Hollywood Hoofbeats

by Petrine Day Mitchum

  On screen, however, Tony was always a loyal comrade. He was probably the first movie horse depicted as possessing a sophisticated knowledge of the English language, not only simple phrases such “whoa” or “good boy” but also whole sentences, usually directing him to perform some task. While horses can be trained to respond to certain repetitive phrases, this anthropomorphizing was pure fantasy. Audiences loved it, and from then on many actors talked to their horses and the horses were shown responding as if they really understood.

  Tony, “the Wonder Horse,” was expert at helping Mix out of jams, rescuing damsels, and participating in thrilling stunts. Mix was well known for performing his own stunts. This was partly myth; the actor did have doubles for certain stunts. So did Tony. His doubles, made up to mirror his distinctive markings, performed jumps and falls in his place. A large mare, Black Bess, was used in long shots as her size read better on film. Still Tony often took risks along with his master. On one film, a dynamite blast, ill timed by the special-effects man, threw Tom and Tony 50 feet and knocked them unconscious. Tony suffered a large cut; Mix’s back reportedly looked as if he’d been hit by shotgun pellets.

  For his efforts, Tony, “the Wonder Horse,” commanded costar billing and received his own fan mail. One letter addressed simply to “Just Tony, Somewhere in the U.S.A.” was duly delivered to the Mix ranch. He was the first horse to have his hoofprints imprinted in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, alongside the foot and handprints of Mix and other biped movie stars. Tony’s popularity was so great that three Mix films used his name in the titles: Just Tony (1922), Oh! You Tony (1924), and Tony Runs Wild (1926). Tony even “contributed” to a 1934 children’s book, Tony and His Pals.

  Tony was utilized in many publicity campaigns and in one gag shot was shown getting a manicure and permanent wave for his appearance at New York’s Paramount Theater. He accompanied Tom on a 1925 European publicity tour, during which, according to a letter from Mix to his fans in Movie Monthly magazine, “Tony was patted by so many people it’s a wonder he has any hair left.”

  Among the first stars to be merchandized, Tom Mix and Tony were immortalized as paper dolls.

  Tom Mix and Tony make a handsome pair.

  After placing his hoof prints in cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Tony waits for his man Mix to sign his name.

  Tony Jr. Takes Over Although Tony’s retirement was officially announced in 1932, his last credited role was in FBO Pictures’ The Big Diamond Robbery in 1929. When Mix returned to the screen in Universal’s 1932 talkie Destry Rides Again, he rode a new mount, Tony Jr. (no relation to his namesake). Like his predecessor, Tony Jr. was a sorrel, but he was more striking than Tony, with a wider blaze and four high stockings. He may have been sired by an Arabian and purchased by Mix from a florist in New York in 1930. Tony Jr. made his first known appearance on January 6, 1932, in a publicity shot with Mix, who was recuperating from illness at home on his fifty-second birthday. Despite the obvious differences in the horses’ markings to the trained eye, Universal passed the new horse off as “Tony” and continued to bill him as such through the first half of 1932. Tony Jr. finally received billing as himself in a fall release.

  The newcomer achieved his own popularity with audiences and critics. In a 1933 review, a New York Times critic wrote, “Tony Jr. was as fine a bit of horse flesh as ever breathed.” Unfortunately, Mix was on his way out when Tony Jr. arrived on the scene, and it is unclear what became of him after Mix’s death in a solo auto accident in 1940. The original Tony, however, had been provided for in Mix’s will and survived his former costar by two years. On October 10, 1942, the failing thirty-two-year-old movie horse was put down in his familiar stall at the old Mix estate.

  Tony Jr. poses with Tom and director B. Reeves “Breezy” Eason during Mix’s last film, a Mascot serial titled The Miracle Rider.

  Buck Jones and Silver

  Another veteran of the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Wild West Show who transitioned to the silver screen was a rugged bronc buster and trick rider named Charles Gebhart. For the movies, he was rechristened Buck Jones.

  While touring with the Millers’ show in 1915, Buck married fifteen-year-old trick rider Dell Osborne in a horseback ceremony. During World War I, Buck broke horses in Chicago for the Allies’ cavalry units. After the war, he and Dell performed in several Wild West shows and the Ringling Brothers Circus as trick riders. With a child on the way, they decided to settle in Los Angeles, where Buck found work in the movies as a bit player and stuntman, sometimes doubling his eventual rival and friend Tom Mix.

