With the Colorado picture wrapped up, there was no film planned for Tom for the immediate future. This would be a good time for a vacation, I thought. But I was wrong.
A letter came from Guy Weadick, a New York impresario.
"He's planned to put a show on in Calgary, Alberta," Tom said. "He says he'd like to talk to me about being in it."
I submitted to the idea with a repressed sigh. My experience with our own show in Washington had soured me on them forever.
Later I came to understand why Tom preferred appearing in ranch shows and circuses to appearing in films. Nothing evoked more response from him than having a living, breathing audience to play to. He would reach out and gather the audience into himself, and the spectators realized how much he loved people. More than once I heard persons in the audience declare that Tom seemed to be playing to them alone, that he seemed to single them out specifically to give them the greatest performance of his career. He had the almost unique quality of being able to make everyone feel important. And to Tom everyone was important.
He didn't forget the importance of other people when he was in his starring years, either. He was probably more universally adored by children than any other star, before or since. They flocked to see his movies and great mobs of them hung about stage doors when he made his personal appearance tours in the later years. They hung on his every gesture and word, and he never failed to respond to their idolization. At the height of his career he was emulated by millions of children all over the world; there were hundreds of "little Tom Mixes" in even the smallest towns, most of them cleaning out a nest of imaginary outlaws in their backyards in typical Tom Mix fashion. The popular dream of the day was to grow up to be like Tom Mix.
His influence on children was indeed immeasurable; and his was an absolutely positive influence. Probably Tom's greatest contribution in his long career was the result of his steadfast purpose that his films should teach youth to be truthful and strong and fearless- and clean-living.
I was thrilled with New York City, though our stay there was brief. After the final arrangements for the show were made, Tom, Guy Weadick and I left for Calgary. While the show was being rehearsed there, I made several visits to the doctor.
When I told him, Tom responded like a typical man. At first he acted a little dizzy. Then he looked flushed. Then he burst into the most expansive smile of all time.
"A baby," he said with wonder in his voice. "A baby. A baby."
As though there had never been a baby born before!
I laughed, but Tom was already pacing the floor, smiling and making plans at a mile a minute.
"I've got to get there fast now," he said, smacking his fist against his palm with determination. "We've got to give our daughter everything in the world."
I never was able to figure out how he knew it would be a daughter.
He was so solicitous of me in my pregnancy that I could scarcely move without bringing a frown of worry to his face. I kept laughing and reminding him that pioneer women had had it much harder than I was going to have it; but Tom kept on treating me as though he were afraid I would break into halves if he even breathed in my direction.
The show in Calgary was very successful and made an enormous profit, which was true of most of the shows that he starred in for other people. It was only in the shows he backed with his own money that he had his bad luck.
But there was one very frightening episode that occurred while Tom was acting in the Weadick show, at Dominion Park in Montreal.
It was during a Sunday night performance. The moment came for the bulldogging of a steer. Tom came out into the arena as usual with an air of complete self-confidence. But as he leaped onto the steer and bore it to the ground the animal made a quick turn and the tip of a horn caught Tom at the base of the law, knocking him out cold. His jaw bleeding badly, he was carried from the arena to his dressing room.
He came to in a few moments and, immediately after opening his eyes, he said "Is it time for the bronc-busting? "
Johnny Mullens, one of the cowboys who was working with the show at the time and a top performer as well as an old friend of Tom's, tried to persuade Tom not to enter the bronc-riding event.
Needless to say, Tom went out and entered the bucking horse period of the program. It was an unlucky night for him. He had been jarred up by the steer more seriously than he calculated and the horse he was on, a ferocious animal with plenty of tricks, threw him.
Once again he was carried out of the arena. This time I called a doctor. Tom's face was badly cut and bleeding. The doctor came and stated that he would call an ambulance and go with Tom to the hospital.
Tom refused to go. I sensed that maybe he did not want me to go with him in an ambulance, so I whispered to Johnny Mullens to tell Tom that he would go along with him.
Finally Tom agreed.
Later that night I learned the rest of the story.
Tom would not let the doctor ride in the ambulance with him and Johnny Mullens. So the driver let the doctor ride beside him on the seat of the ambulance. It was a horsedrawn vehicle and the streets were cobblestone and tortuous to an injured person riding in a vehicle.
