Gabby Hayes
He was best known for his numerous appearances in western movies as the colorful sidekick to the leading man. (Not to be confused with British character actor George Hayes , who made a few movies in the U.S.)
Early years
Hayes was born the third of seven children in Wellsville, New York, and did not come from a cowboy background.
In fact, he did not know how to ride a horse until he was in his forties and had to learn for movie roles. His father, Clark Hayes, operated a hotel and was also involved in oil production.
George Hayes played semi-professional baseball while in high school, then ran away from home in 1902, at 17. He joined a stock company, apparently traveled for a time with a circus, and became a successful vaudevillian.
He had become so successful that by 1928 he was able, at 43, to retire to a home on Long Island in Baldwin, New York. She joined him in vaudeville, performing under the name Dorothy Earle (not to be confused with film actress/writer Dorothy Earle).
She convinced him in 1929 to try his luck in motion pictures, and the couple moved to Los Angeles. He found a niche in the growing genre of western films, many of which were series with recurring characters.
Ironically, Hayes would admit he had never been a big fan of westerns.
Hayes, in real life an intelligent, well groomed, and articulate man, was cast as a grizzled codger who uttered phrases like "consarn it", "yer durn tootin", "dadgumit", "durn persnickety female", and "young whippersnapper".
Hayes played the part of Windy Halliday, the sidekick to Hopalong Cassidy (William Boyd), from 1935 to 1939. In 1939, Hayes left Paramount Pictures in a dispute over his salary and moved to Republic Pictures.
Paramount held the rights to the name Windy Halliday, so a new nickname was created for Hayes' character; Gabby. As Gabby Whitaker, Hayes appeared in more than 40 pictures between 1939 and 1946, usually with Roy Rogers but also with Gene Autry or Wild Bill Elliott, often working under the directorship of Joseph Kane.
Hayes was also repeatedly cast as a sidekick to western icons Randolph Scott (6 times) and John Wayne (approx.
Hayes became a popular performer and consistently appeared among the ten favorite actors in polls taken of movie-goers of the period. He moved to television and hosted The Gabby Hayes Show, a western series, from 1950 to 1954 on NBC, and a new version in 1956 on ABC.
He introduced the show, often while whittling on a piece of wood and would sometimes throw in some tall stories. George "Gabby" Hayes was interred in the Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Honors
For his contribution to radio, Gabby Hayes has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6427 Hollywood Blvd.
and a second star at 1724 Vine Street for his contribution to the television industry. After he delivered a rousing, though largely unintelligible speech to the townspeople ("You get back here you pious candy-ass sidewinder.
Hell, I was born here, an' I was raished here, an' dad gum it, I am gonna die here an' no sidewindin bushwackin, hornswaglin, cracker croaker is gonna rouin me biscuit cutter."), David Huddleston's character proclaimed, "Now, who can argue with that?!" and described it as "authentic frontier gibberish."
Gabby was also immortalized once again in the Simpsons episode Radioactive Man, where Milhouse becomes "Fallout Boy", the producer of the film comments that Milhouse is "going to be big, Gabby Hayes big!"
Additionally, every year in April at the beginning of trout season in Pennsylvania, the Gabby Hayes Memorial Fishing Expedition is held by a group of long-time friends and so named as a whimsical homage to the man whose early career began in the environs of his boyhood New York home near the northern Pennsylvania border. During the morning show, Gabby will often rant and yell for no apparent reason.
Comic appearances
Gabby Hayes Adventure Comics 1 (1953.