Tracking down a famous cowboy in Ladysmith?

American journalist, author and biographer Joe Carter and his editor wife Michelle Lefebvre-Carter are spending a week in South Africa learning more about the famous Will Rogers.
Will Rogers was a legendary cowboy, both on and off screen, and as fate would have it, he started his career right here in little old Ladysmith. Will also had a wry sense of humour, and books have been published containing anecdotes and quotes from this colourful character.
Joe and his wife plan to carefully comb the area and retrace the cattle drives, while seeking any new background information about the people and events surrounding Will Rogers during the stormy post-war period. The battle-scarred Anglo-Boer War route is where American Will Rogers conducted two historic cattle drives and Ladysmith is where his career as a headliner showman was launched in ‘Texas Jack’s Wild West Show’. Joe explains that, “Later starring in 71 movies, writing six books, penning syndicated newspaper columns and becoming a hit performer in Broadway’s Ziegfled Follies, Will Rogers got his first taste of show business under a circus tent in Ladysmith!”
At the age of 23 years old, Will Rogers arrived aboard a steamboat from Argentina to deliver more than 2000 Argentine cattle, mules, horses and sheep. Research shows that he helped herd the animals to the sprawling Mooi River station. In the five-volume ‘Papers of Will Rogers’ project that Carter-Lefebvre led, scholarly research (including a few letters written in South Africa by Will Rogers) disclosed information about this historic period. This includes Will Rogers’ two trail drives northwards from Durban, the second being to Ladysmith.

While doing cowboy work in Ladysmith, he saw an audition for ‘Texas Jack’s Wild West Show’. Being a cowboy himself and being very good with the rope, he auditioned.

He then joined the show and travelled with it all around South Africa. He featured in circuses in Australia and New Zealand before going back to the Northern Hemisphere, where he became famous and starred in 10 ’20th Century-Fox’ movies.
Before his South African trek, Will Rogers had been reared on a sprawling cattle ranch in Oklahoma and had been a work-a-day cowboy on cattle drives of the era. He competed in rodeos and steer roping contests, but never before his South African experience had he seen show business as a career.
While no publisher has been selected by the Carter-Lefebvre team, they said that a new book, magazine series or possible cinema scripts are possibilities, depending on the couple’s findings during their week-long travels in the area. “Under the billing of ‘The Cherokee Kid, The World’s Champion Lassoer’, we know that Will Rogers played Port Elizabeth, Durban, Harrisburg, East London, Cape Town, Aliwal and Pretoria during 1902-1903,” says Michelle. “Hopefully we will flesh out names and additional venues, and find new records such as newspaper reviews.”
Some newspaper clippings of show reviews are among papers archived at the Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Claremore, Oklahoma, where the Carter-Lefebvre team were directors for 20 years. Joe and Michelle have been married for 23 years and have worked together for most of this time.
Joe is not only a newsman and published biographer of humorist Will Rogers, he served as a White House aide of two presidents, a governor and four members of Congress. He is the author of twin 2013 memoirs. ‘I Heard JFK’s Death Shots’ is a reporter’s personal look back at President John F Kennedy’s assassination 50 years later. Joe was a United Press International correspondent on the press bus covering President Kennedy’s November 1963 campaign swing into Dallas. Joe was directly below the Texas School Book Depository window when he heard the three assassination shots.
Five years later, Joe was tapped as a speech write and political advance man for President Johnson, where he joined diplomatic missions to Central American countries and to the July 1968 Honolulu summit on Vietnam. Joe’s other memoir, ‘Unique Challenges of writing for LBJ’, recounts his White House experiences during the final months of President Lyndon B Johnson’s White House years. What a host of experiences Joe Carter has had during his lifetime!
Joe and Michelle are loving South Africa and are currently searching for more information on Will Rogers.