HISTORY LESSON: Let's Get Down to Cases

Miriam Hopkins takes the stand in The Story of Temple Drake.
See the movie to hear one Hell of a testimony.

The public reaction when one of our beloved stars is hauled into court is varied. The collision of our perception-- or rather projection-- with reality often results in plain shock. The screen image is just an image? What??? Some feel betrayed, not only by the discovery that an idol is fallible, but by the fact that the icon is making such heinous and grievous mistakes after a life of such blessings as fame and fortune. Some fans become hysterically depressed, clinging to the vision of their hero, as if their love alone can keep him unsullied and innocent, despite the sometimes damning evidence against him-- a la Michael Jackson and the molestation claims. Others lash out in anger, feeling that the ungrateful star has arrogantly and ungratefully wielded his power. We thusly turn our backs on him as punishment for succumbing to human temptations and flaws-- a la Lindsy Lohan, or is she just "Lindsay" now? The natural human instinct is to jump to the defensive when celebs are offensive. There is no room for sympathy within our own disappointment. Our jealousy mixed with our worship dilutes our compassion: remember before Robert Downey Jr. cleaned himself up? America hates a loser, but we love a survivor. Thus it is that the Hollywood elite sometimes get a little taste of the soggy side of celebrity. Here are a few court scandals that temporarily tarnished or nearly ruined some of our screen stars' lives, particularly during the early Silent Hollywood Witch Hunts, when a more puritanical society lashed out vengefully at the film colony and their suddenly apparent, sinful ways.

William S. Hart (left) would be the last person to whom anyone would attribute controversy. Yet, even the stone-faced cowboy had his share of scrapes. Hart's brief marriage to Winifred Westover came to a violent end, as Winifred claimed, when Hart allegedly dragged her out of the house! Hart would swear on a stack of Bibles that this was a dramatic falsehood, but whatever the case, the divorce would end in 1927 with a hefty $200,000 settlement. Some claimed that this was the final nail in Hart's popularity coffin. Ironically, while Winifred had sued Hart in Reno for divorce over the claims of physical and emotional abandonment, Hart had found himself in court several years earlier when another woman claimed that he had gotten a little too familiar with her. In November of 1919, a paternity suit was filed against Bill by Elizabeth MacCauley of Brookline, MA. Elizabeth claimed that she and Bill had become acquainted three years prior in Syracuse, NY and had indulged in a sexual relationship. The result was a child, whom she had been forced to support on her own. Indeed, she claimed that she had hidden the child's existence for the past three years, because she feared that Bill would kidnap it! She alleged that she had only come forward for monetary reasons: her meager salary as a nurse in conjunction with a recent illness made it hard for her to support the youngster. Bill, who was in the middle of filming, arrived to court in complete cowboy array and asserted that, not only had he never engaged in an affair with Elizabeth, but he had never even seen her before. 

The proceedings that day were fairly comical to say the least, especially when the plaintiff was asked to identify the father of her child and did so by saying, "Everyone knows him. He is William S. Hart!" This caused the present audience to erupt in laughter. When the judge asked her to respond to Bill's denial of her claims, she professed that her testimony was the truth. Now this was something. All these years, Bill had been a self-proclaimed, nearly asexual bachelor, and all of a sudden this woman's assertions made him a secret, seductive predator! The game of He Said vs. She Said continued, but finally, the cards fell in Bill's favor. The skeptical judge asked Elizabeth once more if her claims of sexual intimacy with Bill had indeed taken place, to which she replied, "Well, not in the flesh, your Honor... He and I live in the spirit world." Uh oh, Lizzy. It turned out that the disturbed lady had borrowed the child from someone else and was posing it as her own. And so, poor Bill was dragged into court by a complete loon. As such, the case was quickly dismissed, and Bill was back in the saddle with this silly scandal quickly behind him. His status as America's favorite Western star would continue for six years more without faltering. Though there were occasional whispers that Bill did indeed have sexual flings, his recorded relationships with women like Jane Novak-- which were so puritanical they were almost platonic-- and his clear inability for emotional connection with his wife, Winifred, make it appear that he was far from the zesty Lothario Elizabeth had tried to paint him as. At least he knew, despite his personal issues, that some women around the world found his boyish onscreen charm irresistible... and even convictable. (You'll never take 'im alive! Hart in older years, right).


