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"Poor Little Fool" to be Numbe One of Hot 100 songs of the era.

Although he had been acting with an easy, likeable personality on his family's sitcom since the age of eight, the grown-up Ricky looked uncomfortable in roles he took in several major films. They included "Rio Bravo" with John Wayne, and "The Wackiest Ship in the Army" with Jack Lemmon, before he decided to give up to devote full time to his music.

After the Beatles invaded America in 1962, Ricky's type of crooning Western and teen love songs began to seem outdated, and too corny for the growing rock'n'roll audiences. He was booed in a Madison Square Garden concert for refusing to play his old hits, preferring to introduce newly written originals. Although his popularity remained high for another decade, and he was still in demand for TV and concerts, it soon became obvious that his era was over. He continued to make recordings, and although they sold well enough, he never reached the Top 20 heights again.

Nelson married Chris Harmon in 1963, and the couple had four children. The marriage was troubled from the start, reportedly because Ricky was sinking deeper into dependence on drugs and alcohol. His twin sons, Gunnar and Matt, born in 1967, had briefly successful pop careers in the 1990s, but never reached the heights their dad had achieved. Rick's marriage ended in divorce as his career dipped lower and lower.

While on his way to perform with his band at a New Year's Eve 1985 concert in a small Texas club, his private World War II era DC-3 airplane crashed after a fire broke out in the fusilage. Although the pilots escaped, Nelson and all the other passengers were killed. Rumors abounded that drug use and dangerous pot smoking in the passenger cabin caused the accident, but they were never substantiated.

Two years later, Ricky was posthumously named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is a bit ironic, because his type of Western and teen love song crooning was overtaken by the true rock and roll music popularized by the Beatles and Elvis Presley. Today you can find Ricky's star on a Vine Street sidewalk, just north of Hollywood Boulevard, and a short walk from the Sunset Boulevard radio and TV studios where he began his career at age eight.

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