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Henry Horenstein
Tex Ritter, Hillbilly Ranch, Boston, Massachusetts, 1973
| In the 1930s and 1940s, Ritter was a successful "singing cowboy" in the same tradition as rivals Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Like other singing cowboys, he had a multilayered career—as a film star (he made many dozens of B-Westerns), recording artist, and touring musician. Father of actor John Ritter, Tex sang "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling," the theme song of High Noon, Gary Cooper's Academy Award–winning movie of 1953. Tex also charted with the maudlin "Deck of Cards" (1948) and oddly less maudlin "I Dreamed of a Hillbilly Heaven" (1961). |
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