Speaking of paternity suits... Oh, Charlie Chaplin (left). Charlie, Charlie Charlie... With genius, there is always madness, and this genius was unfortunately bitten by the love bug. His addiction to and obsession with young, beautiful women got him into his share of trouble and plenty of regrettable, shot-gun weddings. But he didn't reach the worst of the worst until he met an unacceptable woman of acceptable age: Joan Barry. Charlie and Joan were introduced by Tom Durant, allegedly at the enthralled 22-year-old woman's request. Charlie initially enjoyed the lively, attractive girl's company, and a day of entertaining turned into the expected night of passion. Charlie took advantage of his movie stardom to go to bed with a lovely girl, and a lovely girl used her wiles to sleep with a movie star. Even Steven, as they say. The next day, Charlie expected the one night stand to disappear, as all his other trysts had, but surprisingly, Joan kept popping up in his life and essentially wooing him. This wasn't totally unexpected, as Charlies had become accustomed to hangers-on and "friends" with their hands out. Joan seemed innocent enough, so the liaison continued a bit longer. In time, Charlie's enchantment with the girl seemed to fade. She just wouldn't go away, and he couldn't decide if he was being conned or guilted into accepting her presence, but soon he was bewildered to find himself paying for her acting classes and later even signed her to a contract at his studio. But, he was a wealthy man after all, and he figured it was the least he could do. As an astute man-- at least after the initial call of desire had been quelled-- Charlie couldn't ignore the odd feeling in his gut that something in this girl wasn't right. He slowly tried to distance himself, but this only exacerbated her obsession with him and led to her repeatedly and drunkenly driving to his front door, breaking windows, and one night even threatening his and her own lives with a gun.


What Charlie didn't know was that he had chosen to have one of his brief flings with an as yet undiagnosed schizophrenic. The product of a broken home-- her father had committed suicide before she was born-- Joan (right) had used her sexuality to get ahead in life. After coming to Hollywood to become an actress, she had been taken in, or rather "kept," by another man with whom she lived out of wedlock, which was quite scandalous in those days. Her most recent affiliation had been with another rich "keeper,"  John Paul Getty, who incidentally had also sensed something off about her and passed her onto A.C. Blumenthal, who passed her to Durant, who passed her onto Charlie. She had been arrested for shoplifting prior to this latest tryst and, in the midst of her affair with the comedian, would be picked up for being under the influence of barbiturates. She was clearly an unstable woman, who sadly and obviously had been misused by the men in her life and perhaps even moreso by herself. Charlie eventually became so put off by her erratic behavior that he bought her contract back from her and essentially paid her to go away. He wasn't in the clear, however. He became the straw that broke the camel's back in Joan's train wreck life, and after he met and fell in love with his final wife, Oona O'Neill-- over 35 years his junior-- Joan would flip her lid, and Charlie would find himself slapped with a paternity suit.


Joan claimed that Charlie had seduced her from the beginning and that their relationship had dragged on for a couple of years by the time she had become pregnant with baby Carol. Charlie would admit to the affair, but claimed that he hadn't been intimate with her for two years prior to the suit. Joan also claimed that Charlie had paid for at least two previous abortions for her during their affair, but she refused to get rid of baby number three when she became pregnant again in May of 1943. She had been used and discarded, at least that is what she told Hedda Hopper, who was engaging in an anti-Charlie war when it was suspected (falsely) that he was a communist. Hence, the media storm. Despite Joan's attempt to essentially blackmail Charlie and enact a little vengeance, he clearly was confident that he wasn't the father. He and his lawyer made an offer: he would take a paternity test, paying for the medical costs and Joan's living expenses while they awaited the baby's birth, but if the results came back negative, then Joan would drop the charges. Charlie turned out to be blood type-O. Joan was type-A. When Carol was birthed, she was tested as type-B. Charlie was in the clear... at least until Joan decided to ignore their agreement and take him to court anyway. Paternity tests were not yet admissible in court, so despite the obvious invalidity of her case, the trial commenced in Dec. of 1944. Two deadlocked juries later-- the first case ending in a 7-5 split in Charlie's favor and the second in a 9-3 split in his favor-- and the judge made the final call: Charlie would pay Joan $5000 in damages and pay Carol $75/mo. until her 21st birthday.

Charlie would spend his career portraying the underdog in the hopes

 of inspiring a better, more understanding world. He would not

find this role as rewarding in reality.

During this mayhem, Charlie had wed Oona and, after the case, the remainder of his life would mostly be spent quietly abroad in Switzerland, as he was ousted from his own country, due to his supposed commie affiliations. The case severely hurt his reputation, and he was heartbroken that the welcoming land of opportunity had so harshly slapped him in the face. Joan would surprisingly marry and move to Pennsylvania, but she was soon institutionalized when her mental illness was diagnosed. While Charlie wasn't Carol's father, it is still uncertain which witness's version of the sexual relationship between Charlie and Joan was true, but it was probably a blending of both. In this court case, both the plaintiff and the defendant were guilty in many different respects, yet Charlie wound up paying the price for the one accusation of which he was innocent. Oh, justice...


