Project Twenty: The Story of Will Rogers

Narrated by Bob Hope

The NBC News Project Twenty productions of the 1950s and 1960s created the world of the historical documentary for prime time TV. The series derived its title from the century in which we live, and put together these programs add up to the composite drama of our age. This is the series that first perfected techniques of combining archival film and scanned still photos with a rich musical score and compelling narration. Winner of almost every major broadcasting award, including the Emmy, the Peabody and the Robert J. Flaherty Awards. Projected Twenty set the standards against which all subsequent documentaries are measured.

Narrated without sentimentality by Bob Hope, the life of the rope twirling humorist is traced from his Oklahoma roots to his death in an Alaskan plane crash. Roger's skill with a lariat led him into show business as a trick rope artist with Texas Jack's Wild West Circus. In rare footage of his act, we see some of the astonishing feats he could routinely pull off. As the jokes and irreverent quips he added to his act became more popular than the tricks, his fame grew to where he became the country boy conscience of his time. With film culled form newsreel sequences, his appearances in motion pictures, and his family's home movies, a warm human portrait emerges of the cowboy philosopher. Carefully researched, The Story of Will Rogers not only captures the man, but also the impact he had on his times. His death was announced like a national disaster and triggered the greatest outpouring of grief since the death of Lincoln. The moving sequence of a nation in mourning expresses just how profoundly he had touched the heart and mind of the average American. The country wasn't the same without him, and by the end of this program, we all feel like we'd lost a close friend.