Roy Clark

Clark was born April 15, 1933, in Meherrin, Virginia, one of five children born to Hester Linwood Clark and Lillian Clark (Oliver). His father was a tobacco farmer. He spent his childhood in Meherrin and Great Kills, Staten Island, New York City, where his father moved the family to take jobs during the Great Depression. When Clark was 11 years old, his family moved to a home on 1st Street SE in the Washington Highlands neighborhood of Washington, D.C., after his father had found work at the Washington Navy Yard. Clark's father was a semi-professional musician who played banjo, fiddle and guitar, and his mother played piano. The first musical instrument Clark ever played was a four-string cigar box with a ukulele neck attached to it, which he picked up in elementary school. His father taught Clark to play guitar when Roy was 14 years old and soon Clark was playing banjo, guitar and mandolin. "Guitar was my real love, though," Clark later said. "I never copied anyone, but I was certainly influenced by them; especially by George Barnes. I just loved his swing style and tone." Clark also found inspiration in other local D.C. musicians. "One of the things that influenced me growing up around Washington, D.C., in the '50s was that it had an awful lot of good musicians. And I used to go in and just steal them blind. I stole all their licks. It wasn't until years later that I found out that a lot of them used to cringe and say 'Oh, no! Here comes that kid again' He owned other planes, including a Mitsubishi MU-2, Stearman PT-17 and Mitsubishi MU-300 Diamond 1A business jet. ==Career==

Television '', 1968 Rising country music star Jimmy Dean asked Clark to join his band, the Texas Wildcats, in 1954. Clark was the lead guitarist, and made appearances on Dean's "Town and Country Time" program on WARL-AM and on WMAL-TV (after the show moved to television from radio in 1955). Clark competed in 1956 on ''Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts'', a variety show airing on CBS. It was his first network television appearance and he came in second. During Jack Paar's temporary absence from The Tonight Show in early 1960, Jimmy Dean was asked to guest-host the program. Dean asked Clark to appear on the last night of his guest-host stint and showcased Clark in two songs. Clark made his solo debut on The Tonight Show in January 1963. Subsequently, Clark appeared on The Beverly Hillbillies as a recurring character — actually two, as he played businessman Roy Halsey and Roy's mother, Myrtle. Once, in an episode of the Saturday evening Jackie Gleason Show dedicated to country music, Clark played a blistering rendition of "Down Home". Later, he appeared in an episode of The Odd Couple, where he played "Malagueña". In the mid-1960s, he was a co-host (along with Molly Bee and Rusty Draper) of a weekday daytime country variety series for NBC entitled ''Swingin' Country, which was canceled after two seasons. In 1969, Clark and Buck Owens debuted as hosts on the syndicated sketch comedy program Hee Haw, which aired from 1969 until 1997 and propelled Clark to stardom. During its tenure, Clark was a member of the Million Dollar Band and participated in a host of comedy sketches. In 1976, Arthur Fiedler conducted Evening at Pops with Roy Clark and the Boston Pops Orchestra. In 1983, Clark opened the Roy Clark Celebrity Theatre'' in Branson, Missouri, which was the "first venue linked permanently to a widely known entertainer" in the resort town. Clark frequently played in Branson during the 1980s and 1990s. He sold the venue in 1992 (now owned by the Hughes Brothers and renamed the Hughes American Family Theatre) and went back to a light touring schedule. Clark annually appeared with Ramona Jones and the Jones Family Band at their annual tribute to Clark's former Hee Haw co-star Grandpa Jones in Mountain View, Arkansas. On July 4, 1984, Roy played Washington D.C. along with several other acts to over 500,000 fans. Some of the other acts included Ringo Starr, the Beach Boys, Three Dog Night, George Jones and B.J. Thomas. Music In 1960, Clark began touring with rockabilly star Wanda Jackson and playing backup instrumentals on several of her recordings. Through Jackson, Clark met Jim Halsey. Clark signed with the Halsey Agency, which represented him for the remainder of his career. During this period, Jackson performed at the Golden Nugget casino in Las Vegas. Within two years, Clark had become a headliner in Vegas, and made numerous appearances there in the 1960s and 1970s. Clark's backup work for Jackson brought him to the attention of Capitol Records. He signed with Capitol and in 1962 released his first solo album, The Lightning Fingers of Roy Clark. The album won solid critical praise and "above-average" notice from fans. By the early 1970s, Clark was the highest-paid country music star in the United States, earning $7 million ($ in dollars) a year. He switched to Dot Records and again scored hits. He later recorded for ABC Records, which had acquired Dot and MCA Records, the latter of which then was allowed to absorb the ABC label. ==Endorsements==

