A few months ago, I saw a charming Mexican film called My Dear Tom Mix (Mi Querido Tom Mix (1991), directed by Carlos Garcia Agraz). Set in a small Mexican village during the 1920s, the nostalgic fable tells the story of  Joaquina, a woman of mature years who has never married. Her time is filled with going to the movies, where she lets her imagination take her away. When her young nephew comes for a visit, she introduces him to the magic of the cinema. For Joaquina—and countless other movie fans—that magic is dependent on ignoring the distinction between the movie stars and the characters they play. When marauding bandits plague her small town, she writes to legendary western hero Tom Mix, the King of the Cowboys, imploring him to ride to the rescue on Tony the Wonder Horse to save her village.  And, in a way, he obliges—not so much the cowboy himself but the spirit of Tom Mix. It is this spirit of larger-than-life heroism, long associated with the western hero, that My Dear Tom Mix celebrates. While the spirit lives on in some Hollywood movies, it was virtually a mandate during the silent era, not only for onscreen heroes but also for offscreen movie stars.

         As all of us film enthusiasts know, movie stars were indeed larger than life back in the silent era and into the Golden Age. Without the prying eyes of television or the Internet to expose every shortcoming, and under the protection of the studios, stars revealed to the public only what they deemed important. They built their reputations around an image, or carefully cultivated persona, that was bolstered with each screen performance. Rather than exposing real-life foibles or printing accurate biographies, press and promotion spun anecdotes or picked out certain details that reinforced the stars’ images. But viewers would not have had it any other way, because these images tapped into archetypes that held meaning and value to audiences. Small wonder that it was difficult to separate the star from the role he played. And, that’s the idea that the film My Dear Tom Mix depends on: Tom Mix is less important as an actor and more important because he symbolizes a value or ideal.

            The film prompted me to explore the real-life Tom Mix, and when I did, I found it difficult to separate fact from fiction. Interestingly, the more I read about him, the less I cared about the cold-hard facts and “the real Tom Mix.” Mix was the most successful of all of the cowboy stars and also the most flamboyant. If silent-era stars embellished the events of their life stories to reinforce their images, then Mix raised this practice to an art form. If half of Mix’s life story was true, then he deserved his heroic image as the fun-loving, larger-then-life, morally upright cowboy who did the right thing because it was the right thing to do.

TOM MIX IN ALL HIS GLORY

            Mix was born in Mix Run, Pennsylvania, on January 6, 1880. He got his love of horses from his father, Ed, but he got his love for all things western from Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show, which toured near Mix Run when Tom was ten. From that time on, he practiced trick riding, roping, and shooting until he perfected all of these skills. Tom’s mother, Elizabeth, claimed that one of his favorite tricks was to stand on a galloping horse as it raced to the barn. Just before reaching the barn door, he would jump onto a nearby stack of hay. As soon as I read this about Mix, I could relate it to something in my own family. One of my most treasured possessions is a photograph of my grandfather and his buddies who went to a Wild West show when they were young men growing up in West Virginia. In the photo, they are dressed in cowboy attire, complete with guns, holsters, and chaps, and they look downright rootin’-tootin’ in their get-ups. While it was not the same Wild West show, because the dates don’t correspond, Mix’s enthusiasm for Buffalo Bill reminded me of my grandfather and his “posse.” What an influence and inspiration the traveling Wild West shows must have been back in the day, especially for those in rural areas. 

        Caught up in the fury over the Spanish-American War, Mix enlisted in the army in 1898, though he never saw action in Cuba. During his stint in the army, he married his first wife, Grace Allin, who quickly grew weary of Mix’s long absences due to military service. In the fall of 1902, Mix went AWOL from the army. Though many attribute this decision to pressure from Grace, it could easily have been the result of his own ambitions to do something else with his life.

         Mix and Grace left for the Wild West, ending up in Guthrie, Oklahoma, where he taught phys ed and she taught English. Shortly after the move, Grace and Tom went their separate ways, and Grace’s father had the marriage annulled. Single once again, Tom embarked on a series of adventuresome jobs, ranging from drum major in the Oklahoma Cavalry Band to rodeo clown for the Col. Zack Mulhal Wild West Show to law enforcement officer to ranch hand. Eventually, he ended up at the Miller Brothers 101 Real Wild West Ranch in Ponca City, Oklahoma, where he worked his way up from host to performer in their traveling show. Along the way, he got married a couple more times.

