Pressing On: The Roni Stoneman Story

19. Hee Haw

E @ E < K < < E Hee Haw Before I left the family band, I had an interesting talk with Ernest Tubb. We were doing a lot of shows with him, Ernest Tubb and the Texas Troubadours. Well, I remember one time going on the bus—that same bus that’s now on exhibit at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop in Nashville. We were playing at Sunset Park or someplace like that. I had just about crawled into that bus because I was so hot and tired. I’m sitting there, and Ernest Tubb was sitting across from me. I sighed. “What’s the matter, Roni?” I looked to the window, and I said, “I can’t stand this. I hate it.” “Well, what do you want to do?” “I don’t know. Maybe get into comedy? Maybe on television? It would be so much easier. I know that from when our TV show was still running. I could be with the kids more, just go in for the taping and then come home. And still do better than what I’m doing.” Hee Haw pressing on / 129 He reached over and he patted my hand. “You got the talent, girl,” he said. “Don’t dream small, reach for the sky. You want to do comedy? Go for it. There’s a television show—Hee Haw . . .” “Yeah, I know. I’d like to get on it.” Hee Haw had just started. No one realized then that the combination of quick segments of cornball humor, beautiful girls, and country music would end up being so popular, would sweep the nation. No one realized it would become the longest running syndicated show ever. Anyway, back then Bob Bean said if my brothers and sisters couldn’t go on it, I couldn’t. And at that point I didn’t want to leave the family band. I was bringing home some money, and in those days it was enough to get by on, at least feed the children and buy my place to live. Ernest Tubb was great. Not only because he was a terrific performer and Opry star, but also because he was always helping young musicians. He’d showcase them on his Midnight Jamboree radio show and advise them as he did me. God, I loved him. Years later, in 1982, I played the last show he ever did, when he had emphysema. He was so sick he’d get on the bus and use oxygen. Everybody in the audiences adored him. They knew he was terribly sick. His face was all sunk in and his eyes were hollowed, and he was gasping. And he got up there and did his “Walking the Floor over You.” So now let’s back up to about 1970, a little while after that conversation about Hee Haw. I said I knew I couldn’t get on the show because of Bob Bean. But I got a call from Bud Wingard, who was one of the Hee Haw writers. He said he was working on something for the show, and could I come down and talk with him about it? I was staying with Bob and Donna, but I sort of went down to his place secretly. I got all dressed up as fancy as I could, did my hair, had on a nice black dress, perfect makeup and all. I walked in the door, and he said, “Yes, you’re exactly what we want. We already have enough pretty girls.” Hmm! And he talked a little about the Ida Lee character they were creating. But nothing really came of that. When the money I was making with the family band got really bad, that’s when, as I said, George started telling me to quit, and I did in 1971. But Hee Haw was still not something I seriously went after. We were living on an ex–military base in Smyrna, a cheap little place. I was raising seven children, four of my own, and me and George had Georgia, and 130 / pressing on then his two boys, Bart and Eric. And I was trying to get jobs wherever I could. After quitting the family band, I had to start all over again, and it wasn’t easy. It was not only that I didn’t have the musical support I was used to. It was also the responsibility. You’re out there entertaining the people, and you know you’ve got to keep them satisfied in order to keep working. It’s all on you, the pressure and the stress. That’s what it was though I didn’t use those words. People didn’t contemplate about stress in those days. You just did your work. And you’d worry—worry about the food, worry about the rent, worry, worry, worry. George wasn’t working, and I didn’t have nothing. I was in no state to imagine that I could go after a TV show. I did get that job in Printer’s Alley, where I had to learn how to get the sidemen to stop distracting the audience. That job, however, soon ended, and then I went with Buddy Lee Attractions, a talent agency. But they never booked me in six long months. Finally they said that I could perform at a party they were giving. I was desperate. I got the kids to bed, and I took off. The party was at one of those huge hotels. I walked into a main room, and there was a long table with all kinds of hors d’oeuvres and little teeny sandwiches. Tom T. Hall was sitting in a corner, by the table. Everybody else was standing up and mingling. And there was a door leading to another room where there was a whole bunch of other people. I looked down at the table. I was starving because I didn’t hardly eat anything—I gave it all to the kids. Tom T. Hall saw me look at the food. “What’s the matter, Roni?” he said. “You hungry?” “Yeah, sure am.” “Get you a plate, big plate. Pile it up.” Now, this is not long after Jeannie C. Riley recorded Tom T.’s “Harper Valley PTA.” He was the Tom T. Hall with a huge hit record. “Here, take a plate,” he said. “Pull a chair up.” “You’re not supposed to sit down at the hors d’oeuvres table.” “Who cares? Sit down. You’re hungry, eat. Eat all you want. Do it.” Tom T.’s got a soul and can really understand downtrodden folk. He deserves his name, Nashville’s Storyteller. He’s written one hit song after pressing on / 131 another about ordinary people just living ordinary lives. I perform a lot of those songs—like “Clayton Delaney,” about the old drunken guitarist and the young boy he encouraged, and “Old Dogs and Children and Watermelon Wine,” about a janitor’s advice about life. Anyway, I sat down and Tom T. filled my plate up. I ate sandwiches and more sandwiches and all kinds of little hors d’oeuvres. Then Tom T. leaned back in his chair. “Roni, you should be on Hee Haw,” he said. “I’d like to be on Hee Haw. Yeah, I’d like that.” “The producer