufe made lots of noises with his mouth. In "The Three Mesquiteers" he also rode a lot of horses. He had learned to ride as a boy and he was a good rider. Interestingly, since he was the comic of "The Three Mesquiteers" trio the directors always had him flop his arms up and down while riding to look a little bit goofy. He also could shoot well and handled a rifle with precision. He became especially good pals with Bob Steele. It was in 1940 that he met his future wife while they were both performing at a big show in the east. Her name was Hermoine Hawkinson. She was a very talented ballerina and show dancer from Fargo, North Dakota who danced with the American Ballet, and also danced in show routines to earn a few more dollars. It wasn't long after they met that they fell in love and felt the lure of Hollywood where Rufe was filming "The Three Mesquiteers". They first bought a ranch in Lynwood, California where they kept horses, and then they found and bought a large estate in Brentwood on Sunset Boulevard next to Bel Air and Beverly Hills. It had a four horse barn and true to his farmer roots, he also kept chickens in the backyard in the horse stable area. He was perhaps the original "Brentwood Hillbilly".   His first child, Susan Caroline was born in June 1941 in Santa Monica, California....and then his son James William was born in September of 1942, also in Santa Monica. In 1944 he found the time to make another movie called "Jamboree". And then his comedy was included in the movie "George White's scandals of 1945". Even though Rufe made a lot of movies, his favorite entertaining was being the country standup comic playing and singing funny songs and making all sorts of his animal, train and other imitations. He became known as "Hollywood's most fashionable hillbilly". With World War II still going on, he joined up with Gene Autry to go on a USO tour to entertain the troops in the Pacific. He and Gene were on tour on Guam Island when World War II ended. They had a great time together and would tour together many times in the next few years. In fact, in 1948 Gene Autry made a movie called "The Strawberry Roan" and he made sure Rufe played a role as a ranch hand and had a chance to entertain in it with his now-famous sound imitations. The fact is, in all of his movies he does some of his vaudeville act. He could imitate the whistle of any bird you could imagine, all the barnyard animals, trains, boat motors, steam ship whistles, tap dancers, bass fiddlers and so many others. In August of 1949 Rufe's third child Richard Brent was born in Santa Monica. Then in October of 1957 Rufe's fourth child Vivian Lee was born in Los Angeles. Appearances at clubs, conventions, TV appearances, fairs and USO shows all over the world kept Rufe busy until 1963 when a strong hunch prompted him to return to California. He had been back in Hollywood for three days when he was auditioned and signed to play the part of Floyd Smoot on "Petticoat Junction". The original name intended for the show was "Whistle Stop". The show was to air on CBS to add on to the success of The Beverly Hillbillies. His old pal Smiley Burnett got the part of Charlie Pratt the engineer. Edgar "Buck" Buchanan got the part of Uncle Joe, and Bea Benadaret got the part of Kate. Then there were the three beautiful girls including Linda Kay Henning. The series first episode aired on CBS on Tuesday, September 25, 1963 in the 9:00 PM time slot. It was a great time slot sandwiched in between The Red Skelton Hour and The Jack Benny Program. The first two years of the series were in black and white. While on the Filmways set, Rufe also appeared in a few episodes in the companion series Green Acres. Rufe and Smiley Burnette got to know each other well again after so many years in the business doing shows together at times. They became fast friends. They would often spark into some made up routine with Rufe on the guitar and noises, and Smiley with his accordion. They appeared together in parades such as the annual Hollywood Christmas Parade driving a loco car that twirled around. They were a hit wherever they appeared. They were never too busy to sign autographs. They had both come from humble backgrounds and never forgot it.....and because of their talents they found places in the hearts of the country folk. Rufe never stopped with his comedy act when not filming Petticoat Junction. He appeared in that series for 7 years. He worked up until November of 1974 when he suffered a heart attack while traveling to do yet another comedy show in Northern California. He never fully recovered. He finally succumbed at the Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance, California and passed away 11 days after his 66th birthday on Friday the 13th. Rufe never lost his country roots. He had a marvelous career. He had an amazing talent and was a very funny entertainer that happened to do some acting. He was definitely quite an unusual character. His memories live on in his four children, eight grandchildren and five great great grandchildren. Who knows when one of the later generations of his descendants will also begin making entertaining sounds at a young age and themselves head into the wonderful world of show business.