Smiley Burnette

On May 5, 2012, he was posthumously inducted into the Cowtown Society of Western Music Hall of Fame as a Hero.

He was posthumously awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6125 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on May 22, 1986.

Posthumously inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971 and the Western Music Association in 1998.

Smiley Burnette passed away on February 16, 1967, a month away from what would have been his 56th birthday on March 18.

In the 1960s he owned a drive-in restaurant in Escondido, CA, called "The Checkered Shirt".

He made occasional appearances on television including being a regular on the music show "Ozark Jubilee (1959)".

When the 'B' movie Western reign ended in 1953, Smiley retired from the screen.

Smiley worked on a local radio station and in Vaudeville after high school. Always interested in music, he was friends with Gene Autry and worked with him on the radio show "The National Barn Dance". When Westerns became a big draw with sound, the studios were always on the lookout for singing cowboys. In 1934, both Gene and Smiley made their debuts in In Old Santa Fe (1934). Smiley became well known as Gene's plump sidekick Frog Milhouse, and they worked together in over 80 Westerns. After Gene, Smiley provided the comic relief for other cowboy stars at Republic such as Sunset Carson and Charles Starrett (The Durango Kid). He also provided a lot of the music as he wrote over 300 western songs and sang quite a few in the films. Smiley was the first supporting actor to regularly appear on the Top Ten Western money-maker list. He became well known for his white horse with the black circle around one eye. When he used a team of white horses, as when he was 'Spec Specialist' Smiley Burnette, each white horse had one black circle around one eye.