Long before Ice Cube and Jessica Simpson there was Will Rogers. For the generation that came of age after World War I, the amiable cowboy humorist from Oklahoma was the original multi-media star: He played on Broadway, made movies, had a radio show, wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column.

There was nobody who didn’t know Rogers, and few who didn’t like him.

Rogers best-known remark — that he never met a man he didn’t like — could perhaps be applied to "The Will Rogers’ Follies" — in reverse. It never meets an audience that doesn’t like it.

On Wednesday, Sept. 28, the show comes to the Rogue Valley for one performance at the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater, kicking off the CGRT’s 2005-06 season.

"The Will Rogers Follies" opened on Broadway in May of 1991 and ran for 983 performances, garnering six Tony awards including best score and best director. There have been several touring productions since.

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Rogers was a media phenomenon widely admired for his warmth and humor, which were delivered, along with rope tricks, in a boyish, laid-back, aw-shucks style. So great was Rogers’ popularity before his untimely death that he was widely acclaimed America’s "poet lariat."

Director Tommy Tune is credited with being the one to hit on the idea of telling Rogers’ story in a big, splashy, follies-style production. After all, Rogers headlined the legendary "Ziegfeld Follies" for six years.

In the unconventional structure of the show, there’s a big production number for each of the important stories from Rogers’ life. The Rogers character speaks directly to the audience, and also to Mr. Ziegfeld.

Sometimes Ziegfeld himself enters the action of the show. When Rogers begins to talk about how he left home to see the world, Ziegfeld interrupts and says it’s time for him to meet a girl.

"Oh yeah, I did meet Betty Blake at about this time," Rogers says.

The real Rogers married Blake. This Blake is sitting on a large, on-stage moon when we meet her in a highly theatrical scene.

A little later Ziegfeld interrupts Will and Betty’s wedding plans, pointing out that the ceremony should not take place until the end of the act. Time jumps around as the couple has four kids, Rogers becomes a Vaudeville star and gets called to Hollywood. Then we go through a time warp back to the wedding.

The second act catches Rogers at the top of his amazing celebrity. Among other things, he’s asked to run for president. As the Great Depression deepens he speaks to the nation to calm its jitters at the special request of President Hoover.

Every so often aviator Wiley Post pops in to say, "Let’s go flyin’!" The remark furnishes the name of one of the show’s 20 songs, but it also prefigures a tragic end. Post and Rogers lost their lives in a 1935 Alaska plane crash.

Other popular tunes from the show are "Never Met a Man I Didn’t Like," "Will-A-Mania" and "Give a Man Enough Rope."

Broadway veteran Cy Coleman wrote the songs, and lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green wrote the words. Peter Stone wrote the book, and Tune directed. All won Tony awards, and the show beat out the much-trumpeted "Miss Saigon" for Best Musical.

The final piece of the puzzle for the Broadway production was the signing of actor Keith Carradine to play Rogers. The role was later taken on by others, including country singers Mac Davis and Larry Gatlin.

Producer Pierre Cosette, who had the idea for a musical based on Rogers’ life back in the 1970s, had originally envisioned singer John Denver in the role.

Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail bvarble@mailtribune.com.