of Hee Haw is in that room there. His name’s Sam Lovullo . You are Hee Haw. You should go in there and say, ‘Hey, I’m Roni Stoneman. You need me.’” “Oh, I can’t go in there and bother him.” Now at that time I still had a big space in the front of my teeth and I had my crooked eye. Besides being skinny as a rail. I could walk up to a wall and my two hipbones would hit the wall before my tummy hit. And I was just weakened down, beat down. “C’mon, I’ll take you in there,” Tom T. said. And he did. Sam Lovullo was talking to three other men. “Sam . . .” said Tom. “Yeah, Tom, what can I do for you?” “I want you to meet Roni Stoneman. She should be on Hee Haw.” “Oh?” “Yeah, she should be on Hee Haw. Hee Haw needs this girl.” “Hi,” I said. And I grinned. Sam looked at me. “You are just what we need,” he said. “We have all the pretty girls we want.” This was something of a common refrain with those guys! “You oughta come see us,” he went on. “We need a character actress .” I didn’t know what a character actress meant. I didn’t know anything about that kind of thing. I was just stark-naked stress, walking around in a stupor. I left the room in a daze. Later, I took some sandwiches home, and some other food. Tom T. packed me a bag. “Here, take it,” he said. 132 / pressing on Six months afterwards Sam Lovullo contacted me to come do a “reading .” I didn’t know exactly what a “reading” was, but I told George that I had to go down for it. He drove me to the producers’ office. And all the way down there from Smyrna to Nashville—it’s about thirty-five miles—he was yelling at me, “Don’t act stupid! Don’t act dumb! Don’t use bad grammar.” In fact everything he told me not to do was what they wanted. But I didn’t realize this. By the time I got down there, I was a wreck, scared to death. When I walked in the office, there was Sam and another producer and the director, and the people who created the show, John Aylesworth and Frank Peppiatt. George went in with me. The producers said, “We want a skinny Marjorie Main.” “That’s Ma Kettle, isn’t it?” I said. “Yeah.” “Well, she used to be my favorite actress.” So they gave me this paper and told me to read some lines. I said, “Umm, umm.” And then I tried to read, with good grammar and all. And I said, “Is that all right?” I didn’t ask them. I looked at George. Because I didn’t want to get yelled at. I was in that room for about an hour, reading those lines and knowing I wasn’t doing a good job. It was a horrible experience. Sam finally said, “Um, that’ll be fine. You’ll hear from me.” George cussed me all the way back to Smyrna. How dumb I was, how stupid of me not to do anything right. We got home and he went into the bedroom and drank ’til he passed out. He was still asleep the next morning after I got the older kids off to school. Georgia was a little baby. I fed her and gave her a bottle and put her back in her crib. Then I went into the closet in the kids’ bedroom and I started praying. This may sound corny but this was my prayer: “Dear God, please help me. If I had this job I wouldn’t have to play nightclubs and honky-tonks. I’d have money enough to buy food and things that the children need for school. And I wouldn’t have to be away from them so much. In Jesus’ name, help me to get this job. Make the man call and give me a second chance.” I prayed for about an hour and a half right in the clothes, tears streaming down my face. Then I quit crying and got up and did all the housework and picked up Georgia and played with her. Two days later Sam got in touch with me again. “I want you to come down here without your husband,” said Sam. pressing on / 133 “I don’t have no way to get down there unless he brings me.” “You can’t get down here?” “No, sir, I don’t have a driver’s license.” “Okay,” he said, “I’ll tell you what. Come with him. We have a suite up there at the Ramada Inn, and Gordie, who’s the guy that will play the character’s husband, can take you up there to read with you. We’ll pretend that we need to see George for business and keep him here.” So that’s what happened. Me and Gordie sat down at a little table in the suite at the Ramada Inn. “Now Roni, like we said before, this is a Marjorie Main, Ma Kettle kind of character,” Gordie explained. “So we want you to sound like that.” Well, I knew her voice because I remembered her so well in Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town. And I used to imitate her when I was a child. But it wasn’t only Ma Kettle that I would imitate, it was also a woman who sounded just like her, Mrs. Crigger. Mrs. Crigger was a neighbor. I believe she was originally from West Virginia, from the mountains. She had seven sons, and they lived in a place called Miller’s Bottom, not far from our house in Carmody Hills. Momma would get after my brothers for going there because the Crigger boys drank and were wild. I loved watching Mrs. Crigger. Momma would say to me, “Now, don’t go and bother that poor old woman. I don’t want you causing her any more problems and being in her way.” Then Momma would say, “Poor thang, she just don’t know any better.” And first chance I got, I’d go sneak off over there to watch. Mrs. Crigger dipped snuff—sometimes it was dry, and sometimes it was wet. She would yell, and a big puff of it would come out of her mouth. She would be trying to control her sons, but they were all doing awful things, drinking, hollering, stomping around. She’d say, “Fightin’, you ornery cusses . . . ?” And once she got the shotgun and she shot the chimney of the old wood stove right out of the roof. Sparks went everywhere and the house caught on fire, and they had to call the fire department down. But she was just trying to show her sons that it wasn’t a fitten thing to do, to celebrate Christmas by getting drunk and fighting. She would say, “Dadburnit, I don’t know what makes you boys all do like this! Dadburnit!” 134 / pressing on She was a total joy to me. She was short and she wore brogan shoes, and, as I grew older, I thought she would have been perfect for Li’l Abner , as Mammy Yokum. I dearly loved her. So when I walked home, I’d be practicing her voice. I’d say, “Dadburnit, git outta the way!” to some squirrel or chipmunk. “Dadburnit, don’t you hear me? Quit actin’ like that!” I was about nine, ten years old. And I would practice her body language, her gestures. She would take her forearm and swipe it across her mouth. She’d just sling it, and the snuff would fly right onto the long apron she wore over an old cotton dress. Anyway, back to Gordie and the Ramada Inn. “I can do that Ma Kettle voice,” I said, “’cause I used to do that for drunks fighting when I was playing honky-tonks.” “Well, let’s hear it.” “All right: ‘Dadburnit, settle down y’all! I mean it now! Pa, git over hyar.’” It was the voice of Ma Kettle, but of course it was also the voice of Mrs. Crigger. “That’s just what we want!” said Gordie. He was holding a paper, and he said, “Can you do a reading of . . . ?” “I don’t know how to do a reading, but I know how to read.” “Well, just do these lines with that voice.” And I did. We walked back down to Channel Five, went in the back door, and Gordie said, “She’s perfect, Sam.” Well, that was the way Sam Lovullo was—he had known that I was so beat down and intimidated by George I could never do anything right with him around. So I was cast as Ida Lee Nagger, the mountain woman at the ironing board. And that gesture of wiping the snuff by slinging my arm across my mouth became one of my trademarks. What I tried to get across with Ida Lee is a funny mountain woman that’s standing up for herself. Laverne’d badmouth me about my cooking , and I’d say, “What are you talkin’ about? My cookin’s the best in the world!” Most of our skits took place in a kitchen. They would bring in pork and beans and cornbread from Cracker Barrel. And Gordie’d sit there and stir it on this tin plate. And he’d say, “Dadblame it now, Ida pressing on / 135 Lee, get it right this time. I’ve eaten half my beans. I’m eatin’ the props here!” The ironing board was always sitting there with this old eight-pound flat iron. I had it where it had a rag over it, like it was awfully hot and I was having a hard time picking it up because of the heat. One time they had misplaced my rag, so I said, “Aw, it don’t matter. We’ll do it without .” And then I got letters—“Where’s the rag?” “How come Ida Lee’s not using the rag over her iron?” I immediately got a rag. The fans of Hee Haw were the most loyal, wonderful fans in the world. They noticed everything. Another example, my way-too-big socks that I had on with bedroom slippers—the fans would write in if one sock was dirtier than the other one. We’d get letters all the time about Ida Lee and Laverne. They were really beloved characters. And people would come up to us at shows and say, “That’s just like my husband and me!” “My Gosh, that’s just like us!” I felt that I did that part well. Why? Because it really was my life. And what wasn’t, I had learned from watching Mrs. Crigger. Ida Lee became a hillbilly icon. We taped twice a year, June to July and October to November. It was very concentrated. They’d give us our checks on the last day of the taping. We didn’t tape much on weekends, at least I didn’t. I did shows in some nearby state, air shows, country fairs. I’d be coming back late Sunday night, and still have to be ready early Monday morning, on camera by eight, seven if we were going to overdub our voices to make it sound fuller. We’d sometimes do twenty-eight Ida Lee and Lavernes in one morning, just one after another, the best we could. I had other parts besides the Ironing Board Lady. I was Mophead, the hotel maid, with the mop head. And then sometimes I was Roni, with the pony tails, playing the banjo. And then they had me as the exercising gal in a skit called “Fit as a Fiddle.” The girls would get up there and they would dance around, looking gorgeous. I had a 1920s type bathing suit on, and a bathing cap. I was supposed to look awful, and I did. But I could do anything I wanted with my exercising. So I’d jump up and down, sort of mocking the gorgeous girls, but mainly creating my own daffy character. I was having all kinds of fun. But one of the funniest experiences occurred when I was doing Ida 136 / pressing on Lee. I was late for work. I’m thinking, Oh my God, I’m running late. I took the baby to the babysitter, now I gotta get back here, and I got this to do, blah, blah, blah. Anybody who’s been a mother knows what that’s like. I thought, I might as well wear Ida Lee into work. That’ll save me some minutes when I arrive. And maybe Sam will think I’ve already been there or I wouldn’t be dressed like that. So I put Ida Lee’s outfit on, and I put the darkness under my eyes—on the place that nowadays I try to lighten up! When I walked in, they were breaking for lunch, that’s how late I was. I think somebody like Roy Clark had to do their songs over. They did all the filming in segments. Then Sandy Liles would do the editing, putting it all together. That was the talented part. The other part, what we did, was all foolish and fun. But, boy, little Sandy was some editor! Anyway, back to that day at Hee Haw. The girls were going out because the fire department was going to give us a brunch. Well, we had that brunch with some mighty handsome firemen. The other girls had their cute little dresses on, with their chests pushed up. And I’m sitting there dressed as Ida Lee, in the old robe and the wig with rags in it. On the way back, the girls somehow got a little ahead of me. And just as I reached the edge of the curb to turn in to the Hee Haw studio, three plainclothes policemen jumped out and they grabbed me by the arm. “Wha . . .?” I cried. “What are you doing?” “Police Department,” said one, showing me his badge. “Who threw you out the car, lady? Who did it?” (This was in the early days of Hee Haw before everybody became so recognizable.) “Nobody threw me out of a car! Nobody!” “Oh yes, somebody did. C’mon now. Just tell us who it was. We’ll take care of it for you.” “No, sir, I promise with all my heart, nobody threw me out. I’m getting ready to go on stage . . .” “You don’t have to be afraid. Who did it? Who’s treatin’ you this way?” “No, no, really. You come down to Hee Haw, right over there. They’ll tell you.” Someone finally said, “Okay,” and they marched me over to the studio . They had me under both arms, practically dragging me. pressing on / 137 “See?” I said. “See, there’s Kenny Price. See, there’s Gailard Sartain. Kenny, tell them I’m here to do a part in the show. They think I’ve been thrown out in the street.” “No, no, no, she belongs with us,” said Kenny. “She belongs here.” Now Kenny Price was a great big heavyset guy. But he was wearing a little boy’s cowboy outfit, sheriff’s department, with a great big ol’ tin star, short britches, knee socks. And Gailard’s wearing one of his hillbilly costumes. The policeman looks at Kenny, and then he looks at Gailard. “I’m not so sure about you two either,” he says. Then Archie Campbell comes out. “No, Officer,” he says, “she really does belong with us.” Archie had his barbershop outfit on and that cigar in his mouth. The policeman stares at Archie. “I’m not so sure about you either.” In the end they had to take me inside and talk to Sam. Everybody laughed about that for years. I want to talk a little about some of the other actors on the show because they are beloved by millions of people all over the country. The girls were wonderful, the Hee Haw Honeys, with their chests, like whoa, Dolly Partons, and always a diamond or pearl in their cleavage. I never heard of the word “cleavage” until I got on Hee Haw. Archie Campbell told me what it meant. People would always say, “Those beautiful girls,” and they were beautiful. In one skit the girls laid on the porch, and there would be Grandpa Jones, and they’d say, “Grandpa, do you think . . . ?” And the camera would pull back from these beautiful girls laying there, focusing on one after another, laying sideways, with them bras that was just tight as they could be around them. The girls suffered a lot to get that look. They’d come running backstage and throw the bras in a box where there’d be laundry. They’d say, “Oh, God, this bra—I’ll be so glad to get it off.” I kept thinking, How come I’m not fluffy up there on my chest? I’m just a boneyard. What can I do to get that look? There must be a trick to this. So I tried one or two of the bras on. It didn’t work. The pushups really did nothing but bring up what the girls already had. And I just had the bone. But those girls were wonderful in spirit and soul also. And they were 138 / pressing on great actresses—they knew how to read their lines and they were total professionals. Misty Rowe was the one who had that high-pitched voice—“Hi, everybody .” Sometimes you wanted to pinch her head off, it was so cute. All the fellers liked it—“Now, it’s time for me to tell my bedtime stories.” But Misty’s real personality? Well, she’s the kindest, most giving, gentle gal ever. She took care of her grandfather up ’til the very end, never had him put in a nursing home. Then she got married to this guy named Jim, a soap opera star, and they had a little girl. Misty had gone to acting school and had lived in L.A. And she was smart. She would give you advice like a lawyer. One day she said, “I’m working up a show, Roni.” And I thought, What is she gonna do after she does the “Hi, everybody”? But I encouraged her, and we did some shows together. She sang, Oh you stepped on my heart / and squashed that sucker flat, and she sounded good. She wore a little cowgirl outfit that she had made herself, pink satin, and a hat, and boots that came way up high, and rhinestones all over. She looked just darling. The audiences loved her. Then there was Gunilla, Nurse Goodbody. She was also beautiful, she could sing very very good, and she was funny. Just by giggling herself, she could make anybody giggle and not be able to stop. She was also never insecure with herself on stage. She was married to a guy named Allen that had his own construction company. Last time I heard she was living in Boston. She had two boys, and adopted a wonderful little girl named Amber, who she sent to the finest schools. Gunilla is a mother type. She looked so beautiful, but she had a mother’s mind, and a caretaking way about her. Lulu, who played the fat girl, was also very talented. I really liked her work, and I would try to learn from her. I would watch her expressions, her eyes, and think, Ah she’s good. She was sensitive too. I felt sorry for her because she wanted so desperately for a man to love her like a man should love a woman.And Lulu was a beautiful woman. There was none that had prettier eyes than Lulu, none that had prettier skin, none that had prettier hair. She dressed wonderful. She would wear the highest styles, even with her size. Lulu was not happy with her size. On camera you’d think she was pressing on / 139 okay. She knew how to put that over. But she was never satisfied with her weight or her love life. Her love life had not been good—she had been taken advantage of and hurt a lot. One day I came in the dressing room and Lulu was sitting there alone crying her heart out. I said, “Lulu, is there anything I can do? I hate to see you so sad.” So she told me a terrible thing that had happened with one of the men in her life. And she said, “Don’t tell anyone.” I said I wouldn’t, and I hugged her, and I said, “Just pray. That’s the only thing you can do. Just pray.” Linda Thompson. The most gorgeous woman in the world. Everything on her body was tan. Sometimes I’d get embarrassed and go into the bathroom to change because I had been raised in a modest environment —you don’t look at your body or you don’t show it much. But the Hee Haw girls, well their bodies were also their job, so they were more casual about not being covered up. Linda always wore gold chains around her waist. She became a very good mother when she married Bruce Jenner. She had two boys by him. When the kids went out to play at the Opryland, they would sneak through the door. They had to sneak out because she was a famous person and so was Bruce Jenner, and she was scared that someone was going to kidnap her children. When Marianne Gordon married Kenny Rogers, they had little Christopher Cody, and one time Christopher took off with Linda’s two. Three little boys on the loose. The parents were really scared. They were out hunting for hours for those children. Finally the kids came back—“Hi, Mom, we had fun today!” I loved Minnie Pearl. Everybody did. But she was a powerful woman, and you had to know where you belonged. No mugging when she was on stage. That was understandable. You don’t get into people’s way when they’re stars. And Miss Minnie was truly a star. She always considered herself Mrs. Henry Cannon, and Minnie Pearl only when she was working. She was from an upper class family, very proper, and had been trained in a finishing school like a true Southern belle. She thought of herself as not pretty. She’d say, “I know what I look like.” But she wasn’t jealous—she treated the pretty little girls on Hee Haw like they were her own children. And when she’d sit in the makeup room to have her makeup done, all the girls would gather around her, 140 / pressing on Miss Georgia, Miss Tennessee, Miss This and Miss That. They would make it a point to be there early enough to hear Miss Minnie’s stories. She would talk about when she was a young girl and what she had learned in her life. A lot of the advice was about men. Although she always told the girls to be careful, not to believe everything the menfolks said, she really didn’t badmouth them. She would declare, “I had a wonderful time in my life.” Miss Minnie was a man’s lady, she truly was. She loved to be around where all the boys were. After the stories, when she’d gotten her makeup and her hair done and put on her dress with the safety pin and her little Mary Jane shoes, she’d come cruising onto the set and she’d go right to her spot: “We’re gonna play now. Hee Haw’s All Jug Band.” Then we’d start playing. Miss Minnie would sing—Oh love, oh love, oh careless love. And she’d just beat the piano. She was a great character actress, and by then I understood exactly what that was. Although I got along real well with the girls on the program, I didn’t have much in common with them, other than Gunilla and Misty Rowe. I was not in the world of the girls on the show: Look at the beautiful dress I bought, or Here’s my new fingernail polish. I was in a world of take care of babies and work to bring home baby food. So in the studio I hung around with the men as much as the girls. Buck Owens always seemed to me like a businessman. He was 100 percent professional. He would say, “All right, boys and girls, let’s get this thing going. Let’s cut this chorus.” And he’d gather us all around the microphone. I never saw him drunk, or pilled or cocained up. He wasn’t that kind of guy. Now, when it came to his love life, he maybe had a weak moment. Anybody that talented usually does. So he might have had trouble with his lady friends. Like little Jana Jae, the fiddle player. And he might have followed her around the country, staring up at her when she did a show, like everybody said he was doing. Stare at her and beg her to come back home to him. She wouldn’t. She was married to him for about a week. But from what I was told, he had been living for a long time with this other woman, who had been on the road with him before. And when she found out that he married Jana Jae, she threw a big fit. And what I pressing on / 141 heard, and I don’t know whether it’s true, but that’s what everybody was saying, was that she beat him up, and he was in the hospital from it. His story was that he fell off of a horse in distraction when Jana Jae left him. The rumor was that Jana Jae left him because she didn’t know that he had been living with this woman, so it made her look like a fool. Gailard Sartain was the funniest man I ever knew. I loved to watch him perform. And I fell in love with him like a woman with a man. But I was also scared of him because he would change from one minute to another. He was extremely intelligent, a genius. But sometimes this is a problem. You’re more sensitive than the average bear, you sense all these emotions in other people, and you have to cope with that. On the side, he painted. His southwestern paintings were just beyond compare. But whenever Gailard had the blues, he really had the blues. One day he looked extremely sad. “What’s the matter, Gailard?” “It’s my little girl.” “What happened?” “Well the other day I thought, Well, I’m going to draw something for her. So I drew a pair of socks and shoes on her bare feet with a magic marker. I even drew shoestrings.” “That’s real cute!” “Well, she went to her friend’s house, and when she came back, she was all upset and crying. She said, ‘My friend’s father told me you were silly, a silly man.’” And Gailard was hurt about that real bad. He loved his children so much. (He said it took about three months for that stuff to wear off his little girl’s foot.) Roy Clark I knew before joining Hee Haw. We were friends back in the old days, when we Stonemans were playing the Famous Bar and Grill in Washington. Roy would often play our nights off. Which is what makes this story I’m going to tell you strange. I still don’t understand it. Now, after awhile I was not only playing the comic parts, but was also in the Banjo Band. And one day we were going to film a whole bunch of banjo songs. So we were messing around before, five or six banjo players, all walking around, tuning and warming up. And I went over to Roy, and he looked at me: “Hi, Ronald J.” And he went cha na na cha na na 142 / pressing on on his banjo, and I went cha na na cha na na, “Dueling Banjos.” Then I got faster and faster, because that’s what I always did. Well, Roy was picking along with me. Now Roy is one of the greatest guitar players in the world. On the guitar nobody could catch him, nobody, never. But he hadn’t been used to playing this particular tune on the banjo. So I’m zooming along. And then Roy holds my hand up, like “The winner, the champion!” “Thanks, Roy, that was fun,” I said. And Sam Lovullo came up and he walked me away from the group of people that was picking. “Roni, you shouldn’t have done that.” “Done what, Sam?” “You shouldn’t have outran Roy.” “I didn’t outrun him.” “Yes, you did. He even held your hand up.” “That was just in fun. It wasn’t taped anyway.” “Oh yes it was. We taped it.” “You did? Well, erase it, just erase it. Don’t use it.” I was scared. Roy was the star. I didn’t want to lose my job. “No, no, it’s all right. We’re gonna let it go.” “Don’t do that, Sam! I didn’t know you were taping.” “Yeah, we were. It’s all right. But don’t do it again.” So they went ahead with the rest of the taping, and, needless to say, I was real subdued. In my family it didn’t matter who got the applause just so somebody got it. But when you were with a group of people like the Hee Haw bunch, you had to be extra careful. And I hadn’t realized that enough. That was June/July. Then the fall taping time came around, and I got a call from Al Gallico. Al Gallico was an Italian from New York, and he had a publishing company, Al Gallico Music, with offices in Nashville, L.A., London. At that time he was publishing everything that Tammy Wynette and George Jones recorded. Gallico was an old friend and he knew about my family and he knew how hard we had worked. He was always encouraging me. So Al Gallico calls. “Hey, Dollface . . .” That’s the way he talked, with an exaggerated pressing on / 143 Italian accent. He was warm and funny, a wonderful man. “Hey, Dollface, come on down to Mario’s. I’m gonna tell you somethin’ important. I’m gonna buy you some dinna, and tell you somethin’ important.” So I went down to Mario’s. “Dollface,” said Gallico, “you gotta listen to me, Dollface. They’re so damn jealous of you down at Hee Haw they don’t know what to do.” “What’s the matter?” “Well, I rode back from L.A. with one of the writers of Hee Haw. He told me that some guy connected with managing Roy came into a meeting , and he said that he did not want for Roni Stoneman to ever play beside Roy Clark in the Banjo Band again.” My heart went down to my stomach. I just felt that I had lost my job. I thought, Roy won’t do me that way. But I felt that Roy did not know about it. I would like to think he didn’t, that he’s not that kind of a person . Because, God knows, he was the king. I was just one of the workers. I worked hard on that show, I would lose fifteen pounds every time we taped, but Roy was a star. So I said, “Oh, my God, what am I going to do, Gallico?” “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart, don’t worry about it. Just be careful .” The fall taping started about three days later. I was walking on eggshells , moving very quietly in the hallways. I was keeping my distance even though I hadn’t seen my friends for the whole summer, and we had a lot to talk about—what’s happened to you since I saw you, I want to tell you something funny, such stuff. So then it came time to film the Banjo Band segments. Now the Banjo Band would always stand on a flatbed truck. The rest of the cast would sit on bales of hay, watching the Banjo Band and clapping their hands to the music. Well, I started to go up there on the flatbed, and they said, “No, no, no, no, you come here.” They sat me down on a bale of hay. Then the floor manager came over with a piece of that white Red Cross tape, and he taped my banjo strings! I sat there and I almost cried. But you don’t cry. Crying girls don’t make it in such a place. So I just sat. And I stared straight ahead, and I thought, Well, what do I do now? I wanted to get up and walk out. But 144 / pressing on I thought of Daddy, and I heard an echo in my mind say, “You stay right where you are, girl, you got children to feed.” But they weren’t finished. Then they came with paper tape, and they made an X on the floor and put my foot on it, made another X and put my other foot on it, so I couldn’t dance while I was sitting down. I could just swing my knees a little. And then I had to pretend to play. No one ever said anything to me about it. They told me my story with showing me. Now, as I said, I always felt that Roy himself wasn’t really in on that whole thing. Because Roy’s a great guy. One time he said to me, “Ronald J., you know back when I was a kid and you lived in Carmooody Hills”—that’s the way he pronounced it—“I used to hang around outside , just to listen to your brothers playing.” “Well, why didn’t you come on and join ’em?” “Well . . .” That was Roy. In spite of being such a big star, he was real modest, and private. And he’s always been super-generous. He recently got a big humanitarian award for his work with charities. Anyway, the men I hung around with most were Grandpa Jones and Stringbean. With Grandpa and String I felt a special kindredship. They seemed like, I don’t know, I guess my Grandpa Frost mixed in with Daddy. I talked about Grandpa Jones and how nice he was to me at the Constitution Hall contest. Well later I guess Grandpa sort of forgot about how old I was because he tried to fix me up with his son Mark. Afterwards, I tried to fix Mark up with my daughter! Is this getting confusing? Reminds me of that song “I’m My Own Grandpa.” That was one Grandpa Jones often sang. He never actually was a natural grandpa though he did have stepgrandchildren. The age thing was bound to be confusing with him of course. He had been making himself up to look old since he was twenty-two. Stringbean would be wearing those rolled britches, the long-waisted pants, and he would really look funny. He and Grandpa were good friends. I would follow them around. One day they were sitting there at Hee Haw talking about hunting and fishing. Stringbean was always telling about how during the Depression years up in Kentucky, they didn’t have any food at all. He said, “I used to take my slingshot and kill crows. pressing on / 145 Every time I see a crow, I think that’s what kept me alive those years.” Well, they were talking about hunting, and then they started talking about this set of books called Foxfire. These books came about because there was a man who was teaching in Georgia, and he didn’t know how to reach the mountain children. So he decided to teach them about their own culture, and he started writing the Foxfire series. The books tell you how to do everything that they did in the mountains. Any New Yorker or person from Chicago could learn the mountain ways just by reading these books. They teach you how to hunt, how to live off