It was two or three miles to the hospital from the park. The driver of the ambulance was going as fast as the horses could trot and there was much rattling and squeaking. Tom was lying on the cot. Johnny said he raised himself up and said: "Listen, Johnny, I'm not going any further. I'll get out and you ride on. Then you get out and let them go on. They won't know we're gone."
Tom climbed out of the back door of the ambulance. Johnny rode on a few blocks and then decided that it was not such a good idea. He banged on the front of the ambulance and the driver pulled to a halt.
When the doctor learned that Tom had jumped from the ambulance, he was scared, for he knew it would look pretty bad for him to show up at the hospital without his patient.
Under the doctor's instruction the ambulance was turned around and retraced its journey for several blocks until they saw Tom standing under an arc lamp, waiting for Johnny as planned.
They got him back into the ambulance. When they got to the hospital a little French nurse, who did not look to be over sixteen years old, was called in to help out. Tom stared at her and said in a very deep voice, "This is a nice time of night for a girl like you to be running around! " He flustered the girl so much she dropped everything she touched.
The doctor tried to get Tom to stay overnight at the hospital but Tom refused. "Doc," he said, "I'm not going to stay here when you got ghosts running around and fellows dying every few minutes."
Tom and Johnny left the hospital. The doctor had taped Tom's face until only his eyes were visible. They went to a corner to wait for a streetcar. Tom sauntered over to a plate glass window and saw an image of himself.
"I'm a devil of a looking sight! " he exclaimed. He ripped off the bandages and threw them into the gutter.
After the Calgary show was over we did two films for Selig, and then Tom joined Vernon Seivers' Young Buffalo Show in Peoria, Illinois. This was another successful affair, and when it was finished we went to Dominion Park again to do yet another show.
I was far along in my pregnancy then, and the first thing Tom did in Montreal was to line up a whole battery of doctors for me. As the time for the birth came closer and closer, I grew happier and happier, feeling certain that Tom would get the Wild West show sickness out of his system when our baby was born. Our itinerant life would have to end. I had become more and more dissatisfied with that mode of existence, and we had more than one disagreement about it.
In Montreal Tom spent most of his time talking to me and to everyone else about the baby we were going to have. There were a number of Indians in the show and it wasn't long before we were honored with many papoose garments which the squaws generously made for us. We made good use of them later. Ruth learned to walk in the moccasins a squaw made while we were in Montreal.
A few weeks before the baby was due to arrive I began to feel panicky. I had felt the pangs of homesickness many times in my peregrinations with Tom, but never to such an intense degree.
"Tom," I said, "I want the baby to be born at home."
He was bitterly disappointed, but he catered lovingly to my whim to go home for the big event. It was just about the hardest thing Tom ever had to do in his life.
At the train he said, "I'll be there just as soon as I can, Olive." And he was almost crying!
He had his commitment to finish in Montreal before he could come home, but he fully expected to arrive there before the baby was born.
As it happened Ruth Mix was born on July 13, 1912, about a week before she was expected. There was an explosion of celebration at the ranch because the "new princess" had been born.
Tom arrived from Canada three days after Ruth's entry into the world. He burst into the bedroom and just stared and stared at her for minutes and minutes. Then he grinned at me and said, "Looks like we've got the most wonderful cowgirl in the world, Olive."
Tom never changed his mind about his daughter. She was the closest person to him in his life from the moment she was born. And she was to be the last person in the world to talk to him before he died.
In the second decade of the century "going to the movies" became an established pattern in American life, and with this pattern came the longer picture. Two-reelers gave way to four- and five-reelers, and the old nickelodeon and tent shows gave way to big motion picture theaters designed especially to appeal to the steadily growing movie audience.
The star system came in, to stay, in the early days of World War I. The screen comedy got its real foothold in the war years, too, but the Western film continued to maintain its popularity- a popularity that has never really waned greatly over the years.
The struggle for the West offered a treasury of material for the movies to draw upon. The whole enormous story of the land west of the Mississippi made an incredibly wide base for drama. Audiences clamored for adventure, and Tom Mix, William S. Hart and Douglas Fairbanks gave the movie-goers every type of adventure imaginable.
Tom, who had entered films really as a stopgap measure, was soon enthusiastic about his movie career. "In the movies we can reach millions with our story," he said. "With ranch shows we can only reach thousands."
Tom's true knowledge of the adventures he was reliving on the screen proved of invaluable aid to the script writers who fashioned his pictures. He looked askance at any deviation from authenticity and was instrumental in keeping fantasy out of his films.
