George 'Gabby' Hayes
George Hayes is an American character actor, the most famous of Western-movie sidekicks of the 1930s and 1940s. He worked in a circus and played semi-pro baseball while a teenager. In 1914, he married Olive Ireland and the pair became successful on the vaudeville circuit. Retired in his forties, he lost much of his money in the 1929 stock market crash and was forced to return to work. He played scores of roles in Westerns and non-Westerns alike, finally in the mid-1930s settling in to an almost exclusively Western career. He gained fame as Hopalong Cassidy's sidekick Windy Halliday in films between 1936 and 1939. Leaving the Cassidy films in a salary dispute, he was legally precluded from using the Windy nickname, and so took on the sobriquet Gabby, and was so billed from about 1940. In his early films, he alternated between whiskered comic-relief sidekicks and clean-shaven bad guys, but by the later 1930s, he worked almost exclusively as a Western sidekick to stars such as John Wayne, Roy Rogers, and Randolph Scott. After his last film in 1950, he starred as the host of The Gabby Hayes Show. He died on February 9, 1969.
Filmography (202 titles)
It's Howdy Doody Time: A 40-Year Celebration
Self (archive footage) · 1987
7.7ShowWestern von gestern
Gabby Whittaker (archive footage) · 1978
8.5MovieMeanwhile, Back at the Ranch
(archive footage) · 1976
6.3MovieBrother, Can You Spare a Dime?
Self (archive footage) · 1975
MovieThe Western: A Lost TV Special
Self · 1958
6.4ShowThe Dinah Shore Chevy Show
Self · 1956
7.5ShowThe Gabby Hayes Show
Narrator · 1956
7.0ShowThe Gabby Hayes Show
Himself · 1950
6.4MovieThe Cariboo Trail
Grizzly · 1950
7.0ShowWhat's My Line?
Self · 1950
6.0MovieEl Paso
Pesky Tees · 1949
6.5MovieThe Untamed Breed
Windy Lucas · 1948
6.3MovieReturn of the Bad Men
John Pettit · 1948
6.8MovieAlbuquerque
Juke · 1948
6.4MovieWyoming
Windy Gibson · 1947
6.5MovieTrail Street
Billy Jones · 1947
6.2MovieHeldorado
Gabby Whittaker · 1946
6.6MovieHome in Oklahoma
Gabby Whittaker · 1946
6.3MovieRoll on Texas Moon
Gabby Whittaker · 1946
7.5MovieUnder Nevada Skies
Gabby Whittaker · 1946
5.5MovieMy Pal Trigger
Gabby Kendrick · 1946
7.3MovieRainbow Over Texas
Sheriff 'Gabby' Whittaker · 1946
6.3MovieBadman's Territory
Honest Jim Badger / The Coyote Kid · 1946
4.6MovieSong of Arizona
Gabby Whittaker · 1946
5.8MovieDon't Fence Me In
Gabby Whittaker · 1945
5.7MovieSunset in El Dorado
Gabby · 1945
7.5MovieAlong the Navajo Trail
Gabby Whittaker · 1945
6.3MovieMan from Oklahoma
Gabby Whittaker · 1945
6.2MovieBells of Rosarita
Gabby Whittake · 1945
5.5MovieUtah
Gabby Whittaker · 1945