Born William Penn Adair Rogers to parents of Cherokee heritage, he made his vaudeville debut with a rope-throwing act in New York City in 1905. Later he achieved wide popularity through the humorous monologues with which he accompanied his rope tricks. After 1914 Rogers appeared in several of the annual Ziegfeld Follies in New York City. He also acted in numerous motion pictures and wrote a series of syndicated newspaper articles in which he poked fun at the great figures of the day and expounded his homespun philosophy.