[3] Strangely, his California death records reportedly indicate the actor's father's surname was Wilson and that Lash was born in Michigan.

[1] LaRue was originally screen tested by Warner Bros. but was rejected because he looked too much like Humphrey Bogart, then one of the studio's contract stars.

In 1945 independent producer Robert Emmett Tansey, releasing through the small PRC studio, launched a new Western series with a difference: the features would be filmed in then-unusual Cinecolor.

Singing cowboy Eddie Dean starred, with "Al LaRue" featured as "The Cheyenne Kid" and using a bullwhip expertly to disarm villains.

His influence was felt throughout the dying medium of B-Westerns; for example, he had an imitator, Whip Wilson, who starred in his own brief series, and even Roy Rogers started using a bullwhip in some of his Republic Pictures Westerns made during the same period.

LaRue made frequent personal appearances at small-town movie theaters that were showing his films during his heyday of 1948 to 1951, a common practice for cowboy stars in those days.

However, his skillful displays of stunts with his whip, done live on movie theater stages, also convinced young Western fans that there was at least one cowboy hero who could perform in real life the things he did on screen.

He portrayed another real-life criminal, Doc Barker, in the TV series Gangbusters, which was later recut into the film Guns Don't Argue.

LaRue and Steve Brodie shared the role (from 1959–1961) of Sheriff Johnny Behan in Cochise County, Arizona, on ABC's The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, starring Hugh O'Brian.

[3] Writer/singer/producer Bruce Blackman of the pop group Starbuck wrote and recorded the tribute song "Lash LaRue", included on their 1976 album Moonlight Feels Right.