The ladies got into their share of trouble too. Mary Astor was a Hollywood beauty (left) of great repute and talent. Landing roles opposite the likes of Douglas Fairbanks in Don Q. Son of Zorro, she too would act opposite lover John Barrymore in Beau Brummel and Don Juan. The two initiated a romance, despite her parents' objections, due to her tender age of 17. After John spurned her for his third wife, Dolores Costello-- incidentally before Don Juan was filmed-- Mary was deeply grieved. Her tempestuous relationship with her controlling, greedy, and sometimes abusive parents made her only want to rebel more, and she finally found consolation in the arms of first husband Kenneth Hawks. When he shockingly died in a plane crash, Mary was further plummeted into despair. Her nervous breakdown required medical attention, which brought Dr. Franklyn Thorpe, husband #2, into her life. Her life seemed to be repairing itself, and her career was sailing along smoothly with an easy transition to the talkies. Yet, as a woman of passion and pain, Mary found herself unsatisfied in her union, the only blessing from which was her beloved daughter, Marilyn. When friend Miriam Hopkins introduced her to playwright George F. Kauffman, Mary was smitten by his intelligence and surprising charm. An energetic affair ensued, which Mary mistakenly recorded in her diary. Unfortunately, the good doctor accidentally found her blue journal and its explicit, purple pages and filed for divorce. Mary, unhappy in the marriage, did not contest the dissolution. However Franklyn got petty and, having taken the diary, blackmailed her for custody of their daughter, lest its titillating contents be unleashed!


Mary may have been a sorry wife, but a bad mother she was not, and she refused to take the bait. She counter-sued Franklyn, who was engaging in his own vengeful parade of sexual encounters after, and perhaps even before, his April 1935 suit. As expected, Franklyn tried to introduce the diary as evidence in his case, but the judge was so scandalized by the few pages he'd perused that he refused to admit it in court. Despite this, and probably at Franklyn's hand, excerpts were still leaked to the press, further humiliating Mary and damaging her reputation. Yet, she did not back down. While Franklyn had his claims against her, she also had her witnesses against his reputation. Marilyn's nurse even testified to the plethora of women who had been gracing Frank's bed, all before the eyes of their innocent daughter. In the end, the court ruled against Frank, and Mary received custody of Marilyn. Her career surprisingly did not falter, especially after her smash hit as the diabolical femme fatale of The Maltese Falcon-- the audience perhaps enjoyed watching her play, what they assumed, was her sinister self. Ironically, she would be best remembered in her later years for her mature, maternal roles in films like Meet Me in St. Louis and Little Women. She would suffer several more heartbreaks in a life that was far from easy. The rough road that she tread makes it somewhat understandable why she had come to confide her worries, joys, and tragedies in her faithful diary. It also makes one sad at the idea that she felt she had no living soul to truly confide in or whom she could trust with the truth. In the end, the diary betrayed her too, and she never got it back. Deemed too pornographic, the judge had it incinerated. (With daughter, Marilyn, right).

Clara Bow had star quality: energy, playfulness, sexuality, and a bit of naughtiness (see left). Unfortunately, these were also the things that threatened her stardom. A woman with a sad past of familial insanity and sexual abuse, Clara's warmth and need to be loved resulted in a string of sexual relationships that gained her quite the reputation. Richard Toomey would say with a twinge of pity that rumors were always circulating about her, and how "she laid everything but the linoleum." At first, audiences liked her spark and vivacity. She was a flapper! She was expected to live rebelliously and unapologetically! But, with every trend comes a backlash, and soon the popular press turned on her and her sinful ways, particularly after they got her into legal trouble. In all of her flings, Clara had one simple rule: no married men. She wasn't going to mess around with a man who had a wife and children. However, after an appendectomy, she found herself being attended to by a handsome, Texan intern: Earl Pearson. Clara was smitten. Earl, unfortunately, was married, but he had separated from his wife, hence his presence in Los Angeles. As he conveniently claimed that his wife was just one of those awful, nagging, cold-hearted broads, (pause for eye-roll), and as he had no children, Clara reneged on her personal oath and indulged in an affair with him. What followed was a divorce suit from Elizabeth Pearson with Clara listed as the correspondent who had alienated her husband's affections. Mrs. Pearson was seeking $150,000 in damages. With Paramount's help, Clara was able to crawl out from under the financial burden, and wound up paying a total of $56,000 to keep her name out of the suit, which Elizabeth changed to divorce by reason of "Failure to Provide" on the philandering Earl's part. Though word eventually got out about the scandal, Clara had avoided court this time, but another vengeful female would soon take her before the judge.


