Smiley Burnette 
Smiley Burnette "Life is always at high-noon!" says Smiley Burnette...and he speaks with experience.At 52, the energetic actor-comedian widens a career that has been continuously successful. He is now "Charlie Pratt", railroad engineer, and a regular in the new CBS-TV series, "Petticoat Junction " (from Paul Henning, creator of the "BEVERLY HILLBILLIES."
This isn't a comeback. Smiley has never been away. He hasn't had time! In action Smiley is an exciting sight...and he's always in action. His enthusiasm, charm, curiosity, vigor and endurance are as amazing today, as that day in 1934 when he performed in his first motion picture with Gene Autry. He still gets up at 5 a.m. and puts in the fullest day you ever saw. Smiley covers more mileage on "bridges" than most people do on highways. He is either going somewhere on a jet or coming back. But it really doesn't make any difference how he travels...he's never late for anything.
A typical Smiley day includes three or four personal appearance performances, personally greeting hundreds of kiddies (and their parents), signing autographs, shaking hands, sitting kids on his lap, making people laugh. No day is complete without a press interview, and he is always on someone's radio or TV program in town (stealing "Plugs" for his local sponsor). And before he calls it a day he will visit a hospital, children's home or shut-ins. Smiley sums it up..."I'd rather wear out than rust out!"
In his movie career Smiley never won an Oscar ("I always played to the pistol and popcorn set")...but the motion picture exhibitors of the nation voted him among the top ten "Money Making Western Stars of the Year"...TEN YEARS IN A ROW!
Crowds love Smiley, and Smiley loves crowds. The first one he remembers was at a concert in the YMCA, where at the age of nine he played the musical saw, for which he was paid three dollars. Since then he has learned to play ninety-nine other musical instruments, created his "Frog" voice, added his comic talents and went on to earn over three million dollars.
The first million was the slowest. Smiley worked for $12.50 a week at WDZ, Tuscola, Illinois, the third radio station to be established in the United States. He was announcer, newscaster, janitor and also entertained by singing and playing the accordion. His proficiency on the accordion brought him to the attention of Gene Autry. Autry offered Smiley $35 a week on a year's contract and Smiley jumped at the offer.
"It wasn't a big year in money" confides Frog, "but I learned more from Autry than I can say." Smiley continued. "Whenever the wolf came to the door Autry ended up with a fur coat."
If you're reading this for facts and figures we can make it easier:
BORN: Yes...in Summom, Illinois, March 18, 1911.
PARENTS: Mr. and Mrs. G.W. Burnette, both ordained ministers.
NICKNAME: "Smiley", bestowed the first time he smiled.
MOVIES: Made 171 full length westerns. 81 with Gene Autry, 7 with Roy Rogers, 64 with Charles Starrett, others with various stars. Also 15 Chapter Serials, 4 short subjects and 6 featured spots in pictures not western.
COMPOSER: Wrote 353 songs. None took longer than an hour to compose. 171 were used in westerns, 14 songs were used in feature pictures. Others used for recordings. Best known are "Riding Down The Canyon" (which he sold to Gene Autry for $5.00), "It's My Lazy Day" (which Smiley recorded using a girl trio for background...one of the girls was Colleen Sommers, now known as Mary Ford), "Mama Don't Allow No Music Played In Here!" a favorite with "pop" and "country" bands.
PERFORMER: Plays 100 different musical instruments...can't read a note of music.
IMITATIONS: Cartoon sounds like a fly landing on a piece of sugar; an outboard motor on a cold day; airplanes; the Indianapolis "500"; frogs, of course; dog and cat fights; etc. Carries on a conversation with himself in four different voices at one time.
MARRIED: To the same woman for 27 years, the former Dallas McDonald, newspaper writer.
CHILDREN: Four grown children whom he and Dallas adopted when they were infants.
HABITS: Doesn't drink alcoholic beverages, doesn't smoke. Is a positive thinker...always cheerful. Practices the "Golden Rule."
HOBBIES: Loves to fish and cook. He and wife Dallas have authored an unusual cook book, which Commander Anderson took with him on the atomic submarine "Nautilus" on its maiden voyage under the North Pole. Also camera bug.
RECORDS: Has recorded 56 sides for Capitol. Also recorded for Decca and Columbia.
AUDIENCE: Has performed before as many as 25,000 people and as few as one crippled child. Entertained G.I.'s just before their onslaught on Guadalcanal. Has performed for little kiddies in the afternoon, and nuclear scientists that night. Has appeared in posh movie palaces and in well fertilized pastures; has done enough shows from a flat bed truck to make the Smiling Irishman frown.