He realized the public demanded violence in films of the West. There wasn't much room for humor in the early Westerns, and there wasn't much room for the routine life that was as much a part of Western life as violence. This disturbed Tom. "The public will get the impression that Westerners spent twenty-four hours a day shooting it out with one another," he said.
But that was the impression the movie-goer wanted to have and, consequently, it was the reason the early Westerns were based on tragedy rather than humor. In Tom's later pictures he managed to incorporate both facets of Western life in a nicely blended recipe.
There was a period, just after Ruth was born, when Tom thought of giving up his motion picture career.
"We have a baby now," he said. "A child has to have solid ground to grow up on. We've got to get settled."
"That's fine with me," I returned. There was nothing I wanted more in the world.
He spent three restless months at home trying to decide what to do. Then, just about the time his current contract with Selig was due to expire, a letter came from the Chicago studio asking Tom to report to Chicago and sign a new contract.
"I'm going to write and tell them Fin not interested," Tom said.
I hesitated for a long time. "You are interested," I eventually told him firmly. "And we are going to Chicago."
This meant final acknowledgment to myself that there was never going to be a real "settling down" in our lives. This feeling of mine was substantiated in later years. His restlessness had been born of his roaming days on the range. It was a seed that was planted deep in him, and it was compounded of his past life and the boundless energy he carried with him throughout his career. The later emotionalism that resulted from Tom's losing contact, at times, with the man he really was, further accentuated the seed of restlessness he always carried in him. It came to be at certain points in his life an escape hatch with him.
So, with this realization firmly entrenched in my mind, I went to Chicago with Tom. The new contract was signed and he made a picture at the Chicago studio. Ruth and I held forth in a hotel room. I had become very much accustomed to that type of living-not that I liked it, but I was certain that as Tom's wife I would be doing a good bit more of it as time went on.
I was in for a surprise when we arrived in Prescott, Arizona, for Tom's next picture. The company provided a furnished house for us. We had been married four years and this was our first real home.
I was delighted to be able, at last, to show my ability as a homemaker, and dreaded the finishing of that film which would mean our packing up and moving on!
Tom and Ruth had a field day. He would rush home from the day's shooting and make straight for her crib. He did lasso tricks while she gurgled up happily at him.
"I think she's grown an inch today," he announced.
"Don't be silly," I laughed.
He was perpetually making plans for her. "We'll have to get a horse for her," he said.
"Don't you think you'd better wait for a few years?
"She's going to love the ranch when we get it," he said with a faraway look in his eyes.
"You're going to turn our daughter into a cowgirl?" I demanded. I remembered the struggles my mother had gone through with me as a child. "Not if I can help it! She can learn how to handle a horse but she's also going to know how to handle a teacup."
Ruth grew up with a high facility for doing both. She was a champion rider, an expert markswoman, and an accomplished roper. And she could handle her teacup as daintily as anyone else. She also grew up to be the fortress her father sought refuge behind in his blackest moments.
The news came through after we finished the film in Arizona that all of Selig's production of Western films was henceforth to be concentrated in Hollywood.
I was delighted to get to Hollywood. It might be a chance for us to settle down for a fairly long period of time.
In 1913 Los Angeles had grown from a tiny Spanish pueblo to a bustling city of almost four hundred thousand population, lying in a flat plain that spreads from the mountains and their foothills to the sea. Though the city was already sprawling toward its eventual metropolitan greatness, the suburbs were barely in their early-blossom stage. Hollywood, situated in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains, with the Cahuenga Valley lying below, was largely farm land and orange groves when the first motion picture studio was established there in 1911. Its big growth was not to come until after 1920, when it became acknowledged as the motion picture capital of the world.
Contrary to common conception, the motion picture companies did not settle in California because of its delightful climate but rather to avoid the litigation that was continually hovering on their backs when they were situated in the East. But the movie industry couldn't have made a happier choice than California for its new home. The varied topography offered exotic settings right in the studios' backyards- mountain, sea, and desert were close at hand. The weather was dependable, and outdoor shooting could be carried on between May and November with almost certain assurance there would be no interruption from rain. The weather had been a serious deterrent to movie production in the East until a satisfactory method of indoor set lighting was developed.
From 1913 onward Hollywood was the base of Tom's movie operations. It was also as near to being his home as any place could be to a man of his unsettled nature. Yet even though he began in Hollywood when just a few bungalows and small studios studded its beautiful hills and stayed on to see it become a place of palatial residences and enormous studios in the twenties, Tom's relationship with Hollywood was always a tenuous one. His body was in Hollywood and the present, but his mind and heart were in the plains and the past. The conflict between the "Old Tom" and the "New Tom" caused much of the dissatisfaction that came to him in later years.
