Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Rex Rossi

Photo courtesy of Dianne Olds Rossi

Rex and his family spent many years with the Kelly-Miller shows out of Hugo. Oklahoma. He sure cut a dashing figure in his younger days, and I am surprised some slick Hollywood producer didn't try to make him a Movie Cowboy. It would have been slick to see a Saturday hero doing a dead mans drag in an effort to elude the bad guys, or actually rope 6 at one time, with no help.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually Rex made a TV series segment but he was stopped by Bob Steele because of his value to him as a stunt man. Batlin' Bob was famous for his leaps, fancy mounts and wild chases which were all Rex. Bob did do a lot of his own fight scenes though but in slo-motion it was easy to pick out Rex. He also did all the stunt work for Gene Kelly in The Three Musketeers and Tyrone Power in The Mark of Zorr, some of his best work I think

Wade G. Burck said...

Dianne,
I didn't know that was Rex in the Mark of Zorro. I have that on DVD and am going to look tonight.
Wade

Anonymous said...

He did a great stunt jumping a horse off a bridge into a river. He said he trained the horse on a mock bridge until he jumped freely then did the real jump into the water, one take. Gutty!

Wade G. Burck said...

Dianne,
Contessa and I did a similar stunt the first day I took her out of the indoor arena, and into the woods. It wasn't as grand as Rex, and we didn't rehearse. But then the wood walk way was only 2 foot high over a half dry runoff stream. Poor Contessa thought that was about the scariest thing she had ever seen when I got her back on the trail, and then 6 deer burst out of the trees, and "that" was the scariest thing she had ever seen. I took her into a clearing, and cantered her for about 15 minutes, crossed the bridge while the deer watched us and when we got back to the barn she was covered in foam from head to tail. One of the girls said, "Gosh she is sweaty, and you were only gone 20 minutes." I laughed and said, "yes, but ask Tessa what kind of 20 minutes it was while you are washing her. She should stand nice in there for you today."
Wade

Anonymous said...

Dianne,
Was there a book written on Rex's life?