Well thanks Colkid,
I knew Gene around the early 70s, and the woman was not Ina. SO...........she must have been a VERY close friend of his for him to call her his wife...........very strange. I will do some more digging on this........might can find a pic of the lady in the Mission Hills albums. Yep, a genius when it came to making money. As I had mentioned he owned about half of Palm Springs and surrounding "oasis'" in the desert. Hmmm.........maybe Ina had a nickname........will look for a picture of her. KEITH
Display MoreGene was married in 1932 to Ina until 1980 when she died. He then married Jackie in 1981 until he passed. Gene was one of the best cowboy, singing stars.
He wrote songs, and had big hits with many of them. He never had children of his own. In many way he was a very honorable man. He earned some of his
money from oil investments and other things like melody ranch that we see in so many B movies and television shows. A very astute business man.
When they set up the Gene Autry museum he funded it with $100 million dollars. He bought the baseball Angels and they won the world series after he had passed away.
In his younger years he helped his family a lot. His Dad spent quite a bit of time in jail in those years. He had siblings or cousins live with him until they became adults, after his mother died.
Some of this is on page one of this thread.
Gene and Roy Rogers were lifelong friends, when the papers would print things like they were feuding, they would call and talk. Those feuding rumors weren't true. I believe Roy's first movie was in an Autry movie with Gene. Roy was part of the Sons of the Pioneers then.