         While this would have been an exciting life for many people, Tom tended  to embellish his early exploits once he became a movie star. His version of his life story began with his birth to a pioneer Texas family. To get the best of both sides of Wild West conflict, his mother’s family had Indian blood coursing through their veins, while his father had been in Custer’s 7^th Cavalry. At one point, he was supposedly adopted by Buffalo Bill!. In Tom’s retelling of his life, his military record did not include desertion—but it did include charging up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders! He then helped quell the uprising in the Philippines before running off to help in the Boer War in Africa. Tom particularly liked to exaggerate his Wild West experience, claiming to be a Texas Ranger and then a volunteer for the forces of Madero fighting Diaz in Mexico, where he faced down a firing squad. Claiming to grow weary of conflict, he then settled down to ranch life at the Miller Brothers’ 101 Ranch. Custer! Buffalo Bill! Roosevelt! Texas Rangers! Madero! This is the caliber of life story that he liked to  present to the press and public.  Hey—works for me.

         The Miller Brothers’ ranch and show did play an important part in Tom’s life and career. From 1906 to 1911, he worked for them off and on, honing his skills as a cowboy. Mix was not the only western movie star to do so. Hollywood actors Will Rogers, Ken Maynard, and Tex Cooper also got their start with the Millers, as did legendary African-American cowboy Bill Pickett, mainly because early movie companies used the ranch as a western locale for shooting films, particularly the Selig Polyscope Company of Chicago.

         Tom Mix’s association with Selig began in 1909, when he and his third wife, Olive Stokes Mix, were part of the Circle D Ranch Wild West Show. Selig shot the cowboys and Indians segment of the show to use as the action scenes in some of his westerns. In Ranch Life in the Great Southwest (1910), Mix was shown in the bronco busting sequence. He made many shorts with the Selig company, including An Indian Wife’s Devotion, which was actually shot along the Des Plaines River near Chicago.

         The budding star also appeared in secondary roles when a troupe from Selig Polyscope set up shop in Jacksonville, Florida. In these films, Mix supported a charming actress named Kathlyn Williams who was something of  a daredevil famous for her animal films. In Lost in the Jungle, one of the big cats in the film got out of control momentarily, and Williams was injured. The actress was an animal lover, and she downplayed the accident to the press at the time and dismissed the danger of doing stunts with big cats, elephants, and other undomesticated beasts. Mix was on set that day, but in Williams’s account of the accident, he is not mentioned. However, years later when recalling the incident for a movie magazine, wife Olive Stokes Mix claimed that Tom jumped into the ruckus and rescued Williams by grabbing the lion by the tail and hurling it away!

         When Selig moved his operation permanently to Hollywood in 1913, Tom became a business partner with Selig and was given his own camera crew. Mix made over 60 films for Selig, becoming a popular western star in the process.

FLASHY CLOTHES, FLASHY CAR

         The year 1917 was a big one for Tom Mix. Selig Polyscope dissolved, and Tom became a cowboy star for William Fox’s company, Fox Studios. He divorced Olive and married actress Victoria Forde, making her his leading lady onscreen and off. The change in studio elevated his star status, putting him in competition with the number-one western star of the era, William S. Hart.

         Hart prided himself on capturing what he called the “realism” of the Old West-the dusty trails, the authentic clothing and gear, and the serious demeanor of a real cowboy. But, Tom Mix was not that kind of cowboy. Onscreen and off, he wore white pants, an embroidered coat, a huge Stetson, black shiny boots, and oversized, colorful kerchiefs around his neck. He was adept at creating large-scale, daredevil stunts, which he and his horse did themselves—at least until Fox Studios stopped him. Offscreen, he bought fancy cars with steer horns mounted on them and lived in a mansion with a seven-car garage. His costume, personality, and actions exaggerated the romance and adventure of the Old West-and the audiences loved it. By 1922, Mix had unseated Hart as King of the Cowboys.

JOAQUINA FROM MY DEAR TOM MIX

         It is this era of Mix’s career that My Dear Tom Mix evokes. A still from the movie shows Joaquina holding a film can with a picture of Mix and his horse Tony on the front. The picture is from Mix’s 1920 film Desert Love, a title that foreshadows a part of Joaquina’s own story in My Dear Tom Mix.

