show before going to school. On weekends, he and his
older brother Jerry appeared with the Opry road shows
that came through Virginia and Tennessee, and performed
before movies at a local theatre. He was in first grade
when they performed at a USO show for President Truman
and eight years old when they entered a local contest
and won the chance to audition for the nation’s biggest
amateur show. “There are two people I know of,” he says
with a laugh, “who flunked ‘Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour’
auditions: Elvis Presley and me.”
That disappointment was a minor setback in a childhood
that included serious health struggles. Wayne’s severe
bouts with asthma forced the family to move from Virginia
to Phoenix, Arizona, where he recovered and continued his
career. The stamina that would see him through this and
many other difficult periods he credits to his Powahatan
Indian/Irish father, who overcame his own poverty stricken
background, and his Cherokee Indian/German mother.
Throughout the rest of his school years he performed on
local TV shows, in addition to his own TV show in Phoenix
(while maintaining a B average). Toward the end of his
junior year, a Las Vegas booking agent saw his TV show
and took Wayne and Jerry to Las Vegas for an audition.
They arrived in 1958 with $20 between them, but the tryout
led to “a two-week job” at the Fremont Hotel & Casino that
lasted for 46 weeks.
They did six shows a day, six days a week, and Wayne
had to find creative ways to keep the workload from taking
its toll on his voice. “I kept learning to play new instruments
simply to give me some vocal relief,” he explains. A talented
multi-instrumentalist, Wayne plays 13 instruments, many of
which are worked into his shows.
Wayne was invited to national TV when Jackie Gleason,
for whom he performed at a Phoenix luncheon, took him
to New York for an appearance on his network television