  Buck had his first starring role in Fox Studios’ The Last Straw (1920), and his career skyrocketed. To compete with the other cowboy stars, however, he needed a special horse. His first horse, a black, unfortunately died in a filming accident. However, in 1922 Buck spotted a beautiful gray on the set of Roughshod and knew he’d found his movie mate. He bought the horse for $100 and named him Silver. He was to become almost as famous as Fritz and Tony.

  Although Buck preferred action to cute antics, Silver got to perform enough tricks to satisfy audience anticipation while also providing thrilling images as he and Buck streaked across the Western terrain. Silver was so intelligent that he learned to perform stunts, such as leaping through fire, with only one rehearsal. His skill as a one-take actor became legendary.

  Buck owned two other horses, Eagle and Sandy, who often doubled Silver. Eagle was usually used in long-shot galloping sequences; he can be easily identified as he swished his tail when he ran. Sandy was always used for rearing scenes. Almost indistinguishable from Silver, Sandy had a more photogenic head and was also used for close-ups. Buck loved all his horses and would never subject them to real danger. For hazardous stunts, unlucky rental horses from the studio stables served as doubles.

  Buck Jones Productions produced only one film, a non-Western, before folding. The intrepid Jones rallied to put together the traveling Buck Jones Wild West Show. The Great Depression ended that enterprise prematurely, but the actor rebounded and returned to the movies. Though semiretired, Silver was occasionally brought in to do specific stunts. Eagle received billing in some of Jones’s later films, and Sandy was billed as Silver in the Rough Riders series at the end of Buck’s career.

  Eagle, always prone to scours, was put down in 1941 after a particularly bad bout left him too weak to recover. When Buck returned from a trip to find Eagle gone, he shut himself in his bedroom and cried. Jones’s own life came to a tragic end in 1942, when he perished in a fire at a party being held in his honor in Boston. He died heroically while trying to rescue other guests.

  A few months later, Silver began to fail. According to Dell Jones: “It seemed he missed Buck and stopped eating. He would bow his beautiful head and grieve. He was very old for a horse—thirty-four years.” Sadly, Dell had the old horse put to sleep. Sandy passed away a few months later.

  The rugged Buck Jones with his elegant other half, Silver.

  From the left, Buck Jones and his trick-riding stuntwoman wife Dell and their matching white horses at the 1939 Santa Claus Lane Parade on Hollywood Boulevard. Next to Dell is singing cowboy Ray Whitley and on the far right, astride the paint, is the trick-riding cowboy star Montie Montana.

  Ken Maynard and Tarzan

  Buck Jones’s chief rival was Ken Maynard, a native Texan known throughout the Wild West show circuit as an incredible trick rider and roper. He had made a brief attempt to steal Dell away from Buck, and the men never became friends. Maynard made his name in films aboard a palomino mount called Tarzan.

  In 1926, Maynard purchased a ten-year-old gelding at a ranch in Newhall, California. The palomino was what would now be considered a National Show Horse, an Arabian/Saddlebred cross, and was given the name Tarzan at the suggestion of Maynard’s acquaintance Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of the novel Tarzan of the Apes. The popular film with the same title had come out in 1918, thrusting the name Tarzan into the minds of audiences throughout
America.

  Former circus trainer Johnny Agee taught the gelding a repertoire of tricks. Tarzan often had the opportunity to display his talents on screen, thanks to Maynard, who wrote such moments into the script. His humanlike qualities allowed the palomino to rescue Maynard from danger on more than one movie occasion. Like Tony, he was billed as “the Wonder Horse,” by all accounts an apt, if not original, nickname.

  Tarzan was often doubled by one of eight palominos in Maynard’s stable. Though a daredevil rider whose stunts awed audiences, Maynard rarely put the real Tarzan in serious danger. Instead, the actor pampered his star horse and transported him in a custom trailer emblazoned with his name. Maynard and Tarzan successfully transitioned from silent to sound pictures, although the horse’s training in verbal cues, rather than visual signals, did create some production challenges.

