Texas Jack was a
sharpshooter and
trick rider in shows around the world, especially
South Africa. He helped
Will Rogers get a start as an entertainer by offering him a part in his traveling show in 1902. Will Rogers approached Jack hoping to get a job
wrangling the horses or setting tents. When Jack asked him if he could do a
rope trick, Rogers obliged and was hired as an entertainer on the spot. By 1899 he was in England with a show called "Savage South Africa". The show included a historical re-enactment of the 1893
Shangani Patrol, a last stand of 34 white soldiers against an overwhelming number of
Ndebele warriors, with Jack starring as
Frederick Russell Burnham, the American chief of scouts who was one of only three survivors of the battle. The re-enactment was filmed and released as a war movie entitled ''
Major Wilson's Last Stand'' that same year. A couple of years later he returned to South Africa and started "Texas Jack's Wild West Show & Circus." ==Death==