Trivia

Governor of Louisiana (1928-1932).

U.S. senator from Louisiana (1932-1935).

Father of Russell Long.

Brother of Earl Long.

Brother of Congressman George S. Long.

Cousin of Congressman Gillis William Long and Congressman Speedy Oteria Long.

He attended Oklahoma Baptist University, University of Oklahoma School of Law, and Tulane University Law School. He never earned a degree, but he passed the bar exam.

Huey P. Long has been played in biopics by Ed Asner (The Life and Assassination of the Kingfish, 1977) and John Goodman (Kingfish: A Story of Huey P. Long, 1995). There are two other roles that those actors have had in common: Santa Claus, and Lou Grant. (Both Asner and Goodman played Lou Grant in a fantasy scene for a 1996 episode of Roseanne.).

A little-known fact about Huey: as a young salesman in Louisiana he learned how to do roller-skating tricks. This was witnessed by Robert Rice Reynolds (a.k.a. "Buncombe Bob"), who managed a roller-skating rink in Baton Rouge and later served in the US Senate alongside Huey. The story is mentioned in LIFE Magazine (Sept 8 1941), and also the biography of Reynolds by Julian M. Pleasants.

Huey was an avid baseball pitcher -- people in Winnfield said, "If he couldn't pitch, he wouldn't play". He must have been fairly good at it, because he was still coming back to his birthplace for occasional games as late as 1925 (this was after he'd moved to Shreveport and was in his early 30s).