Hollywood Hoofbeats. Audrey Pavia
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Yakima Canutt and his horse Boy, circa 1925, in a rare portrait on the set of one of the low-budget oaters they made for Ben Wilson’s Goodwill Pictures.
Rarely seen posing, famed stuntman Yakima Canutt inscribed this publicity shot from his acting days with Boy to pioneering Western director Hobart Bosworth, who happened to be a direct descendant of Miles Standish and John and Priscilla Alden.
And One Little Cowgirl
Even child star Baby Peggy (Diana Serra Cary) got into the act. Baby Peggy’s wildly successful films parodied popular films of the day. In several 1921 two-reel Western comedies, the three-year-old superstar was paired with a miniature jet black horse named Tim. Taught to ride by her stuntman father, the cowboy Jack Montgomery, Baby Peggy mustered all her strength to try to control the obstreperous little horse. Although he was only 36 inches tall at the withers, or 9 hands as horses are measured, Tim was a pistol. “He was a difficult horse,” says Diana, reminiscing about her Baby Peggy days with Tim. “He was always cow-kicking and pinning his ears.” He also ran away with her one day when she and her father were out for their Sunday ride on the bridle path that used to run along Sunset Boulevard from the beach to Hollywood. Father and daughter were quite a sight as Jack, in a white Stetson hat, was mounted on his 17-hand gray horse, White Man, and Diana was astride tiny Tim. A passing trolley car startled Tim and he bolted. Jack could easily have reached down and swept his daughter from Tim’s back, but he wanted her to learn to control him. Listening to her father as he shouted instructions at her, Diana managed to turn the runaway Tim on to a side street where she “finally planted him on his tail almost in the laps of a couple who were reading their Sunday paper on the ivy-covered porch of their bungalow.” After that episode, she says that Tim turned into a very honest horse.
Silent star Baby Peggy (Diana Serra Cary) parodied the cowboy-horse partnership on her miniature horse, Tim, in Peg O’ the Mounties, 1924.
Future Legends Get a Leg Up
Marion Michael Morrison was no stranger to the saddle. He grew up in the California desert town of Lancaster and rode an old mare named Jenny to school and back, a 10-mile round trip. “Riding a horse always came as naturally to me as breathing,” he once said, “and I loved that mare more than anything in the world.” Young Morrison, nicknamed Duke, was heartbroken when Jenny had to be put down. He was destined, however, to forge bonds with quite a few more horses in his life as an actor.
Duke Morrison won a football scholarship to USC but, like so many other young men, was drawn to Hollywood. Inspired by his idol, silent Western star Harry Carey, Morrison had a hankering to be a screen cowboy. He worked as a prop man and appeared in a number of films as a bit player until director Raoul Walsh gave him a break in the 1930 Western The Big Trail. Walsh reportedly also gave Duke Morrison a new name: John Wayne.
The Big Trail was not a big success, but it started Wayne on his own trail to superstardom. In a series of films for Warner Brothers, he was paired with a white horse named Duke (after Wayne’s own nickname). One of these movies, Ride Him, Cowboy (1932), is credited with making Wayne a star. Wayne shared billing with Duke, “his Devil Horse,” but the handsome former parade horse, with a long flowing mane and tail, looked anything but devilish.
In later films, Duke (really several different white and light gray or cream horses) became the Wonder Horse. It’s amusing now to watch these old films and hear the actor talking to Duke as if to an intellectual equal, something Wayne later admitted he didn’t particularly like. In those early days of Westerns, however, there was nothing better for jump-starting an actor’s career than the right costar—a good horse.
Another screen legend, Gary Cooper, had his first starring role as “the Cowboy” in the 1927 silent Western Arizona Bound. An excellent horseman who spent part of his youth on a Montana ranch, Cooper performed most of his own stunts, including a transfer from a horse onto a fast-moving stagecoach. Later that year, he starred as the title character of Nevada aboard a bald-faced sorrel and appeared with a horse named Flash in The Last Outlaw. Variety Weekly raved about this last film: “Cooper does some good work, rides fast and flashy on his horse ‘Flash,’ and impresses with his gun totin’ generally.” Gary Cooper’s illustrious career was officially launched—with the help of Flash.
Gary Cooper deploys his cowboy charm on schoolmarm Mary Brian in 1929’s The Virginian.
the Duke relaxes with Duke, his handsome Ride Him, Cowboy costar.
Rex, “King of the Wild Horses”
Most of the early horse actors found fame as partners of cowboy stars. Not Rex, an amazing black stallion, who became a star in his own right. Billed as Rex the Wonder Horse, this beautiful Morgan had incredible screen presence and a genuine wildness that enthralled audiences.
Foaled in Texas in 1915, Rex was registered as Casey Jones. Reportedly abused as a colt, he was eventually sold to the Colorado Detention Home to be used as a breeding stallion. One day a student took Rex out for a ride and never returned. His body was found near a stream, and it appeared that he had been dragged to death. Perhaps he fell and caught his foot in the stirrup, panicking Rex. Whatever happened, the stallion was branded a killer and sentenced to solitary confinement for two years.
Meanwhile, producer Hal Roach was preparing a new film in 1923, The King of the Wild Horses. He was looking for a fresh black stallion to play the lead and recruited Chick Morrison, who looked after Roach’s polo ponies, to find the star. Morrison and Jack “Swede” Lindell, considered the most gifted horse trainer in Hollywood at the time, scouted prospects in several western states. The men heard about the “killer stallion” at the Detention Home near Golden, Colorado. They decided to take a chance and went to see Rex. Morrison and Lindell were impressed with the stallion’s charisma. They worked with him at the Detention Home for a week and schooled him at liberty, without a bridle or ropes connecting the horse to the trainers. At the end of the week, they staged a demonstration for the astonished wardens. Standing at opposite ends of the town’s Main Street, Morrison and Lindell called Rex back and forth between them, using only their voices and whip cues. The stallion’s talent confirmed, Morrison and Lindell bought Rex for $150 and brought him to Tinseltown, where he was stabled at the barn of Clarence “Fat” Jones, one of the largest suppliers of movie horses.
Rex, the glorious equine matinee idol, displaying the stare that unnerved his human costars and won him millions of fans.
Despite his ability to work at liberty, Rex never became a docile actor. He was famous for quitting when pressed too hard for obedience and once ran 17 miles from the set on a Nevada location. It was this untamed aura that attracted audiences, making it worthwhile for the studios to work with the difficult horse. Rex made his debut in King of the Wild Horses, the film that gave him his nickname, and became an instant hit. Hal Roach Studios quickly capitalized on Rex’s appeal with Black Cyclone (1925) and The Devil Horse (1926). In all these films, he was perfectly typecast as a wild stallion. Hank Potts, a pioneer movie-horse handler, once said there was “an unusual and arresting gleam in Rex’s eyes, like the untamable stare of an eagle.” On one location, Navajo on the film said that Rex had a devil imprisoned in him. Some even wore amulets against his “evil eye.”
Oddly, Rex was infuriated by spitting, perhaps as a result of being so taunted at the Detention Home. Whatever the origin of this bizarre quirk, Lindell exploited it to incite the horse’s on-screen wrath. Standing just off camera, Lindell only had to spit, and Rex would charge forward, eyes wild and teeth bared.