the land, how to make a fiddle, how to get cane for chairs, and how those old ladies would make their butter like I saw my grandma do—you skim off the top and you dip down deep and start churning and churning. Well, String would say, “Yeah, I been reading that Foxfire last night.” They were so proud that someone from Johns Hopkins University wrote about our culture. After I heard String and Grandpa, I went out and got the books, and I read them all, every one of them. And I think a similar kind of teaching maybe would work in some of the city schools where there’s a lot of bad things going on, people beating up on each other because there’s all different nationalities. The teacher could say, “I want you all to go home and talk to your mother and father about your family background and the story of their lives.” And then the kids would get some pride in their heritage. Because this Foxfire series really made me feel proud of my culture. And the different heritages would be interesting to all the kids and make them understand each other better. Stringbean was the first one to mention my name on Hee Haw. I worked there awhile before anybody knew who that Ironing Board Lady was. And when I held the banjo, I would just stand around and hope for a turn because I wasn’t hired for banjo music. But String got me playing more, and he would introduce me, “My little friend from woman’s lib, Roni Stoneman!” It made Hee Haw look more up to date to have some woman up there. So I was able to get in with the Banjo Band because of String. Then when String was murdered, I took his place. I can’t even remember the exact year that happened, it was in the early seventies, because it was so tragic and so emotional to me. He and his wife Estelle were just the 146 / pressing on most delightful human beings that lived on this earth. Now, whenever String would come in the back door of the studio, Roy Clark would say, “String how much you take for your britches?” And String would say, “Oh,” and he’d pat the bib of his bib overalls, “about seventy-five.” And I’d say, “What do you mean by seventy-five?” And he’d say, “Well, just seventy-five,” and he’d pat his bib overalls again. Then one day I went to Roy. I said, “Roy, how come you’re always asking String how much he’d take for his britches?” And Roy said, “He’s always got sixty-five to seventy-five grand in them.” String said that was in case some of his friends needed money. “I don’t believe in banks since the Depression years,” he would add. Estelle also carried a lot of money on her. The musicians all knew that, and String and Estelle were never harmed. Of course we all also knew that he could shoot good because he was a hunter, as in those stories of him killing the crows. Though there ain’t a Kentuckian alive up in those hills that don’t consider themselves one of the best shots that ever happened. You take a mountain man, and you tell him that he’s not a good shot, he’ll come after you to prove you wrong! I was talking to String one day, at Hee Haw, sitting on a bale of hay, during a break. I said, “String, why don’t you take some of your money and go with Estelle to the Riviera? Just think, you could take a photo and say, ‘Stringbean and Estelle at the French Riviera.’” And then I went on, “From what I was told, they don’t wear bathing suits over there.” He took his pipe out of his mouth, looked at me sideways, kinda cocked his right eye, and grinned a little bit. I said, “Don’t you ever want to take her somewhere romantic-like, and put her in one of those little gondolas around the river? That would be fun. Spend some of the money you carry around in your bibs.” And then I said, “String, seriously, honey, you ought to be real careful.” He said, “Well, I’ve been doin’ it for many years. I have my protection,” and he patted his chest, where he had his gun. The last night I saw String, I was backstage at the Opry. Jimmy Dickens came over to him and said, “String, be careful going home, be careful drivin’.” This was so strange, that he would say that. And I went over to him, and I said, “String, we’re gonna walk you all out to the car, you and Estelle.” We got to the car, and I said, “Now you be careful.” “Oh, pressing on / 147 I got my little baby with me,” he said, patting the gun. I said again, “Be careful.” And him and Estelle drove off, with me and Jimmy Dickens waving to them. And that was strange too. We didn’t usually do that. Grandpa found the bodies. He was to go fishing with Stringbean about 4:30, 5:00, the next morning. String was lying on the porch. He had set the banjo Uncle Dave Macon had given him down at the door. Evidently he sensed something was amiss. He probably said, “Get out! Go!” Estelle must’ve started running to the car. They shot him before he even got in the door. And she was shot in the back of the head four or five times. People put out rewards.And everybody started getting dogs for their places. I think Jimmy Dickens had five Doberman pinschers in his yard, and a fence around it. Detectives and the FBI, the federal FBI as well as the Tennessee office, worked on the case. And next thing you know, they caught the robbers. The robbers didn’t take a bit of money. They couldn’t find any. It was on him and on her, and some of it was in an old costume bag, and some in the freezer. The robbers were not Nashville people who knew that String and Estelle kept vast amounts of money on them. They were just three men from Greenbriar, Tennessee. They had been waiting at Stringbean’s house while he played the Grand Ole Opry. They were listening to him on the radio and waiting for him to get home. The funeral was the saddest one I’ve ever been to in my life. The fire department and the police had on their dress uniforms. They stood with their hats over their hearts. And of course the mountain people, that loved him so much, were there, standing silent as the coffins in the procession went by. There was no music at the funeral. I just couldn’t believe that. But String belonged to a church that didn’t believe in it. They had singing. The thing that made me sad too was that they buried him in a suit. Everybody in Nashville