Lumpy, pear-shaped comedian with an inimitably whiny, rustic drawl, discovered in the audience of a Chicago World Fair and soon thereafter a popular radio personality on "The National Barn Dance" and other shows. Buttram met singing cowboy star Gene Autry while performing on the air and later became the star's comedy sidekick for the tail end of Autry's silver screen reign. Although Smiley Burnette usually rode alongside the smartly dressed Western hero, Buttram continued Burnette's bumbling antics in "B" Westerns including "The Strawberry Roan" (1949), "Riders in the Sky" (1949), "Indian