Stars once took the stage in Salisbury

Roy Rogers

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Red Ryder and Little Beaver (Robert Blake)

By Mike Cline

For the Salisbury Post

Chances are when the curtain goes up on the next Piedmont Players' production at the Meroney Theater, the actors will have no idea that they will be performing on the same stage and in the same building where many of Hollywood and filmdom's most famous western stars performed many years ago.

During the 1930s and 1940s, the Meroney was primarily a motion picture house known as the State Theatre.

But, in addition to showing Hollywood hits daily, the program often offered local moviegoers live personal appearances and elaborate live stage programs.

And the most popular and well-attended stage programs were when the Hollywood cowboys came to town.

From the mid 1930s through the mid 1950s, thousands of movie theaters across the country catered to the children on Saturdays with a four- or five-course movie meal at a cost of a dime to a quarter.

For a single coin, kids could absorb a cartoon; a short comedy like The Three Stooges or Our Gang; a chapter of a serial, perhaps Dick Tracy or Captain Marvel; and a newsreel.

But the main course of the film feast, more times than not, was what was known as a "B" western.

These oaters generally ran around an hour, chock-full of the number of gunfights and fistfights necessary for the cowboy hero to bring the outlaws and rustlers to justice.

With a few exceptions, every major studio — and some not so major — made the "B" westerns. Some studios turned out two or three a month.

And since so many "B" westerns were produced at the time, there was a need for a lot of cowboy heroes.

At the top of the list were Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy (actor William Boyd) and Roy Rogers. These three were the most popular and made the most money.

On a lower tier were cowpokes such as Sunset Carson, Charles Starrett, Johnny Mack Brown, Bob Steele, Buster Crabbe, Lash LaRue, Tex Ritter (John Ritter's dad), Jimmy Wakely, Eddie Dean and Allan "Rocky" Lane (who later provided the voice for TV's talking horse, Mister Ed).

Where there were cowboy heroes, one could usually find a buddy riding along side the star of the picture. Actors such as Smiley Burnette, Dub "Cannonball" Taylor, George "Gabby" Hayes, Fuzzy Knight, Max Terhune and Al "Fuzzy" St. John put food on their families' tables for years playing these comical sidekicks.

Even a child actor at the time, Robert Blake of television's "Baretta" fame and star of many movies as an adult, was a regular in a "B"western series of films in the 1940s. Blake played "Little Beaver," the child companion to hero Red Ryder.

To supplement their film salaries, many of the western stars toured across the country making live appearances in movie theaters. Often, one of their films would play as the screen attraction when the actors were in town.

The railroad brought many of these folks to Rowan County. Salisbury, being about halfway between Atlanta and Washington, D.C., was an easy opportunity for them to pick up an extra paycheck.

The actors could stop in Salisbury, check into the Yadkin Hotel for the night and do live shows a few blocks away at the local movie houses.

The Salisbury theaters liked it as well. Local citizens filled their auditoriums all day and all night when the stars were appearing.

From 1939 through the 1940s, with the exception of Autry and Hoppy, nearly every Hollywood cowboy came to Rowan County.

I missed the heydays of seeing the cowboy stars in hometown theaters, as I didn't arrive until six months after Lash's final State Theatre appearance. I did meet Roy Rogers when he returned to Salisbury in 1976, and met Peggy Stewart, Lash and Sunset in the 1980s, so I do have that.

I even met an adult Robert Blake in a Burbank restaurant only a few weeks (wow!) before he was arrested for having his wife killed. I'm glad I didn't make him angry that morning.

Since the time it was named the State Theatre, the movie house has been known as the Center Theatre, then the Towne Cinemas.Now it's the Meroney again. No movies there now, just fantastic live community theatre.

So if you ever appear in a Piedmont Players' production, remember (at least for a second) that you could be standing on the same mark as Roy, Tex, Sunset or "Gabby."

Mike Cline lives in Salisbury and is a lifelong movie fan and historian.