said, “He’s not gonna rest! He’s not gonna rest in peace in a suit!” Aparticularly tearing thing was the flowers. Stringbean did not know how to drive a car, but he bought a new Cadillac every year. He said that was for Uncle Sam and because the fans expected it—he never used it except to go play music in. Estelle was the one did the driving, and at 148 / pressing on the funeral, to honor her especially, Audrey Williams sent a huge flower arrangement in the shape of a steering wheel. Well, when we came into the studio the first day of taping for the following season, everybody was real quiet. And then Roy said, “We sure are going to miss String, aren’t we?” And that was it. You didn’t have to say anything more. When we were doing the Banjo Band, they had me stand exactly on the spot where String had stood. I felt the hair raise on my arms, and I felt weepy, like it was hallowed ground. It makes me embarrassed to tell what I was thinking, it sounds real sentimental, but I bet it’s what anybody in my place would have been thinking: I won’t let you down, String, I’m gonna do the best I can. String was our leader, him and Grandpa. People may have thought Roy Clark and Buck Owens were the leaders because they were the big stars. But really String and Grandpa were—just on account of being the kind of people they were. And I adored them. : The other day I took a friend to see the Nashville studio where we filmed Hee Haw. We wandered into one of the rooms and there was a guy named Larry, who had worked on the set, on the technical side. Those people on the technical side and those people on the production side, they really made the show. I can’t say enough in praise of them. Anyway, Larry gave me a big hug, and he said to my friend, “Those were great days. The people who worked on the show—well, we were just like family.” And I was practically crying, remembering, because it was true. We had our tragic losses, we had our little petty squabbles—just like family. But we also had fun, and wonderful caring and companionship—just like family. When we’d first come in to start each session’s filming, there’d be that big buzz of conversation I talked about, with everyone asking everyone else what they did in the past six months, and how their families were. And we’d tell each other what plans we had for the future. I’d say something like “Oh, and I think I’m gonna get me out to L.A. and see if I can get some shows at the big places there.” Everyone would listen, really listen to each other. And be encouraging about your endeavors, pressing on / 149 just the way I was with Misty Rowe and her plans for her show. No one would say, “Well, that ain’t gonna work out” or anything negativistic. Thinking back, that’s what I remember most, everybody really listening and being respectful of each other. We’d encourage each other about small things too. There was one particular incident that sticks in my mind. The Hee Haw people were going to a big elegant party, and we girls were all wearing real fancy dresses. I was wearing the only one I had, and it was okay, but needless to say I didn’t fill it out. I was feeling real bad about the way I looked, all scrawny and ugly, and I was thinking, Well, I’ll just hide away. Being around all those beautiful girls could be depressing. I was playing ugly characters, that was my job, and I understood that, but still sometimes it was stressing on my soul. Well, Marianne came over to me and she said, “You get right out there. You look beautiful! You have the figure of a model. You just go right out there!” We were also considerate of each other’s family problems. I talked about my consoling Gailard when he was sad about his daughter. And there was once when Cathy Baker was especially sympathetic to me. She knew I was going through a difficult time (with my kids), and she said, “C’mon. We’re going to have dinner, just you and me, and I’m going to talk to you.” She was a very busy girl. That’s partly because she never thought she did enough as an actress on the show. So she’d also work on the wardrobe, be a Gal Friday kind of person. But in spite of all Cathy had to do, she took the time to go out to dinner with me and tell me about a friend who had a similar situation to mine. And everyone treated my kids kindly. When Georgia was ten and wrote a little book called “My Mother, The Entertainer,” lots of the Hee Haw people signed it with nice messages. One of them reads “Georgia, someday you’ll be a great writer. And then I’ll say I knew her when she first started and I’ll get your autograph. Love, Minnie Pearl.” When Georgia graduated from high school, Gordie sent her a present with a note saying it was from her Hee Haw father. We fed off each other’s compassion and each other’s sense of humor —we were always having fun. To give one more example, and this may seem strange, but this was at Junior Samples’s funeral. Junior was a wonderful comedian and friend, and we were all very upset when 150 / pressing on he died, none more than Diane Goodman, one of the most beautiful of the Hee Haw girls. She and Junior had had a special sort of relationship because she was a former Miss Georgia and he came from Georgia. She was crying, crying. “I can’t go in there, Roni. I can’t look at him. I just can’t.” “Now, you don’t have to, Diane, if you don’t want to. Junior would understand. But if you think you can, I’ll go with you, and we’ll look at him together.” “Would you, Roni?” And then we joked for a minute about how people are always saying as they peer into the casket, “Waalll, now don’t he look natural!” When that’s the last thing the poor victim looks after the embalmers have finished with him! And I promised Diane I wouldn’t say that. So we go into the room and gaze in the casket at poor Junior. And after a minute along comes a prominent female member of the Hee Haw cast, who shall remain nameless, and looks down real solemn-like and drawls, “Waalll, don’t he look natural!” Diane and I burst into giggles. And we knew wherever Junior was, he was laughing too. Larry was right. We were like family, and those were great times. I was a very lucky lady to be a part of that. ...