            My favorite part of the Mix legend in his horse Tony, also known as the Wonder Horse. Tony, who was purchased as a colt in the mid-1910s, knew no master but Tom and was expertly trained by him. Using his teeth, Tony could count, untie ropes from Tom’s hand, and do a perfect double take for the camera. He could also perform amazing jumps, climb stairs, and pull people from blazing fires. Typically, horses are deathly afraid of fire, so this stunt was particularly impressive. Both Tom and Tony were the consummate showmen—or, show animals.

TOM WITH THE ORIGINAL TONY THE WONDER HORSE

Horses are significant to the mythic nature of the western genre, because they are central to the identity of the western hero. The hero’s horsemanship is frequently showcased in obligatory scenes of daring riding, such as galloping at breakneck speed, navigating down a steep slope, or jumping perilous heights. In western series, serials, or B-films, which tend to use the same cowboy star from film to film, this spiritual connection to horses is conveyed through an unusually close bond between the hero and his favorite steed. Thus, every cowboy actor had his regular equine costar, who often took billing over the leading ladies. Alongside Tom Mix and Tony, there was William S. Hart and Fritz, Buck Jones and Silver, Kermit Maynard and Rocky, Wild Bill Elliott and Thunder, and many more.

THE SPIRIT OF TOM MIX SAVES THE DAY

            Tony retired in the late 1920s, and Tom bought Tony, Jr. to train as his new costar. Fans of Mix could easily differentiate between Tony, a sorrel with two white stockings on his back legs, and Tony, Jr., who had white stockings on all four legs. In My Dear Tom Mix, the character who embodies the spirit of Tom Mix rides a white horse, and die-hard Mix fans will undoubtedly complain that the horse is obviously not Tony, or even Tony, Jr. However, Mix did have a third horse named Tony II, who was used for personal appearances, especially in Europe. Tony II, a large white horse, was more in keeping with the archetype of the heroic movie horse who rides to the rescue with his master. In My Dear Tom Mix, the dream-like shot of horse and rider racing through the desert evokes the archetype in all its mythic meaning.

         By the end of the silent era, Mix’s star had fallen, and he made his last screen appearance in a 1935 serial. He returned once again to the Wild West shows, which—like Mix—had seen the last of their glory days. He toured with the Sells-Floto Circus, the Sam B. Dill Circus, and in a show titled Tom Mix and His Three Hundred Cossacks, which stormed across Mexico, probably in the 1930s. Mix had toured Mexico in the Wild West shows prior to his film career, along with famous cowboys Bill Pickett and Stack Lee, and his films had been exhibited in Mexico. So, using Mix as an iconic figure in My Dear Tom Mix makes sense historically.

            In 1940, Mix visited his old studio—now known as Twentieth Century-Fox—hoping  to call on director John Ford or studio manager Sol Wurtzel to see if they could find work for him. Ford was shooting The Grapes of Wrath, but he took Mix to lunch, where he kindly explained to Mix that his time had passed. The studio’s production manager, R. Lee “Lefty” Hough, noticed a humbled Tom Mix standing in the lobby as he was about to leave. Hough recalled with sadness, “He stood in the vestibule, and there were pictures of all the big stars…on the wall. Here was the guy that had made the goddamn studio, looking for a [role].”   

THE TOM MIX MEMORIAL NEAR FLORENCE, AZ

That same year, Tom Mix died in a car accident near Florence, Arizona. He was speeding in one of his cars, a Cord, and drove past a detour sign, crashing into a small ravine at a washed-out bridge. A suitcase struck him in the back of the neck, killing him. When rescuers discovered his body, they found him impeccably dressed, unmarked by any wounds. On his person were thousands of dollars in cash and checks. But, even that colorful death was not quite colorful enough for Tom Mix. Hollywood legend would claim that he was driving a Rolls Royce, Stutz Bearcat, or Packard roadster when a suitcase filled with twenty-dollar gold pieces struck him in the head, so that Mix was killed by the very fame and flamboyance that made him larger than life. Like his films and his concocted biography, his death became a legend with meaning beyond the surface of the story. Hey—works for me. 

Adams, Les and Buck Rainey. Shoot-em-ups: The Complete Reference Guide to Westerns of the Sound Era. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1978. 

Brownlow, Kevin. The War, The West, and the Wilderness. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979. 

Mix, Paul E. The Life and Legend of Tom Mix. South Brunswick, N.J.: A.S. Barnes, 1972. 

Tuska, Jon. The Filming of the West. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976.