Paramount signed him to a film contract in 1937 after one of their talent scouts caught his performance in New York's aptly-named Hollywood Restaurant. He made his big-screen debut in the Warner Brothers' short The City's Slicker (1936), playing a hillbilly mimic pursuing stardom in the big city. In the 1930s, he was active on the famed radio broadcast National Barn Dance, where his fellow players included future Petticoat Junction (1963) colleagues Smiley Burnette, Pat Buttram, and Curt Massey. Initially compelled to pick up farm work in Kansas, he continued to perform at every chance until he impressed the manager of a tent show and earned himself a $15 a-week-gig (roughly $280 today.) Adopting the stage name Rufe Davis, he toured with such vaudeville groups as Weaver Brothers and Elviry and The Radio Rubes and eventually landed in New York, performing with Xavier Cugat, and at numerous theatres and nightclubs. Inspired by the possibility of life as a performer rather than a cotton farmer, he left home to try his hand at show business. After teaching himself some basic guitar chords, he won $5 in a local talent contest. As an adult, he carried a tape recorder with him so that he could record various noises and perfect his repertoire. Mimicry would become his trademark he later claimed to be able to imitate over 200 different sounds, though he regretted that he never mastered the sound of a piano. Although he was a fullback on the Mangum High football team, Rufus was more interested in practicing his imitations than schoolwork or sports and he dropped out in the tenth grade. He began imitating animal sounds at a young age and proved himself to be a natural mimic. Rufus Eldon Davidson was born in Vinson, Oklahoma on December 2, 1908, one of twelve children. Perhaps best remembered today for the '60s sitcom Petticoat Junction (1963), Rufe Davis had a long and varied career in show business, winding from an Oklahoma farm to the bright lights of New York and ultimately to Hollywood, including stops around the world.
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