  Tarzan made his last movie in 1940, a film called Lightning Strikes West, when he was twenty-four. He was retired to Maynard’s ranch soon after and died that same year. Maynard buried him in an undisclosed gravesite, reported to be under an elm or a Calabash tree in either the Hollywood Hills or the San Fernando Valley. The grieving Maynard kept Tarzan’s death a secret for years. The actor never again achieved the success he had had when the great palomino carried him to stardom.

  Fred Thomson and Silver King

  Fred Thomson was a college athlete who won the national All-Around title at Princeton University in 1913. He eschewed the Olympics to pursue the Presbyterian ministry and became interested in movies while prescreening them for the Boy Scouts. In 1921, after a brief stint in the military, he became an actor. Inspired by Tom Mix, the handsome Thomson became a skilled equestrian, performed his own stunts, and made a star of his horse, a striking gray 17-hand Irish stallion named Silver King. True to his name, the stallion was one of the most spectacular horses to ever grace the silver screen.

  The story of how Thomson and Silver King became partners may raise a few eyebrows given today’s emphasis on gentle training methods. Thomson was visiting a friend who owned a New York City riding school. Silver King caught the eye of Thomson, who was warned that the stallion was difficult. Undaunted, he took the horse for a ride in Central Park. When Silver King attempted to unload his rider by bucking, whirling, and trying to scrape him off on trees, Thomson responded by throwing the horse to the ground using a cowboy trick of tying his legs with one end of a rope and striking him repeatedly with the other end. Thus Thomson earned the respect of the spirited stallion, and the two became closely bonded. A week after this incident, the actor took Silver King to Hollywood, determined to make him a star. Stabling the stallion at his home, Thomson taught him many tricks, including sitting down, bowing, and performing the strutting Spanish walk. The stallion was a quick study and loved to show off. One of his admirers was the Thomsons’ friend Greta Garbo, who loved to sit on the corral fence watching Fred put the stallion through his paces. Once his lessons were learned, Silver King was ready for his close-up.

  The stallion loved the camera, and although he seemed bored during rehearsals, he came alive once the director called “Action!” He played significant roles in Thomson’s films, and in keeping with the anthropomorphic trend, he appeared to understand and execute abstract demands. A natural box-office draw, he received costar billing. The advertisements variously read: “Fred Thomson and His Wonderful Horse—Silver King,” or “Fred Thomson and His Famous Horse—Silver King.”

  In one of Thomson’s two surviving films, Thundering Hoofs (1924), Silver King shows his stuff by rearing on command, bowing, kneeling at a gravesite, untying ropes, and nudging Thomson toward his love interest. In the film’s most frightening sequence, Silver King is condemned to a Mexican bullring as a matador’s mount after Thomson’s character has been unjustly jailed. The giant bull gores the stallion, who appears doomed. In the nick of time, Thomson’s character breaks out of jail to save his horse by wrestling the bull to the ground. Silver King’s bravery in working with the bull can be attributed to the fact that one of his stablemates, and probable costar, was Thomson’s pet bull, Muro.

  Silver King’s antics garnered plenty of attention from the Hollywood press, and the stallion often made headlines with his temperamental behavior. He reportedly threw tantrums if one of his doubles performed a stunt, and while docile as a lamb working with children on camera, he might kick the set to smithereens after “Cut!” was called. When Silver King showed up on a nighttime set wearing sunglasses, the gossip columnists went wild with speculation. Had Silver King gone “Hollywood”? It turned out that the glasses were intended to protect his eyes from the bright Klieg lights used in filming after he had shown signs of temporary blindness. Compresses of cold cabbage leaves and ten days in a dark stall reportedly cured him of “Klieg eyes.”

  Silver King’s brilliant career was cut short when Thomson passed away suddenly in 1928 following a brief illness. Shortly thereafter, the Los Angeles Times ran a front-page story about Silver King’s mourning his master. The article called him “the most famous horse in the world.” Several years later, Thomson’s widow, the screenwriter Frances Marion, sold Silver King, and in 1934 he returned to the screen in low-budget films with Wally Wales, a little-known cowboy star. The marvelous Silver King received billing and was featured in publicity materials to attract audiences to the seven films he made with Wales.

