Legendary ‘Boomtown’ Host Rex Trailer Dies

Rex Trailer, the native Texan beloved by a generation of New England children for the cowboy skills he demonstrated on the Boston-based television show ``Boomtown,'' has died.

His friend and manager Michael Bavaro says Trailer died Wednesday at his family's home in Florida. He was 84. Trailer had gone to Florida for the holidays when he fell ill with pneumonia, but the exact cause of death was not immediately clear.

``Boomtown'' ran on Boston television from 1956 until 1974. Trailer hosted the show, singing, playing guitar, and showing off the horse-riding, roping and other cowboy skills he had learned as a boy on his grandfather's ranch in Texas.

Trailer also taught on-camera performance and production at Emerson College in Boston since the mid-1970s, and ran his own production company. (Associated Press)