Hollywood Hoofbeats. Audrey Pavia
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honoring his lost horse.
Audiences had loved Fritz almost as much as Hart had, and savvy filmmakers were on to a winning combination. By the time Fritz made his last fall, the long parade of cowboy-horse screen partnerships had begun.
Fritz brings William S. Hart luck as he played a dice game between takes on the location of Riddle Gawne (Aircraft, 1918).
Ride ’Em Cowboys
With the Old West disappearing and the Western film flourishing, a new breed of actor rode onto the scene—literally. Many expert horsemen looking for ranch work at the turn of the century wound up displaying their skills in the traveling Wild West shows. As the popularity of these shows began to wane in the early 1910s, a number of cowboy performers moved on to the picture business. Rodeo stars were also lured to Hollywood by the promise of greater fame and fortune—or at least a steady paycheck doing stunt work. College athletes traded their track shoes for cowboy boots to cash in on the craze for hard-riding heroes. Thespians who weren’t born in the saddle quickly took riding lessons to get in the game, and playing cowboys catapulted a few actors to wider movie stardom. The first big Western star after William S. Hart, Tom Mix, was, however, a genuine cowboy.
Tom Mix and Tony
Tom Mix would come to be considered—by his cowboy contemporaries as well as by many modern film buffs—the best horseman of all the movie cowboys. Mix, born in Pennsylvania in 1880, learned horsemanship from his father, a stable master. Young Tom became an excellent rider. He also exhibited a theatrical flair and created his own cowboy suit when he was just twelve years old.
At eighteen, Mix joined the army for a three-year stint. He reenlisted but went AWOL a year later when he got married. He worked a variety of jobs, including wrangler, until he joined up with the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Wild West Show in 1906. Mix became one of their top performers. Four years later, he hooked up with the Selig Polyscope Company to make Western movies. A Selig press release for the 1911 film Saved by the Pony Express stated: “The mounting and riding at full gallop of Western horses, and of an unbroken bronco by Tom Mix, are some of the most thrilling feats of horsemanship ever exhibited in a motion picture.”
Mix rode many horses in the 170 films he made for Selig. His first one, a stout brown gelding, looked like a real ranch horse and obviously derived his unusual name, .45, from the brand on his left hindquarters. Mix’s avowed favorite movie mount was his own horse, Old Blue, a tough little roan with two hind socks and a long dished face, typical of Arabian breeding. (It is not known whether this sturdy little gelding actually had Arabian blood.) Old Blue was so loved by Mix that when the horse had to be put down after breaking a leg in his corral at age twenty-two, the star was bereft. He had the roan buried at his ranch, Mixville, in Edendale, California, where many of the actor’s Westerns were filmed. Ever faithful to “the best horse I ever rode,” Mix placed a wreath on Old Blue’s grave every Decoration Day.
Tom Mix and his horse .45.
Tom Mix and his most beloved horse, Old Blue, as is clear from his heartfelt inscription on the photo.
By 1920, Mix was challenging William S. Hart for the cowboy-hat crown. The former’s early penchant for clothes had evolved into a flamboyant style, the antithesis of Hart’s gritty, authentic look. Mix’s movie persona was lighthearted and imbued with clever tongue-in-cheek humor. Audiences responded enthusiastically to Mix, but still something was missing—an equine sidekick as flashy as the man who rode him.
Enter Tony, “the Wonder Horse” Many stories have been circulated about Tony’s origins. They usually involve Tony’s being noticed as a colt, following his mother as she hauls a vegetable cart. Inevitably, Mix buys Tony for $10 or $12. The foggy details of the colt’s metamorphosis into the Wonder Horse imply that Mix himself trained Tony. However, the most convincing version of how Tony arrived in the actor’s life comes from Mix’s third wife, Olive Stokes. She claimed to have spotted the colt one day in 1914, as he followed a chicken cart being pulled by his dam along Glendale Boulevard near downtown Los Angeles. She contacted Pat Chrisman, Mix’s horse trainer, who lived a few blocks away. He liked what he saw and paid the cart driver $14 for the future Wonder Horse. Mix bought Tony from Chrisman in 1917 for a reported $600. Although the actor boasted that Tony did not have to be trained, just shown what to do, Chrisman taught Tony the many tricks that made him famous.
Tony appeared with Mix in a 1917 Selig film, The Heart of Texas Ryan, when the horse was three years old; it was not until Old Blue’s demise in 1919, however, that the actor began using Tony as his main movie mount. A sorrel with a long blaze and snip and two hind stockings, Tony appears to have been an American Quarter Horse type. He was highly intelligent and, like his master, had a quirky personality. According to director George Marshall: “Tom was temperamental, but it ran in streaks. Oddly enough, the horse, Tony, was very much like his owner. Pat Chrisman would rehearse him in some tricks for a picture and he would perform beautifully, but when it came time to shoot—nothing! He could be whipped, pulled, jerked, have bits changed, but still no performance. Come out the next morning and he would run through the whole scene with barely a rehearsal. Then he’d look at you as much to say: ‘How do you like that? Yesterday I didn’t feel like working.’”
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