TV CREDITS: Was televised in 1928 at the University of Illinois Electric Building playing a guitar. The picture was seen in the auditorium. Now has 108 of his western pictures showing on TV stations all over the country. Makes personal appearances on local TV stations wherever he appears. "Petticoat Junction" his first regular TV series.
ROLES: Writers say that Smiley is the only actor in memory that has played only one character continuously for 29 years. Since 1934 Smiley has been "Frog". In "Petticoat Junction" he will be "Charlie Pratt" a railroad engineer.
ATTITUDE: "I love everybody" says Smiley. "It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice. The acid test of success is humility." His millions of fans will tell you that Smiley has passed the test.
"Petticoat Junction," the Bea Benedaret TV starrer produced at Filmways in Hollywood for CBS, is Smiley Burnette's first regular TV series, although he has been seen in many a film western, released on television.
As Charley Pratt, engineer of the Hooterville Cannonball and partner of Rufe Davis, the conductor-brakeman-fireman, he is frequently assumed to be expert of operating a train engine by train buffs. This was similar to his experience as a rider of horses in westerns. Although he became a capable rider, he knew little about the critters.
For his first year on Petticoat Junction, Smiley was given technical advice on train operation by an expert who stayed close to him in the mock-up of the little train, on the set where most of the action is shot.
Whenever Smiley makes a personal appearance, he is contacted by train buffs, frequently several at a time, who toss technical railroading phrases at one another while Smiley listens in bewilderment. "But I'm learning a lot as I chug along," he acknowledges.
Invitations to join clubs pour in from buffs of regular trains and miniature sets. On one appearance, Smiley was called upon by two sleepy men who had stayed up all night to wait for a new type of engine to reach town and wanted to share their experience with Smiley.
"A fellow can't help but feel flattered and grateful for this kind of interest," Smiley admits. "Makes me want to learn more."
In western pictures with Gene Autry and Charles Starrett, Smiley wore a gun and holster which brought him many letters and personal contacts from firearms buffs and collectors who assumed, wrongly, that he must have a gun collection.
Although he made 171 westerns astride a horse, he has never owned one in his life. But dozens of people offered to sell him horses, and guns.
So far nobody has offered to sell him a train of any kind, but he won't be surprised when it happens. In the meantime he has become quite attached to the little train in Petticoat Junction. He even named his new poodle Hooterville Choo Choo.
Smiley's house trailers are among his treasured possessions and he has a different use for each one. "That ought to justify my having so many, in the eyes of those who call this an extravagance," Smiley grins.
Although the Burnettes have an apartment in Hollywood near the TV studio, for the convenience of early calls to work, they live in a fifty-foot ten-wide mobile home atop a hill in a beautiful mobile home park in San Fernando.
Lined up beside it are Smiley's office trailer, where he handles much correspondence and business activities; his 33-foot Streamline travel trailer, which is convenient for long personal appearances; and Mrs. Burnette's 28-foot Streamline travel trailer.
On his longer trips - the Burnettes made one that lasted three years prior to the television series - Smiley uses his travel trailer for carrying his wardrobe, musical instruments, fishing gear (he might just happen upon a stream or lake along the way and obey the impulse) and cooking and camping equipment. He also takes a typewriter and other equipment to carry on his business activities.
Usually he stays in motels, seeking out the Holiday Inns where possible, as they have generous enough space to permit him to park his trailer nearby. Mealtimes find the Burnettes in the motel dining room or the self-contained trailer, as the mood dictates.
Mrs. Burnette's travel trailer alternates for short vacation trips for the couple to desert, mountains or beaches or for the long personal appearances. On the latter, Mrs. Burnette pulls her trailer, while Smiley pilots his, and a short wave radio system keeps them from getting separated in traffic or unfamiliar country.
Several times, endeavoring to find each other by radio, they have been "talked in" by accommodating short wave operators in the area who had happened to tune into the conversation.
Although Smiley's trailer contains an electronic oven, handy because it will cook meals in a fraction of the time a conventional type stove demands, it requires 220 voltage, so must be used in a trailer park. Mrs. Burnette's trailer, on the other hand, has a washing machine and a small dryer that fits into a closet, and these necessitate only 110 voltage.
Smiley's office trailer contains files, office equipment and supplies he uses for personal appearances, such as brochures, folders, window cards, pictures and newspaper cuts and clippings.
He is retiring the office trailer he has had for six years and is busy outfitting a new Streamline, custom built for the same purpose. This is the same size as Smiley's travel trailer, and like all of the Burnette trailers, is air-conditioned and has a purifier for the drinking water. The equipment, for this trailer, as with its predecessor, includes IBM electric equipment, duplicators, dictating tape recorders and an electric power plant (the travel trailers have these, too.)
