A Class Act

Not only on stage but in the way he lives.....

Same Man, still Travellin'
Tommy Hunter figured his star would fade when his TV show was cancelled 15 years ago. He was wrong

GUY DIXON

From Monday's Globe and Mail

Tommy Hunter's home is in Guelph, Ont. But on his recent 70th birthday, he was on the phone from sunny Florida with a few stories to tell. One in particular was from back in the days of The Tommy Hunter Show, when Roy Rogers and Dale Evans came a-calling. The story had all the Tommy Hunter requisites of family, hospitality and a certain down-home classiness.

One day years ago, he says, Rogers and Evans happened to be over at the Hunters' for dinner during a stopover in Toronto, and Rogers got to talking about the office he kept back at his Roy Rogers museum. Whenever a group of tour buses would wheel in, Rogers would change into his cowboy boots, hat and guns and step out to greet the visitors, playing his Roy Rogers role.

“Now isn't that a great line,” Hunter said, “because he knew who he was. There's another side to him. He turns it off. And then he goes and gets ready to perform. Interesting!”

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