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Quick Facts
- NAME: Spade Cooley
- OCCUPATION: Film Actor, Television Actor, Murderer, Musician
- BIRTH DATE: December 17, 1910
- DEATH DATE: November 23, 1969
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Pack Saddle Creek, Oklahoma
- PLACE OF DEATH: Oakland, California
- Originally: Donnell Clyde Cooley
Best Known For
Spade Cooley, the King of Western Swing, is best known for his musical success and the murder of his wife.
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Play NowSpade Cooley. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 01:45, May 23, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/spade-cooley-235820.
Spade Cooley. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/spade-cooley-235820 [Accessed 23 May 2013].
"Spade Cooley." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 23 2013, 01:45 http://www.biography.com/people/spade-cooley-235820.
"Spade Cooley," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/spade-cooley-235820 [accessed May 23, 2013].
"Spade Cooley," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/spade-cooley-235820 (accessed May 23, 2013).
Spade Cooley [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 23] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/spade-cooley-235820.
Spade Cooley, http://www.biography.com/people/spade-cooley-235820 (last visited May 23, 2013).
Spade Cooley. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/spade-cooley-235820. Accessed May 23, 2013.
Synopsis
Profile
Musician, murderer. Born Donnell Clyde Cooley on December 17, 1910 in Pack Saddle Creek, Oklahoma. Raised in an impoverished family, Spade Cooley moved with his family to Oregon at a young age. He became adept at the violin and was soon playing at local dances and as a movie stand-in for Roy Rogers, whom he resembled.
A quintessential American Western Swing musician and big band leader, Cooley performed a record-breaking 18-month engagement at Santa Monica's Venice Pier Ballroom in the early 1940s. He is known for several hit singles, including "Shame on You," "Detour" and "You Can't Break My Heart."
Cooley, who nicknamed himself the King of Western Swing, parlayed his enormous popularity as a musician into a career in acting. He appeared in 38 westerns and hosted a syndicated television show called The Hoffman Hayride from 1949 to 1959.
Spade Cooley??s career came to a screeching halt when, in 1961, he was charged with murdering his wife, Ella Mae Evans, after she expressed her wish to divorce him. Cooley suffered a heart attack during the trial when he was delivered his prison sentence. On November 23, 1969, while on temporary release from prison to play a benefit concert, he suffered a second heart attack, this time fatal.
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