  In 1938, Silver King starred as Silver, The Lone Ranger’s horse, in a fifteen-episode serial. Directed by John English and William Whitney, the series was filmed in the famous Alabama Hills in Lone Pine, California, the setting of many B Westerns. Silver King, then likely in his twenties, received top billing, a testament to his enduring star power. Since the existence of Silver as The Lone Ranger’s horse has been traced back to 1938, it is even possible that he was modeled on the great Silver King.

  Silver King traveled in a customized trailer emblazoned with his name.

  Other Cowboy Duos

  Many more real cowboys rode the silent celluloid range. Another veteran of Wild West shows to achieve stardom was Jack Hoxie, whose lesser known actor brother Al sometimes doubled him. A fan of the Appaloosa breed, Jack Hoxie became popular along with his most famous mount, Scout, a handsome leopard Appaloosa with black spots.

  Trick riders Art Acord and Hoot Gibson performed with Dick Stanley’s Congress of Rough Riders as well as the Miller Brothers 101 before they rode into Hollywood from the rodeo circuit.

  Art Acord kept rodeoing after he began his film career in 1909 and was crowned World Champion Steer Bulldogger in the 1912 Pendleton, Oregon, Round-Up. During his successful career in silent films, Acord was paired with several different horses. He rode Buddy, Black Beauty, Darkie, and Star, but Raven was his favorite. In the The Circus Cyclone, 1925, Raven played a pivotal role as the horse of a comely circus performer named Doraldina (Nancy Deaver). When she resists the crude advances of the circus owner (Steve Brant), a former boxer, he beats her horse. Cowboy Jack Manning (Acord) comes to the rescue and wins the horse in a boxing match against the circus owner.

  As Jack Manning, Art Acord protects Raven from the pugilist circus owner, Steve Brant (Albert J. Smith) in The Circus Cyclone, 1925.

  Hoot Gibson, an expert at Roman riding (the art of standing upright on the backs of two horses working in tandem, which despite its name has no link to ancient Rome), won the Allowed-Around Champion title at Pendleton the same year Art Acord won his award. Gibson began his film career doubling silent star Harry Carey. His daring stunt work eventually landed him his first starring role in a 1919 “two-reeler” series. (The approximately twenty- to thirty-minute “two reelers” consisted of two short reels of film.)

  In King of the Rodeo (1929), Gibson demonstrates his rodeo expertise. For most of the movie, the affable Gibson rides his palomino, Goldie. Gibson rode several other horses during his career, including Midnight, Starlight, and Mutt, but he was most often associated with Goldie.

  Hoot Gibson and Goldie with the cast and crew of the
1925 Universal Pictures production The Saddle Hawk on the grounds of what is now Universal City.

  African-American rodeo star Bill Pickett was promoted as the “World’s Colored Champion” in the Norman Film Manufacturing Company’s 1923 production of The BullDogger. Bulldogs were often used by cattle ranchers to help herd unruly steers. In 1903, Pickett had witnessed such a bulldog force a steer into submission by leaping at its head and biting its lip. By imitating the dog’s technique, he developed the rodeo sport of bulldogging: galloping after a steer, leaping onto its neck, wrestling it to the ground, and biting its lip. In 1907, Pickett joined the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Wild West Show and, with his courageous steed Spradley, popularized the daredevil sport. (The lip-biting flourish has since been dropped from the rodeo event.) Pickett’s sensational theatrics led to his starring film role, which according to a press release included “fancy and trick riding by black cowboys and cowgirls.” Pickett made one more film for Norman, a Western titled The Crimson Skull, in 1923. Featuring the heroics of thirty black cowboys, the film celebrated an often overlooked segment of America’s Western history.

  For a brief time, rodeo champion Yakima Canutt, who won the Pendleton All-Around title in 1917, took a star turn and made a few pictures with a horse called Boy. Canutt eventually gave up acting and concentrated on stunt riding, doubling many Western stars, including John Wayne. In the stunt business, Canutt is revered for pioneering the difficult maneuver of leaping from a galloping horse onto one of the leads of a team of carriage horses and working his way along the rigging of the running team to the vehicle. He perfected this stunt in Stagecoach (1939). For the spectacular sequence, he added shimmying along underneath the moving coach, getting shot by Wayne, and falling to his “death.” Eventually, Canutt became a stunt coordinator and second unit director, staging some of the greatest horse action of all time, including the thrilling chariot race in the 1959 blockbuster Ben Hur.