Pat Brady

Who was Pat Brady?

Pat Brady was best known as cowboy Roy Rogers' "comical sidekick." Pat's full name was Robert Ellsworth Patrick Aloysious O'Brady and this was shortened to "Bob Brady," although it is not known when the "O'" was dropped from "O'Brady."

Born in Toledo, Ohio, Pat Brady first set foot on-stage at the age of four, in a road-show production of Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. From that moment he was hooked on showbiz for life. While appearing as a bassist in California in 1935, Pat struck up a friendship with a young country & western singer named Leonard Slye, a member of the popular Sons of the Pioneers. When Len Slye was elevated to screen stardom as Roy Rogers, he recommended Brady as his replacement in "The Sons". However, as Bob Nolan, an original member of The Sons, was referred to as "Bob," and The Sons thought one "Bob" was enough, "Bob Brady" became "Pat Brady" from then on.

Making the transition to films himself in 1937, Brady played comedy relief in several of the Charles Starrett Westerns at Columbia. In the early 1940s, he moved to Republic, where he played zany camp cook Sparrow Biffle in the Roy Rogers vehicles. When Rogers moved to television in 1951, he took Brady with him. Now billed as "himself," Brady enlivened over 100 episodes of The Roy Rogers Show, happily driving about the sagebrush at the wheel of his faithful jeep "Nellybelle."