Monte Hale
actor, country singer (1919-2009)
Monte Hale (born Samuel Buren Ely; June 8, 1919 – March 29, 2009) was an American B-Western film star and country musician.
Biography
Sometimes reported to have been born in San Angelo, Texas, Hale was actually born in Ada, Oklahoma but grew up in Shawnee, Oklahoma, attending Washington Grade School and Shawnee High School (Texas birthplace reportedly sounded better for the movies.) After working as a laborer at various jobs in Ada and Enid, Oklahoma, Herod Ely settled in Shawnee and became an evangelist with the Church of God. His oldest son, Buren, was known to use his musical talent during his father's services. The boy had gathered pecans and picked cotton to earn money to buy his first guitar. Soon he was singing and playing the guitar wherever he could find an audience. His parents had divorced and both had remarried, with youngest brother Bobby going with his mother. In 1934, 16-year-old Buren left home, as many boys did during the Depression. He headed for Houston and found work playing his music. From there he went to Albuquerque, New Mexico, working on a radio station. A man there convinced him to head to California, but all he was able to do there was scratch together a small band and play at a winter resort dude ranch.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Monte Hale” is actor, country singer (1919-2009). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Monte, Hale and actor, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “actor, country singer (1919-2009)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2142355. VIAF identifies the subject as 66036428. The Library of Congress control number is no92010134. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1919, 2009 and 1934.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Monte Hale” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.