Born as Robert Max Terhune on Feb. 12, 1891 in Amity, Indiana., Max started developing his gift for mimicry at an early age of 4, amazing parents and friends with his accurate impersonations of barnyard animals. He performed doing bird calls at the Colonial Theater (now Avon) in Lebanon and in 1907 He added Ventriloquism to His act.

Max was a Baseball Pitcher for an Independent team in Elmore, Minn., in the Kitty League in 1911, but left after an injury from a fall. Making his stage debut by winning a whistling contest at the Alhambra Theater in Shelbyville while working as a Dairy Cream Separator, Max developed a popular act which included card tricks, animal imitations and comedy with his ventriloquist doll, named Skully Null; who later became Elmer Sneezeweed in the movies.
 

He toured vaudeville with a musical group called the Hoosier Hotshots, then after a brief career as a toolmaker, he returned to the stage with such countrified acts as the Weaver Brothers. In 1932, he became the master of ceremonies of radio's WLS Barn Dance. While working at WLS Radio in Chicago, Max met Gene Autry who later brought him to Hollywood to appear in two of Autry’s films, Ride, Ranger, Ride and The Big Show. As a result, Max became part of the popular cowboy trio The Three Mesquiteers, making twenty-one feature films appearing as Lullaby Joslin, six of them with John Wayne. After that he and co-star Ray Corrigan appeared in the Range Busters series, with Max doing two dozen of these westerns. He later made cowboy films with Allan Lane, Monte Hale and Johnny Mack Brown. His feature films include animal imitations for Walt Disney’s Barnyard Symphony and dramatic roles in Rawhide (1951), Jim Thorpe, All American (1951) and Giant (1956). He also worked on radio, toured with cowboy stars like Tex Ritter and appeared on TV in I Love Lucy, The Lone Ranger, Ramar of the Jungle, and Annie Oakley, as well as starring in his own program, Alibi’s Tent Show.