Hollywood Hoofbeats. Audrey Pavia
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Eagle.
2. A Horse and His Man
“A cowboy is a man with guts and a horse.”
—Attributed to Will James
The Majestic Silver King and Fred Thomson
Since his auspicious debut in the birth of cinema, the movie horse has enjoyed a long canter in the limelight. During the silent film era, 1893–1930, the horse achieved a type of stardom that seems unbelievable today. Even more remarkable, his star power endured for decades. Spurring that rise was the creation of the cowboy-horse partnership. The right man paired with the right horse could make both idols on the silver screen. For some Western fans, the horse was the bigger box-office attraction. Roy Rogers, the great cowboy star of the 1940s and 1950s, who became identified with his palomino stallion, once quipped, “I have no illusions about my popularity. Just as many fans are as interested in seeing Trigger as they are in seeing me.”
Long before Roy Rogers and Trigger became celebrity icons, however, a dour Western actor and his red-and-white pinto pony, William S. Hart and Fritz, established the cowboy-horse partnership in a series of gritty silent films. Following on their heels was a new breed of Western stars—real cowboys such as Tom Mix and Ken Maynard. One horse, a charismatic stallion named Rex, bucked the formula and fought his way to the top alone.
The inimitable Fritz and Hart are seen in the California Desert.
The First Partnership
Like his predecessor, Broncho Billy, William S. Hart hailed from the East and would establish a screen persona as a “good/bad man.” The similarities stop there, however, as Hart had a genuine love of the West and horses. He had spent much of his childhood, in the late 1800s, traveling with his miller father and observing the ways of the disappearing Old West. Living for a time in the Dakotas, he learned good horsemanship and a respect of nature from his Sioux playmates. These childhood experiences would translate into an almost fanatical quest for realism in his films and result in the depiction of interdependent friendship between man and horse.
Before making his first movie, however, Hart spent two decades on the stage, in New York and London, and earned renown as a dramatic actor. His work in two plays about the West, The Squaw Man and The Virginian, helped create his film persona.
Hart’s early movie horse, Midnight—which the star described in My Life East and West as “a superb coal-black animal that weighed about 1200 pounds”—was considered hard to handle. Hart got along with the horse and tried to buy him for $150, a large sum in 1914. He belonged to the traveling Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Wild West Show, which during its off-season leased stock to the New York Motion Picture Company’s California production arm. When Joe Miller refused to sell the horse, Midnight hit the road with the 101 Show, and Hart began searching for another mount. Hart soon found himself drawn to a small pinto named Fritz, who was to become the equine half of the first screen cowboy-horse buddy relationship.
Ann Little began her career in Broncho Billy Anderson serials. She appeared in a series of Westerns for Universal, starting in 1915. She displays her cowgirl skills in this photo circa 1913–15.
Enter Fritz
A Sioux chief named Lone Bear reportedly brought Fritz to California in 1911. Hart first set eyes on the red-and-white gelding at Inceville, producer Thomas Ince’s movie ranch. Fritz was practicing his rear with actress Ann Little aboard and almost came down on Hart’s head. Despite the close call, Hart was smitten—not with Ann but with Fritz.
Though Fritz was small, weighing only about 1,000 pounds and standing just over 14-hands high, Hart saw something special in the little horse. In their first film together, the sturdy pinto impressed the actor with his stamina. The script called for Fritz to carry the 6-foot Hart and another actor, who with their guns and the heavy stock saddle must have weighed close to 400 pounds, for hours. The action culminated in Hart’s “falling” Fritz and then using him for a shield in a gunfight. The actor related in his autobiography that the brave but weary little horse gave him a thankful look that “plainly said: ‘Say, Mister, I sure was glad when you give me that fall.’”
Fritz apparently didn’t mind falling, as Hart regularly threw the pinto from a dead run, using a technique that has been traced back to the armies of Alexander the Great. In an era when tripping devices were commonly used in the movies, Fritz was one of the first trained falling horses.
Because of his markings, Fritz could not be doubled, so he performed every stunt himself—including jumping though windows and fire—except one. In Fritz’s last film, The Singer Jim McKee (1924), an elaborate replica of the pinto was painstakingly constructed (at the then-huge cost of $2,000) to take his place in a fall from a cliff into a deep gorge—a deadly drop of about 150 feet. Hart galloped Fritz to the edge of the cliff, then pulled him into a fall. Once the pinto was safely removed from the scene, the mechanical horse was brought in and held upright with piano wire for Hart to mount. When the wires were cut, Hart and the dummy tumbled over the precipice. While Hart was badly shaken by the fall, Fritz would not have survived it without serious injuries. The final edited sequence proved so convincing that the board of censors, headed by William Hays, president of the newly established Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America, summoned Hart to New York, certain he had endangered a live horse. Once he explained how the astonishing illusion had been accomplished, the censors were placated, but when the film was released, it still caused a flood of mail from Fritz’s concerned fans.
William S. Hart discovered his equine partner Fritz at Thomas Ince’s movie ranch, Inceville, circa 1915.
From 1916–1918, William S. Hart’s movie ranch was on the Santa Monica site of the former Inceville.
The Greatest All-Around Horse
Hart adored Fritz, whom he described as “the greatest all-around horse that ever lived.” Two of Hart’s films, The Narrow Trail (1917) and Pinto Ben (1924), were made as tributes to the pinto. Hart even ghostwrote a book, Told Under a White Oak, published in 1922 and “authored” by Fritz. The charming book tells Fritz’s version of all the hard stunts he had performed during his career.
The actor was determined to buy Fritz, but his owner, Thomas Ince, refused to sell, figuring he could keep Hart under contract using the pinto as leverage. Hart outfoxed Ince, however, and made his purchase of Fritz a condition of a contract negotiation, then later withheld him from fifteen films to leverage a higher salary. Since early films were made quickly, Fritz was only out of the public eye for about two years. Fans missed their favorite movie horse, but his absence made his return, in 1919’s Sand, all the sweeter.
For all his sturdiness and willingness, Fritz had a temperamental streak. One of his quirks was his attachment to Cactus Kate, a feisty mare used in bucking scenes. Hart was obliged to buy the mare to keep his costar happy. On one particular day during the filming of Travelin’ On (1921), Kate had been left at the studio barn with another stablemate, a giant mule named Lisbeth. Fritz had several difficult scenes with a monkey and refused to work until the mare was brought to the set. With Kate watching from the wings, the shooting proceeded beautifully until a terrible bellowing and thundering of hooves interrupted work. Lisbeth had broken out of her corral and galloped a mile through traffic to join her friends.
Fritz was retired to Hart’s ranch in Newhall, California (now a museum), in 1924 and thus did not appear in Hart’s last film, Tumbleweeds (1925). When the horse died at age thirty-one in 1938, Hart had him buried on the ranch with a huge stone marker that still reads, “Wm. S. Hart’s Pinto Pony Fritz—A Loyal Comrade.” In