SOURCE: "Will Rogers: Symbolic Man, Journalist, and Film Image," in Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 9, No. 4, 1976, pp. 850-74.

In the following essay, Rollins argues that Rogers used his image to calm many of the social anxieties common to Americans at the time.

On August 15, 1935, Will Rogers and his pilot Wiley Post were killed in a plane crash at Point Barrow, Alaska. Exactly one week later, the offices of Twentieth Century Fox and Universal Studios closed at noon so that office workers could attend a special memorial service at the Hollywood Bowl "where over twenty thousand gathered to pay tribute to the memory of the beloved humorist." That evening, twelve thousand motion picture theaters across the country observed two minutes of respectful silence before beginning their evening programs.

Just before leaving for Alaska, Rogers had completed two films. At least previous to this dilemma, Hollywood had observed "an unwritten...