Maynard and Tarzan
Buck Jones’s chief rival was Ken Maynard, a native Texan known throughout the Wild West show circuit as an incredible trick rider and roper. He had made a brief attempt to steal Dell away from Buck, and the men never became friends. Maynard made his name in films aboard a palomino mount called Tarzan.
In 1926, Maynard purchased a ten-year-old gelding at a ranch in Newhall, California. The palomino was what would now be considered a National Show Horse, an Arabian/Saddlebred cross, and was given the name Tarzan at the suggestion of Maynard’s acquaintance Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of the novel Tarzan of the Apes. The popular film with the same title had come out in 1918, thrusting the name Tarzan into the minds of audiences throughout America.
Former circus trainer Johnny Agee taught the gelding a repertoire of tricks. Tarzan often had the opportunity to display his talents on screen, thanks to Maynard, who wrote such moments into the script. His humanlike qualities allowed the palomino to rescue Maynard from danger on more than one movie occasion. Like Tony, he was billed as “the Wonder Horse,” by all accounts an apt, if not original, nickname.
Tarzan was often doubled by one of eight palominos in Maynard’s stable. Though a daredevil rider whose stunts awed audiences, Maynard rarely put the real Tarzan in serious danger. Instead, the actor pampered his star horse and transported him in a custom trailer emblazoned with his name. Maynard and Tarzan successfully transitioned from silent to sound pictures, although the horse’s training in verbal cues, rather than visual signals, did create some production challenges.
Tarzan made his last movie in 1940, a film called Lightning Strikes West, when he was twenty-four. He was retired to Maynard’s ranch soon after and died that same year. Maynard buried him in an undisclosed gravesite, reported to be under an elm or a Calabash tree in either the Hollywood Hills or the San Fernando Valley. The grieving Maynard kept Tarzan’s death a secret for years. The actor never again achieved the success he had had when the great palomino carried him to stardom.
Fred Thomson and Silver King
Fred Thomson was a college athlete who won the national All-Around title at Princeton University in 1913. He eschewed the Olympics to pursue the Presbyterian ministry and became interested in movies while prescreening them for the Boy Scouts. In 1921, after a brief stint in the military, he became an actor. Inspired by Tom Mix, the handsome Thomson became a skilled equestrian, performed his own stunts, and made a star of his horse, a striking gray 17-hand Irish stallion named Silver King. True to his name, the stallion was one of the most spectacular horses to ever grace the silver screen.
The story of how Thomson and Silver King became partners may raise a few eyebrows given today’s emphasis on gentle training methods. Thomson was visiting a friend who owned a New York City riding school. Silver King caught the eye of Thomson, who was warned that the stallion was difficult. Undaunted, he took the horse for a ride in Central Park. When Silver King attempted to unload his rider by bucking, whirling, and trying to scrape him off on trees, Thomson responded by throwing the horse to the ground using a cowboy trick of tying his legs with one end of a rope and striking him repeatedly with the other end. Thus Thomson earned the respect of the spirited stallion, and the two became closely bonded. A week after this incident, the actor took Silver King to Hollywood, determined to make him a star. Stabling the stallion at his home, Thomson taught him many tricks, including sitting down, bowing, and performing the strutting Spanish walk. The stallion was a quick study and loved to show off. One of his admirers was the Thomsons’ friend Greta Garbo, who loved to sit on the corral fence watching Fred put the stallion through his paces. Once his lessons were learned, Silver King was ready for his close-up.
The stallion loved the camera, and although he seemed bored during rehearsals, he came alive once the director called “Action!” He played significant roles in Thomson’s films, and in keeping with the anthropomorphic trend, he appeared to understand and execute abstract demands. A natural box-office draw, he received costar billing. The advertisements variously read: “Fred Thomson and His Wonderful Horse—Silver King,” or “Fred Thomson and His Famous Horse—Silver King.”
In one of Thomson’s two surviving films, Thundering Hoofs (1924), Silver King shows his stuff by rearing on command, bowing, kneeling at a gravesite, untying ropes, and nudging Thomson toward his love interest. In the film’s most frightening sequence, Silver King is condemned to a Mexican bullring as a matador’s mount after Thomson’s character has been unjustly jailed. The giant bull gores the stallion, who appears doomed. In the nick of time, Thomson’s character breaks out of jail to save his horse by wrestling the bull to the ground. Silver King’s bravery in working with the bull can be attributed to the fact that one of his stablemates, and probable costar, was Thomson’s pet bull, Muro.
Silver King’s antics garnered plenty of attention from the Hollywood press, and the stallion often made headlines with his temperamental behavior. He reportedly threw tantrums if one of his doubles performed a stunt, and while docile as a lamb working with children on camera, he might kick the set to smithereens after “Cut!” was called. When Silver King showed up on a nighttime set wearing sunglasses, the gossip columnists went wild with speculation. Had Silver King gone “Hollywood”? It turned out that the glasses were intended to protect his eyes from the bright Klieg lights used in filming after he had shown signs of temporary blindness. Compresses of cold cabbage leaves and ten days in a dark stall reportedly cured him of “Klieg eyes.”
Silver King’s brilliant career was cut short when Thomson passed away suddenly in 1928 following a brief illness. Shortly thereafter, the Los Angeles Times ran a front-page story about Silver King’s mourning his master. The article called him “the most famous horse in the world.” Several years later, Thomson’s widow, the screenwriter Frances Marion, sold Silver King, and in 1934 he returned to the screen in low-budget films with Wally Wales, a little-known cowboy star. The marvelous Silver King received billing and was featured in publicity materials to attract audiences to the seven films he made with Wales.
In 1938, Silver King starred as Silver, The Lone Ranger’s horse, in a fifteen-episode serial. Directed by John English and William Whitney, the series was filmed in the famous Alabama Hills in Lone Pine, California, the setting of many B Westerns. Silver King, then likely in his twenties, received top billing, a testament to his enduring star power. Since the existence of Silver as The Lone Ranger’s horse has been traced back to 1938, it is even possible that he was modeled on the great Silver King.
Silver King traveled in a customized trailer emblazoned with his name.
Other Cowboy Duos
Many more real cowboys rode the silent celluloid range. Another veteran of Wild West shows to achieve stardom was Jack Hoxie, whose lesser known actor brother Al sometimes doubled him. A fan of the Appaloosa breed, Jack Hoxie became popular along with his most famous mount, Scout, a handsome leopard Appaloosa with black spots.
Trick riders Art Acord and Hoot Gibson performed with Dick Stanley’s Congress of Rough Riders as well as the Miller Brothers 101 before they rode into Hollywood from the rodeo circuit.
Art Acord kept rodeoing after he began his film career in 1909 and was crowned World Champion Steer Bulldogger in the 1912 Pendleton, Oregon, Round-Up. During his successful career in silent films, Acord was paired with several different horses. He rode Buddy, Black Beauty, Darkie, and Star, but Raven was his favorite. In the The Circus Cyclone, 1925, Raven played a pivotal role as the horse of a comely circus performer named Doraldina (Nancy Deaver). When she resists the crude advances of the circus owner (Steve Brant), a former boxer, he beats her horse. Cowboy Jack Manning
