George Francis “Gabby” Hayes was an American actor who was known for playing cowboy sidekicks in Western movies. His life was interesting and not like most Western stories. Hayes was born in Wellsville, New York, the third of seven children. He didn’t come from a cowboy family, and he learned to ride a horse for movie parts when he was forty years old, which was a surprise. Even though he wasn’t good at riding horses, he became a mainstay in Western movies and was known for playing interesting sidekicks.

Hayes first tried to play semi-professional baseball in high school. Then he went on a trip full of different experiences, such as working for a stock company, traveling with a circus, and doing very well as a vaudevillian. When he was 43 years old, he retired to Long Island in 1928. But when the stock market crashed in 1929, he lost all of his savings, which made him want to keep playing.

Hayes had been married to Olive E. Ireland since 1914, and she pushed him to start making movies in 1929. When they moved to Los Angeles, Hayes caught the attention of producer Trem Carr, who gave her thirty parts over the next six years. Hayes started out playing a wide range of roles, but he found his true calling in Westerns, which wasn’t his first preference.

After a fight over the role of “Windy” in the Hopalong Cassidy movies, he created the famous character “Gabby,” who has since been in over 30 Westerns. Through his work with stars like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and John Wayne (15 times), Hayes left a lasting mark on the genre. He made the switch to TV in 1956 with “The Gabby Hayes Show,” a Western-themed kids’ show. He retired in 1958. Hayes’s impact includes almost 200 movies that show how good he was at making people laugh with his rootin’ tootin’ characters. He died in 1969, but his influence on Western movies will last for a long time.