Tom, Ruth and I settled in a bungalow that first year. And that year, too, Selig acknowledged openly that Tom was the studio's greatest asset. Tom was given his own studio in Glendale and the Selig-Tom Mix Company was formed.
It was about this time that Tom acquired Tony, the horse that was to become identified with him for many years.
Although there have been various stories as to the way Tom acquired Tony, the truth is that an actor friend of Tom's by the name of Pat Crisman one day spied a chicken wagon driving down one of the streets of Edendale. Alongside the horse drawing the vehicle was a black colt. The owner of the chicken wagon wanted to sell it. Pat Crisman purchased the colt, reared and trained him, and later sold him to Tom, who took an immediate liking to the black two year-old when he happened to see him. Tom paid six hundred dollars for Tony.
Tony was to become the most famous show horse in the world for many, many years. He appeared with Tom in all the films he made from 1914 to 1932, replacing Old Blue who, in his old age, was retired to royal pasturage after years of devoted service to his master. Old Blue was buried in Mixville, the focal point of Tom's picture production while under the William Fox banner. Over the grave of Old Blue Tom had erected a big 4x4 wooden pillar with a projecting beam, so that he would be able to hang a wreath of flowers over the resting place of his faithful friend whenever he was in the vicinity.
During the thirty-four years that Tony lived no person except Tom ever sat on his back. No person other than Tom ever taught him a trick.
The two, Tom and Tony, were almost as inseparable in real life as they were on the screen. Literally millions of still photographs captioned TOM MIX AND TONY appeared all over the world during their long years of fame together. While at the height of his fame Tom received thousands of fan letters a week. So did Tony.
Tony didn't understand Tom's words, but he did understand over him was almost uncanny. When they were about to do a difficult scene, Tom would pat Tony on his nose and say, "Now, look, Tony, here's the way we're going to do this...."
And that was the way they would do it.
Someone once commented that Tony must certainly have understood what Tom said to him. That was wrong, of course. Tony didn't understand Tom's words, but he did understand Tom's love, and that was enough.
Tony was a beautiful horse, with the slender strong lines and glossy sorrel coat of a thoroughbred. He had "white sox" on his hind legs and a white line down his head. He did not have a gourmet's palate: even during the years when he was the most famous animal in the world and traveled in his own private railroad car, the delicacies in his life were apples, carrots, and bananas, and he favored them in that order. Other than these horse delicacies, he subsisted contentedly on plain horse fare. He did not taste sugar even once in his entire life.
Tony was constantly tuned for action. He came to know what was expected of him and he, like Tom, never failed to come through as expected, regardless of any danger involved. I always felt that Tony knew he was a star, that he would have bowed his head in shame rather -han do anything unworthy of himself or Tom.
Tony loved me too. I will never forget whenever I came up to him how he would run his lip up and down my arm in a gesture of affection.
Of course, in Tom's films of the late twenties it was necessary to have a double for Tony in some of the very difficult scenes. A horse named Buster, who closely resembled Tony in line and color, doubled for him in some of the most dangerous tricks. The make-up people would paint a stripe on Buster's face and whiten his feet so that he looked almost exactly like Tony.
Tony was definitely jealous of Buster, and would snort with fury when Tom climbed on Buster's back. But later, as Tony grew older, I actually believe he understood that Tom was trying to spare him in his old age.
One terrifying incident involving Tom and Tony occurred when a picture was being shot at Santa Cruz, California. The script called for Tom to ride Tony along a narrow trail flanked by towering mountains, in order to escape the outlaws. The villains, meanwhile, knowing he would come this way, had planted dynamite in the trail. The instant he passed the dynamite, the script called for it to be blown up.
The director pleaded with Tom not to risk himself and Tony on such a shot, but Tom would have none of that.
Atop one of the mountains, well out of camera range, the dynamiter stood with hands poised over the detonator.
Tom on Tony's back waved at the dynamiter, a signal for him to get ready.
When the director yelled, "Roll 'em," Tom galloped for the trail entrance between the mountain sides. He came into the trail while the dynamiter took his reading. But the reading was without the aid of instruments; sighting in a simple fashion, he closed one eye and squinted at the target. He was an old duck hunter and he knew enough to lead anything he was shooting at.
Now the "bird" was below, but he needed leading just the same. The dynamiter led him on- and on- and on- NOW!
The earth rose beneath Tom and Tony, carrying them up and over the side of the mountain which was coming down at them because of concussion. Earth and stone smothered horse and rider, for the dynamiter, while squinting into the sun above them, had let the detonator go at the exact instant Tom and Tony were over the hidden explosive.
Tony lay perfectly still, careful not to move until his master was safe. There was a gaping hole in the horse's side, but he waited for his master to be moved first. He only whinnied softly, although undoubtedly suffering great pain.
They wanted to take Tom in an ambulance, but he wouldn't leave until Tony had been administered to by a veterinarian.
Years ago a friend of mine, Sara Hamilton, wrote a little story about Tony. I am transcribing it from the torn and yellow pages that I have treasured throughout the years. It is called, Tony Goes to Green Pastures:
"Tony," he said at last, "you and I have been buddies for a long time. We've been through hell and heaven together. But, Tony, the time has come when we've each got to go our own way. You understand, boy?"
He pointed at my weak leg. Yes, I understood. For a long time I had suffered with that leg but had tried to ignore it. I'd had a lot of aches in my life and couldn't believe that this one, too, wouldn't pass away. Then, during the making of our last picture, just as I leaped across a stream with Tom on my back, it had caught me-a sharp, stabbing pain. We both went down. I knew it would never be better.
"You're going to green pastures, Tony," he said. "You've earned a long rest. You know, don't you, old fellow, that often you've been just about the only friend I've had . . . the one thing in the world I could come to. Well, I'll not forget you now."
He laid his hand for just a moment on my head. Then he was gone.
I watched him out of sight, over the pasture gate. I was glad he had told me, man to man, with no sobbing heroics. He knew I wouldn't have liked that.
Yet, as I watched him go, my mind went back to the time he first spoke to me. That was after my first master had delivered me over to him. "Well, boy," he said, "you and I are going to be good friends from now on, aren't we? "
In the mornings he would ride me out to a place where a group of men waited with little boxes on legs and some bright fights. Tom would tell me very quickly just what I was to do, and somehow don't ask me how- I knew exactly what he meant and why. We were doing those things so the little box on legs could make a picture of us. I was an actor!
I got to be a better actor, too, never hesitating to do anything Tom asked me. "Walk down to that tree, Tony, then stop and look back," he'd say, showing me just how he wanted it done. And I'd do it. Why, we thought nothing of leaping into burning buildings, dashing down dangerous chasms, or jumping off a pier into the ocean.
Tom would never try to force me when I refused to take a leap or jump. He'd hunt around until he discovered the loosened boulder or cracked earth that would have meant our death had we gone on. How I knew these things before people did is something I've often wondered about but could never reason out.
I learned how to look my best before a camera and when to stop acting. "Will you look at that horse?" a visitor on location once remarked in my hearing. "How he struts and acts before the camera, and the minute he's out of camera range he's right back to eating grass as nonchalantly as you please."
Huh, I thought to myself, why not? I'm not one of those actors that can't stop acting, even when there's no camera around!
But as soon as the sun reached a certain spot in the sky, I knew enough work had been done that day even if the men didn't. Just plain horse sense, I guess.
Anyway, at five I quit. And they knew it was no use to argue with me.
So they would lead me into my truck and take me back to my stable. How I loved to go fast in my truck! I'd paw loudly with my foot to go faster and often my driver would yell back at me, "For heaven's sake, Tony, I can't go any faster here or the cops will get us."
I had a weakness for fancy saddles and bright plaid blankets, and Tom knew it and understood. He liked bright, gay things himself. So once, when a strange groom placed a drab old blanket on my back, I was hopping mad. Do you think I'd budge? No sir. The groom couldn't understand it until finally someone who knew me spotted that blanket and replaced it with a nice plaid one, and then I went.
Tom decided to go to Europe. They slung me up in a hoist onto the ship and it was work, as I weighed ten hundred and fifty pounds and stood fourteen hands high. I was exercised around the deck of the ship every morning and really enjoyed it.
In England I was at a very fashionable stable, and never shall I forget the horse in the stall next to me. He was English, of course, and if ever I saw style and class, he had it. And was he snooty! He looked me up and down several times and gave one big sniff. But when he saw me making my own bed that night-I always arranged the hay with my foot to suit myself-I thought he would break out in spavins. But I didn't care. Tom was probably dunking his cake in his coffee at one of those big mansions I'd seen and not giving a picayune.
The next morning a young fellow was ushered into my stall. He reached out a hand to pat me and suddenly withdrew it. He sensed I wouldn't like it and that made a big hit with me. Here was a man who understood horses. When he left he placed his hand very gently on my head as if he were just shaking hands.
"Who was that?" I asked Mr. Highhat in the next stall.
"That," he answered, and I noticed a new note of respect in his voice, "is His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales."
We traveled all over Europe with lords and dukes and ladies all eager to meet us. Just plain Tom Mix and I. It seemed strange.
Home again, we made personal appearances in twenty-five big cities. Children were sometimes disappointed when they saw me, for on the screen they imagined me black instead of sorrel. But they'd soon recognize me by my white feet and white face.
By the time we got back to Hollywood, Tom was a very rich man. He began building his big new mansion in a place called Beverly Hills. I was happy about the place, but inside me was a dreadful fear. Tom might not need me or want me any more with a grand new house and new friends. But I never let on. One day he came out to the ranch and said, "Hi, Tony, how's the boy?" I nodded. "Come on, I want to show you something," he said.
Soon we were passing beautiful homes on lovely, quiet streets and I knew we were in Beverly Hills. Suddenly, there it was-his grand new house. I knew it by the initials, T.M. on the gate. Tom was always one for putting initials on everything. I glimpsed a swimming pool and a tennis court.
"Know what this is, Tony?" Tom asked. "Step up here and give a look." It was a beautiful building right near the gate and was as grand, almost, as the house. I looked in. "You're home, old boy," Tom said.
The time came when we went into the circus. You should have seen me in that parade. Did I show them something? "Well," one of those fancy riding horses once sneered, "you'd think he was a trained horse or something the way he struts." And did I put that madam in her place. I told her about the blazing buildings, the yawning chasms, the daily chances with death that Tom and I took together. Trained horse, indeed!
"Besides," I said, "I want you to know I'm a movie star, known by thousands. And who are you?"
And that knocked the pink ribbon off her tail.
Then we came back to movie acting. We've made our best Pictures, I believe, since our return from the circus. Tom was sick and nearly died, but outside of that we've been happier than we've been for a long time. Until my accident, and the realization that I couldn't go on much longer.
Now it's over, Tom tells me. For me, at least. All the thrills, the travel, and the excitement are done. No more crowds. No more movies.
Somehow I can't be sorry. I guess I'm tired. I've reached the ripe old age of twenty-three years, most of them spent with Tom. We've seen more and been more places than most people.
I am alone again- but happy- in green pastures. . . .
In those early days in Hollywood Tom was given free rein in the production of his movies. With the release of each new film his star burned brighter, and it became obvious that he was secure in his new career. He began bringing his range friends to California to work in his films with him; among them Sid Jordan.
Tom's friendship with Sid dated back to the days when they had worked together on the enormous 101 Ranch near Bliss, Oklahoma. Together with the Miller brothers, who owned the ranch, they helped to organize the famous 10 1 Ranch Wild West Show, a stupendous Western theatrical effort which enjoyed fabulous success when it opened in Chicago in 1907. Tom was the foreman of the cowboys in this show, and it was largely due to his ability for organization that the show was such a hit.
It was in Chicago, in 1907, that Elinor Glyn, the famous English novelist, first met Tom and predicted that he would one day assume a role of real importance in the entertainment world. Miss Glyn, who later turned from novels to writing movie scenarios and who created the famous "It" personality for Clara Bow in the twenties, once commented that Tom was the most perfect specimen of manhood she had ever met. It was an opinion shared by many, many other persons too.
Tom's close friendship with Sid Jordan had deep roots in the old range days. The loneliness of range life made for hard, endurable, silent friendships based on intense loyalty. Tom's relationship with Sid had a foundation of the hardest granite, and it endured unwaveringly up to the moment of Tom's death.
Sid was a frequent visitor at our home. I was busy rearing Ruth and I could no longer go to the studio to watch the shooting of Tom's pictures, but by pressing Sid for information, I could usually find out what harrowing scene Tom had performed before the cameras that day.
Sid would try to joke about it.
"Oh," he said once, "you didn't do much today, did you, Tom? All you did was roll over a cliff in a stage coach."
"That's about all," Tom grinned.
Tom actually had gone over a cliff in a stage coach that day. It was the final scene shot in that picture. Tom had saved it until the last because it was the most dangerous scene of the picture and the chances were heavy that he would land in the hospital with a concussion and his usual quota of broken bones. While he was in the hospital the writers could be working on the next script.
Fortunately he emerged from the scene with a number of cuts and bruises, but nothing worse. Any other man would probably have been killed doing it, or at least severely injured. It wasn't long after that- about a month in fact- when I got a call that Tom was in the hospital. Arriving there, I found that this time Tom was seriously hurt. The doctors informed me that the outlook was not too good.
I did not learn the entire story until I returned home. Little Ruth had heard of her father's illness and was hysterical. Sid Jordan was there with her and after assuring Ruth that her daddy would be all right, we managed to get her off to bed.
"Now tell me all about it, Sid," I demanded.
Sid was not even as talkative as Tom, but I finally dragged out of him that they had been shooting a picture in the Los Angeles Stadium. Tom had conceived a scene in which two chuck wagons, each drawn by six-horse teams, were in a wild race. Tom was on Tony as an outrider, galloping neck and neck with the lead horses of the team nearest the rail. Suddenly a doubletree came loose. The lead horse fell, spilling Tony and Tom and pinning both of them against the rail while, in some macabre fashion, the four remaining horses, dragging the wagon as they dropped, caught the outside vehicle.
The dozen horses, the two wagons and the equipment they carried, all had to be removed before first aid could be rendered the unconscious Tom. Miraculously Tony was unhurt.
This time it was three weeks before Tom was back home and able to continue his work. He spent a lot of time sitting out in the sun thinking up new stunts for new pictures.
A combination of qualities saved Tom from sudden death in his danger-fraught movie stunts. The most important was his enormous courage. His was silent courage, not talked about, always expressed in his complete willingness to face terrible hazards without fear and without comment. His dauntlessness was as much a part of his nature as was the truth on which he based his mode of living. He carried his great courage with him throughout his entire life.
His fearlessness was only the instigating charge in Tom's daily performance of hazardous feats. His suppleness and physical strength, and his ability to relax his body in even the most harrowing moments helped him to complete successfully the dangerous tricks his courage allowed him to begin. His brain response was electric, and decisions made in a fraction of a second saved his life on more than one occasion.
Still, even though aware that if anyone could, Tom would emerge still breathing from his dangerous movie stunts, I lived each day in suspense, constantly dreading the call that would inform me of Tom's latest hospitalization, or of something worse. It was like sending the person closest to you in life off to a new war every day of the year, and not knowing whether he would come back from the battleground that night or not.
Tom knew the tension I suffered. It worried him. It also worried him that his life had become so complicated, because with each new picture his obligation to his growing public became a shade more important. And with fame comes complications.
More than once he wanted to turn back to look for the life he had been forced to leave behind him.
He was an established star when one day he said to me: "Where's everything gone wrong, Olive? This life we lead isn't right for us. What happened to our dream? Where's that ranch I wanted more than anything in the world? "
I had to swallow pretty hard before I could force myself to answer him. It was difficult not to be selfish at that moment. But the whole world was pressing against me, rubbing against my personal dream; for Tom belonged to the world by then, not just to Ruth and me. He was now too big a man to be confined to a ranch.
"You're an important man now," I told him. "Your obligation is to the people you are making happy . . . those children probably have been killed doing it, or at least severely injured. It wasn't long after that- about a month in fact- when I got a call that Tom was in the hospital. Arriving there, I found that this time Tom was seriously hurt. The doctors informed me that the outlook was not too good.
I did not learn the entire story until I returned home. Little Ruth had heard of her father's illness and was hysterical. Sid Jordan was there with her and after assuring Ruth that her daddy would be all right, we managed to get her off to bed.
"Now tell me all about it, Sid," I demanded.
Sid was not even as talkative as Tom, but I finally dragged out of him that they had been shooting a picture in the Los Angeles Stadium. Tom had conceived a scene in which two chuck wagons, each drawn by six-horse teams, were in a wild race. Tom was on Tony as an outrider, galloping neck and neck with the lead horses of the team nearest the rail. Suddenly a doubletree came loose. The lead horse fell, spilling Tony and Tom and pinning both of them against the rail while, in some macabre fashion, the four remaining horses, dragging the wagon as they dropped, caught the outside vehicle.
The dozen horses, the two wagons and the equipment they carried, all had to be removed before first aid could be rendered the unconscious Tom. Miraculously Tony was unhurt.
This time it was three weeks before Tom was back home and able to continue his work. He spent a lot of time sitting out in the sun thinking up new stunts for new pictures.
A combination of qualities saved Tom from sudden death in his danger-fraught movie stunts. The most important was his enormous courage. His was silent courage, not talked about, always expressed in his complete willingness to face terrible hazards without fear and without comment. His dauntlessness was as much a part of his nature as was the truth on which he based his mode of living. He carried his great courage with him throughout his entire life.
His fearlessness was only the instigating charge in Tom's daily performance of hazardous feats. His suppleness and physical strength, and his ability to relax his body in even the most harrowing moments helped him to complete successfully the dangerous tricks his courage allowed him to begin. His brain response was electric, and decisions made in a fraction of a second saved his life on more than one occasion.
Still, even though aware that if anyone could, Tom would emerge still breathing from his dangerous movie stunts, I lived each day in suspense, constantly dreading the call that would inform me of Tom's latest hospitalization, or of something worse. It was like sending the person closest to you in life off to a new wax every day of the year, and not knowing whether he would come back from the battleground that night or not.
Tom knew the tension I suffered. It worried him. It also worried him that his life had become so complicated, because with each new picture his obligation to his growing public became a shade more important. And with fame comes complications.
More than once he wanted to turn back to look for the life he had been forced to leave behind him.
He was an established star when one day he said to me: "Where's everything gone wrong, Olive? This life we lead isn't right for us. What happened to our dream? Where's that ranch I wanted more than anything in the world? "
I had to swallow pretty hard before I could force myself to answer him. It was difficult not to be selfish at that moment. But the whole world was pressing against me, rubbing against my personal dream; for Tom belonged to the world by then, not just to Ruth and me. He was now too big a man to be confined to a ranch.
"You're an important man now," I told him. "Your obligation is to the people you are making happy... those children all over the world.... I guess we'll just have to wait for our personal dreams to come true. But the time will come, Tom... the time when newer and younger men will take your place. Then surely we can live the life we've always wanted so much."
Tom paced restlessly around the room. He could never just sit still and talk. His entire life was one of almost unceasing movement.
Finally he turned to me. "We've got enough money to buy one of the biggest ranches in the country. But I guess you're right, Olive. I've started something that's bigger than I am. "
And so Tom went on to make over three hundred pictures. He was swept into the vortex entirely too deeply ever to be able to swim out of it. He simply was not destined to live the quiet life on the open range that he had always wanted as a goal in life. He accepted the fact that his obligation to the public ran in far deeper waters than his personal desires; and at this point he put his personal dreams aside for good.
I remember sitting once in the rear of a sunlit auditorium in Los Angeles listening to Tom address a graduating high school class. This was something, incidentally, that he did throughout his entire career. No matter how busy he was with his professional work, he never shunned his obligation to talk to youth whenever he was asked.
That day Tom told his youthful audience, "You're bound to come to a lot of unmarked roads in your lives. It's tough to know which one to take sometimes. But if you build your lives on clean thoughts and on clean living, the chances are you'll be taking the right roads all the time."
I looked around the raptly attentive audience of youthful worshipers, every eye focused unblinkingly on the tall, dark hero who stood before them giving them his message of faith and strength.
"You students wouldn't be sitting here now-and I wouldn't be standing here talking to you- if our forebears hadn't had the strength and the drive and the love to fight for a good kind of country, and a good kind of life for all of us. We owe it to them as well as to ourselves to show that we're proud of the country they made for us and proud of the good lives they've made possible for us. If you live right-as your forebears did-the world will be right for you and you'll be doing something positive for the world too."
Tom paused and looked around the audience; and I'm sure that each student felt he was being singled out personally.
"Always remember," Tom finished, "that though each one of us is important in himself, the other man is even more important. If we ever forget that, we fail ourselves and we fail the world of which each of us is such an important part."
A storm of applause broke out, and I sat in the rear crying silently. It was at that moment that I was sure Tom's sacrifice of our personal dreams was worthwhile. The unmarked roads that he had taken had led him right to the niche where he belonged, where he could do the most good in the world.
And every word he spoke to those students that day came right from the bottom of his heart.
Olive Stokes Mix, with Eric Heath, The Fabulous Tom Mix, (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc.), 1957, pages 93-115.
© 1999, David Pierce, on editing and revisions (if any)
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