The Showman Cowboy - Tom Mix

Tom Mix was an altogether different type of screen cowboy to Hart, he was vey much a showman rather than a cowboy. He went on to  invent  the “cowboy uniform” which many who have come after him copied.

His film characters were not the “bad men made good” as were Hart’s, his hero didn’t drink, smoke, or swear. Very much a good man righting wrong! He had tailor made silk shirts, silver studded chaps, boots inlaid with silver and guns that were either stocked in ivory or mother of pearl. If this was not enough for a humble cowboy, his spurs and belts buckle may also be studded in diamonds. The fact that a real cowboy would only earn about $30 a month and could afford none of this was not an issue, he was not a person to let authenticity get in the way of a scene or a good story.

This extended to his guns as well, with a pair of pistols normally holstered in a beautifully tooled Buscadero rig. Often one gun was a single action army to be fired by his right-hand and a near identical double action pistol to be used by his less dexterous left hand. His allowed him to keep up a fast blaze of shots alternating between firing one pistol then the other.

Horses also played an important part in his films, with his first movie horse “Old Blue” trained to perform several tricks. Old Blue could rear up, fall down and even play dead! Tom’s next “film star horse” was called Tony and Tom insisted that Tony was given a billing as well. They were soon known as a team “Tom Mix and Tony”.

Mix appeared in 270 films, writing and directing many of them and was the acknowledged "King of Cowboys" when Ronald Reagan and John Wayne were young, and the influence of his screen persona can be seen in their approach to portraying cowboys. When an injury caused football player Marion Morrison (later known as John Wayne) to drop out of the University of Southern California, Mix helped him find work moving props in the back lot of Fox Studios. That was the beginning of Wayne's Hollywood career and another story!

Tom Mix filmography - Wikipedia

One of Tom Mix’s last projects was a series of films under the “Miracle Rider” title.

Miracle Rider (1935 ) | Complete Serial - All 15 Chapters | Tom Mix - YouTube