Clark endorsed Mosrite, Gretsch and Heritage Guitars; the latter produced a signature model. In the 1980s, he served as a spokesman for Hunt's ketchup. ==Personal life==

Clark married Ruby Conley in 1954. They had a son, Roy Linwood Clark Jr. The couple divorced in 1957. Roy married Barbara Joyce Rupard on August 31, 1957. They remained wed until Roy's death in 2018. The couple had five children. Clark died on November 15, 2018, at age 85, at his Tulsa home from complications of pneumonia. ==Honors==

's A Conversation With... in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2014. By the early 1970s, Clark had been named "Entertainer of the Year" three times by the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association (CMA). The Academy also named him "Best Lead Guitar Player" and "Best Comedy Act", while the CMA named him an "International Friendship Ambassador" in 1976 after Clark toured the Soviet Union. He played an annual benefit concert at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, the proceeds of which went to fund scholarships for aspiring musicians. Clark was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2009. In 2007, he was inducted into the Cheyenne Frontier Days Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Fiddlers Hall of Fame. Roy Clark was one of the founding inductees into the Virginia Musical Museum & Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2013. Wayne Newton, Ella Fitzgerald, The Carter Family, The Statler Brothers, Bruce Hornsby, Pearl Bailey and Ralph Stanley were the other founding inductees. ==Selected filmography==

Film and television • ''Swingin' Country'' 1966 NBC daytime variety series, co-starred with Rusty Draper and Molly Bee • Five episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies as "Cousin Roy" (1969) • 294 episodes of Hee Haw (1969–1997) • Swing Out, Sweet Land (1970) • The Flip Wilson Show (1971) • Sesame Street (1972) • Love, American Style (1973) (episode "Love and the Twanger Tutor" as Jesse Clemens) • The Odd Couple (1975) (episode "The Roy Clark Show" as Willie Boggs) • The Bell Telephone Jubilee (1976) • The Captain & Tennille Special (1976) • Fair Weather Friends (1977) • ''Hanna-Barbera's All-Star Comedy Ice Revue'' (1978) • Matilda (1978) • The Muppet Show (1978) • Fifty Years of Country Music (1978) CBS television special, featuring Clark, Dolly Parton and Glen Campbell as co-hosts. • Austin City Limits (1980, 1982) • Epcot Center opening celebration (1982) • ''Disneyland's 30th Anniversary Celebration'' (1985) • Uphill All the Way (1986) • 6th Annual National Songwriter Awards (1986) • Freeway (1988) • The Grand Ole Opry 65th Anniversary (1991) • Gordy (1995) • The Grand Ole Opry 70th Anniversary (1996) • A Bing Crosby Christmas (1998) • Palo Pinto Gold (2009) ==Discography==

• 1970 – CMA – Comedian of the Year • 1972 – ACM – Entertainer of the Year • 1973 – ACM – Entertainer of the Year • 1973 – CMA – Entertainer of the Year • 1975 – CMA – Instrumental Group of the Year (with Buck Trent) • 1976 – CMA – Instrumental Group of the Year (with Buck Trent) • 1977 – CMA – Instrumentalist of the Year • 1978 – CMA – Instrumentalist of the Year • 1980 – CMA – Instrumentalist of the Year • 1982 – Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental Performance for his recording of Alabama Jubilee ==References==