Tex Fletcher Movies

Known as the "Lonely Cowboy," Tex Fletcher (born Geremino Bisceglia) began his show business career singing cowboy ballads on radio station WOR in New York City. In late 1938, Fletcher signed with low-budget company Grand National for a prospective series of music-Westerns to complement the studio's popular Tex Ritter vehicles. Fletcher played a college football hero searching for his father's killer in the series opener, Six-Gun Rhythm, released in early 1939. Although looking and sounding like a comic sidekick rather than a bona fide Western hero, Fletcher didn't do too badly in the romantic clinches with leading lady Joan Barclay and was well-served by such numbers as "Cabin in the Valley" and the signature tune "The Lonesome Cowboy", both written by prolific songwriters Johnny Lange and Lew Porter. Unfortunately, Grand National was experiencing deep financial troubles, the little studio's main drawing card, James Cagney, having returned to Warner Bros. after only two films. Ritter and another Grand National series star, James Newell, would find new hunting grounds at Monogram Pictures, but, Fletcher, with only one Western to his credit, was left pretty much in the lurch. The market was glutted with singing Western stars at that particular moment in history and Six-Gun Rhythm would prove Fletcher's only film. He returned, instead, to New York and a recording career that would last well into the 1960s. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide