Tom Mix

Thomas Hezikiah Mix was born January 6, 1880, in Mix Run, Pennsylvania, about north of State College, to Edwin Elias Mix and Elizabeth Heistand. He grew up in nearby DuBois, where his father, a stablemaster for a wealthy lumber merchant, taught him to ride and love horses. He spent time working on a local farm owned by John DuBois, a lumber businessman. In April 1898, during the Spanish–American War, Mix enlisted in the Army under the name Thomas E. (Edwin) Mix. His unit never went overseas, and Mix later failed to return for duty after an extended furlough when he married Grace I. Allin on July 18, 1902. Mix was listed as AWOL on November 4, 1902, but was never court-martialed. His marriage to Allin was annulled after one year. In 1905, Mix married Kitty Jewel Perinne, and this marriage also ended within a year. He next married Olive Stokes on January 10, 1909, in Medora, North Dakota. On July 13, 1912, Olive gave birth to their daughter Ruth. In 1905, Mix rode in President Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade with a group of 50 horsemen led by Seth Bullock, which included several former Rough Riders. Years later, Hollywood publicists muddled this event to imply that Mix had been a Rough Rider himself. Mix went to Oklahoma and lived in Guthrie, working as a bartender and other odd jobs. He was briefly night marshal of Dewey, in 1911. He worked at the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch, one of the largest ranching businesses in the United States, covering , hence its name. The ranch had its own touring Wild West show in which Mix appeared. He stood out as a skilled horseman and expert shot, winning national riding and roping contests at Prescott, Arizona, in 1909, and Canon City, Colorado, in 1910. == Film career ==

Selig Polyscope Mix began his film career as a supporting cast member with the Selig Polyscope Company. His first appearance was in a short film, The Cowboy Millionaire, released on October 21, 1909. In 1910, he appeared as himself in a short documentary film, Ranch Life in the Great Southwest, in which he displayed his skills as a cattle wrangler. Shot in Dewey, Oklahoma with Selig studio cameramen, the film was a success, and Mix became an early motion picture star. Mix performed in more than 100 films for Selig, many of which were filmed in Las Vegas, New Mexico. While with Selig he co-starred in several films with Victoria Forde, and they fell in love. He divorced Olive Stokes in 1917. By then, Selig Polyscope had encountered severe financial difficulties, and Mix and Forde both subsequently signed with Fox Film Corporation, which had leased the Edendale studio. They married in 1918 and had a daughter, Thomasina (Tommie) Mix, in February 1922. Fox head William Fox, who liked that Mix did his own stunts, would quickly sign him. In 1920, he took first prize in a bull-riding contest. The Bar Circle A Ranch has been developed into a planned community called Yavapai Hills, where there is a street named Bar Circle A Road. Mix's salary at Fox reached $7,500 a week. Gossip columnist Louella Parsons wrote that he had his initials in electric lights on the top of his house. Eventually, his salary at Fox would reach $17,500 a week. Near the back of the lot an Indian village of lodges was ringed by miniature plaster mountains. The set also included a simulated desert, a large corral, and (to facilitate interior shots) a ranch house with no roof. Despite his successful film career, Mix opted to return to performing for the 101 Wild West Show in the mid-1920s when he wasn't making films for Fox. In addition, Fox grew weary of using high budgets for Mix's films and paying him high salaries and wanted to instead focus more on transitioning to sound films. Mix would part ways with Fox in 1928. Mix threatened to move to Argentina to make films or to join the circus, Kennedy would only pay Mix just over half of what he made at while at Fox. He was a pallbearer at Earp's funeral in January 1929. The newspapers reported that Mix cried during his friend's service. By 1929, Mix was past his prime and undergoing marital difficulties. His fourth wife Victoria was already spending his money heavily, taking their daughter Thomasina for an extended European vacation. Victoria kept spending money as though Tom were bringing it in as fast as ever, which was not the case. 1930, and 1931 at a reported weekly salary of $20,000 (). Meanwhile, the Great Depression (along with the actor's continuous free-spending ways and alimony payments to his many wives) reportedly wiped out most of his savings. Mix and Forde divorced in 1931, and in 1932, he married his fifth wife, Mabel Hubbell Ward. Carl Laemmle of Universal Pictures approached him in 1932 with an offer to perform in a series of sound features, with the contract including script and cast approval. He acted in nine films for Universal, but he called a halt to the series because of injuries he received while filming. Mix also made guest appearances in Paramount's Hollywood on Parade short subjects in 1932 and 1933; the all-star series was a charity venture to benefit the Motion Picture Relief Fund. Around 1933, Mix appeared with the Sam B. Dill circus, which he reportedly bought two years later (in 1935). Mix's last screen appearance was a 15-episode sound Mascot Pictures serial, The Miracle Rider (1935), in which he played a Texas Ranger. For the four weeks of filming he received $40,000 (which he needed to support his new circus venture) and the film earned more than one million dollars -- exceptionally successful for a serial. Outdoor action sequences for the production were filmed primarily on the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, California, on the outskirts of Los Angeles. The site was known for its huge sandstone boulders, and one of them later became known as "Tom Mix Rock" when it was discovered it had been used in The Miracle Rider. In one episode, Mix was filmed descending from the top of the rock, with boot holes carved into it to assist him in making the descent. The rock and the boot holes, although unmarked, is in the Garden of the Gods park in Chatsworth. Also in 1935, Texas governor James V. Allred named Mix an honorary Texas Ranger. Mix returned to circus performing, working with his eldest daughter Ruth Jane Mix, who had also appeared in some of his films. In 1938, he went to Europe on a promotional trip, leaving Ruth behind to manage the circus. Without him, however, the circus soon failed, and he later excluded her from his will. Mix had reportedly made over $6 million (equivalent to $ million in ) during his 26-year film career, but nevertheless would have much of this fortune vanish due to, in large part, the 1929 stock market crash and the excessive amount of spending undertaken by him and his fourth wife. == Radio ==

In 1933, Ralston Purina obtained Mix's permission to produce the children's radio series Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters, which aired between 1933 and 1951, though the series did not air for one year during WW2. Mix never appeared on these broadcasts due to his voice being deemed unfit for broadcast due to several serious injuries over the years, and the radio series survived over a decade after Mix's 1940 death. On radio, Mix was played by radio actors: Artells Dickson (early 1930s), Jack Holden (from 1937), Russell Thorsen (early 1940s) and Joe "Curley" Bradley (from 1944). Others in the supporting cast included George Gobel, Harold Peary and Willard Waterman. The radio show originally aired on the Blue Network, but later moved to distribution through the Mutual Broadcasting System, and varied from 15 to 30 minutes and airing three or five times a week over its run. The Ralston company offered ads during the radio program for listeners to send in for a series of 12 special Ralston–Tom Mix comic books, available only by writing the Ralston Company by mail. Most of Mix's radio work has been lost over the years. Recordings exist of only approximately 30 scattered episodes, and none of the series arcs that typified the show survive in full. == Death ==

On October 12, 1940, after visiting Pima County Sheriff Ed Echols in Tucson, Arizona, Mix was killed when his car overturned while he was taking a detour south of Florence, Arizona. The marker bears the inscription: "In memory of Tom Mix, whose spirit left his body on this spot and whose characterization and portrayals in life served to better fix memories of the old West in the minds of living men." With his death, a judge gave away many of Mix's personal belongings to a neighbor. == Legacy ==

s", such carvings were made by young Basque and Irish American shepherds. (Santa Fe National Forest, Río Arriba County, New Mexico) Tom Mix 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. Mix made 292 movies throughout his career. As of 2001, only about 10% of these were known to be available for viewing, though it is unclear how many are now considered lost films. The 1937 Fox vault fire lost most of the archive of his films made with Fox. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Mix has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street. His cowboy boot prints, palm prints and the hoof prints of his horse, Tony, are at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard. In 1958 Mix was inducted posthumously into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In 1959, a "Monument to the Stars" was erected on Beverly Drive (where it intersects Olympic Boulevard and becomes Beverwil) in Beverly Hills. The memorial consists of a bronze-green spiral of sprocketed "camera film" above a multi-sided tower, embossed with full-length likenesses of early stars who appeared in famous silent movies. Those memorialized include Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Will Rogers, Conrad Nagel, Rudolph Valentino, Fred Niblo, Harold Lloyd, and Mix. There is also a Tom Mix museum in Dewey, Oklahoma. Opening in 1965, and still operational as of 2025, the Tom Mix museum in Dewey- which was also where his third wife Olive was raised and the birthplace of his eldest daughter Ruth- managed to obtain many of Mix's personal items. Between 1980 and 2004, 21 Tom Mix festivals were held during the month of September, most of them in DuBois, Pennsylvania. == Comic book appearances ==

, August 1949. Artwork by Norman Saunders. Tom Mix was often portrayed in comic books, primarily during the heyday of Western-themed comics, the 1940s and 1950s. He was first featured in 11 issues of Dell Comics' The Comics from 1937 to 1938. Ralston Purina, a sponsor of the radio series, produced nine issues of Tom Mix Comics in 1940–1941, and three issues of Tom Mix Commandos Comics in 1942. The 36-page comics were available by mail order, for two boxtops of any Ralston cereal. Fawcett Comics published 61 issues of Tom Mix Western from 1948 to 1953. Comics featuring Tom Mix were also published in Sweden, Germany, Canada, Australia, and Great Britain, including L. Miller & Son's Tom Mix Western Comics, which ran 85 issues from 1948 to 1951. == Filmography ==