Rex Trailer, 84, rootin' tootin' TV host

TELEVISION was learning how to be television back in the '50s in Philadelphia.

Live broadcasting was still in the experimental stage, with crazy people like Ernie Kovacs showing what could be done if you had the imagination and nerve.

Live broadcasts on Channel 3 in those years included several kiddie shows that still stick in the memories of older Philadelphians.

While Kovacs was entertaining with camera innovations and comic ad-libbing (including running through the Philly streets in a gorilla suit), people like Lee Dexter and his Bertie the Bunyip, Joe Earley as Mr. Rivets, Bob Bradley as Buckskin Bill and Rex Trailer as a singing cowboy were keeping the kids laughing and parents happy for the break.

Channel 3 - WPTZ at the time - was the third station in the U.S. to receive a broadcasting license. It was a time when a news program lasted all of 10 minutes, and not everybody had a TV set. You watched it in restaurants, stores and other public places.

The old kiddie shows are ancient history now, many of the stars either deceased (like Kovacs, killed in a car crash in 1962) or retired.

But one of those who continued doing his act, entertaining and enthralling children and adults as well, was Rex Trailer.

His Philadelphia shows included "Ridin' the Trail with Rex Trailer," as a host for movie westerns; "Hi-Noon with Rex Trailer"; "Saddlebag O' Songs"; and "Rex Trailer's Ranch House," which ran from 1950 to 1956.

He performed with his horse, Gold Rush, and sang, played the guitar, played games and danced.

After leaving Philly, he took his horse and his multiple talents to Boston, where he became a celebrity with his show "Boomtown," which ran on Boston television until 1974.

Rexford Trailer, a native Texan who was also a country-and-western recording artist, film producer and pilot, died Wednesday at his home in Florida. He was 84.

Rex was still in his 20s when he moved from Philly to Boston's WBZ-TV, where he parlayed his talents for singing and guitar with his genuine skills as a cowboy, riding, roping and snapping the bullwhip. He included shooting until John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, after which he banned guns from his show.

He grew up outside Fort Worth, where he started to ride at age 4 on his grandfather's ranch. The hired hands taught him cowboy tricks. He started singing with a group called the Rambling Rustlers.

He also performed on the rodeo circuit. He met western actor Gabby Hayes (Roy Rogers' comic sidekick), who encouraged him to break into TV as a children's- show host.

Taking the advice, Rex, still in his teens, went to work for the DuMont Television Network in New York City, doing odd jobs until he had a chance to take over the network's "Oky Doky Ranch," a western-styled children's show.

When that series ended, he moved to Philadelphia and WPTZ-TV, then owned by Westinghouse. When the station, later to become WRCV-TV and then KYW-TV, was sold to NBC in 1956, Rex was given a choice of moving to Cleveland or Boston. He chose Boston.

His wife of 56 years, Cindy, died about two years ago. He is survived by a daughter, Jillian Trailer-Rollock.