BOSTON (January 10, 2013)--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 at the age of 84.

Friend and manager Michael Bavaro said Trailer died Wednesday at his family's home in Florida.

Trailer went to Florida for the holidays and 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.