The argument this time resulted from yet another love triangle... but an unexpected one. After dating no-good Harry Richman, Clara had had the good fortune of meeting and falling in love with the nurturing and loving Rex Bell. As her relationship with him grew, she grew too, and her reliance on the other people in her life began to diminish, especially after Rex started weeding out the bad seeds. Clara had been supporting her repulsive, alcoholic father, Robert, paying for the care and maintenance of her mentally-ill aunts, and had too been bled dry by her business manager, Bogart Rogers. For this reason, the wealthy movie starlet rarely had any dough, despite the fact that she never really spent any on herself. Before Rex came along, her number one trusted advisor was former hairstylist and later personal secretary Daisy DeVoe. Daisy had been a friend and confidante to Clara, had taken the reins of her finances, and had finally improved her meager savings. However, when Rex entered the picture, Daisy felt herself being overshadowed and edged out-- she had, after all, secured a very comfy position for herself with Clara. Rex, for his part, didn't trust her. Daisy was very possessive and secretive about Clara's expenses, and Rex couldn't help but wonder if she was skimming some off the top. When he tested her loyalty, Daisy disappeared with Clara's checkbook, her personal correspondence to past lovers-- including Pearlman-- and her business records. Rex saw this as proof enough-- Daisy was fleecing Clara!


Feeling that Rex had wrongly turned Clara against her, Daisy was irate. In a heated moment, she opted for revenge and blackmailed Clara for $125,000 or else her love letters and private business would be released for all the world to see. Clara was devastated at the betrayal, and when Daisy tried to undo her impetuous move and asked for her job back, Clara unceremoniously slammed the door in her face. With a police escort, Rex was able to obtain Clara's possessions from Daisy, and her former friend was hauled to jail-- although, strangely, she had not yet been charged. (D.A.Buron Fitts didn't trifle with silly things like legal rights). Soon enough, 37 counts of grand theft were handed down upon her, as there were curious check stubs by Daisy's hand that had all been made out to Daisy herself. Daisy would claim that this was all business, that Clara trusted her with all of her finances and also encouraged Daisy to buy gifts for herself and others. "There was nothing underhanded about it," she pleaded. Because Daisy had managed to put almost a quarter of a million dollars into a private trust for Clara, it appears that the damsel in distress clearly had been doing her job. Certainly, she may have taken a little for herself, but the consensus over the years has been that she was indeed innocent and the whole issue had resulted from an unfortunate misunderstanding between herself and Rex and the power struggle they were indulging in over Clara's life.

Clara tries to put on a happy face during the trial with the help of true love, Rex Bell.

At the time, the jury disagreed, and it was alleged that Daisy had knowingly embezzled at least $35,000 from her supposedly beloved employer. The People vs. DeVoe was another low moment for Crisis-a-day-Clara, and proof that in this world, she couldn't trust anyone. Despite this, she still felt bad for her friend. Though she believed Daisy had indeed betrayed her-- penning some 100 curious and presumably fraudulent checks-- her loyalty urged her to ask the judge for some leniency in the punishment, which at worst could be up to 350 years in prison. The verdict was not easy to assert, as Clara's business methods were clearly unorthodox, and as such Daisy had nothing to protect her but her own testimony. The furs and jewels Daisy had bought herself also worked against her as evidence of her unethical financial tactics. Daisy was hysterical in court and had a great many of the jury men and women sobbing along with her. Nonetheless, she was found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in prison. Clara had lost her friend but, more importantly, her faith in humanity. Her reputation further ruined by Daisy's public besmirching of her sexual character, Clara and Rex abandoned Hollywood for Nevada, but the broken-hearted Clara would end her days in solitude under the care of a nurse and estranged from her family and her once loving public.

Tyrone Power defends his innocence in Witness for the Prosecution.

Spoiler alert: like most celebs, he did it.

Naughty, naughty, naughty Hollywood. It is hard to sometimes pity the comeuppance our saucy stars get when they seem to go about brazenly asking for trouble. Perhaps, in a way, they deserve to sometimes have their impenetrability threatened, if only to cut them back down to human size. The succession of ill luck, to poor choices, to bad choices, to  the"are you crazy" actions some of them indulge in, makes their final landing place in the courtroom seem obvious in retrospect. Certainly, many of them took those moments sitting in the witness box to ask themselves, "Man, how did I get here?" or "If only I hadn't..." In any case, while the instant human reaction is to retaliate, time heals all wounds, and in the end, we have embraced our stars again, despite-- and perhaps even because of-- their immoral behavior, which makes them that much more appealing. It is amazing what a few decades can do. Perhaps it merely takes awhile for us to see the hypocrisy of our own judgment, as founded as it may be at the time.  We all have dirty laundry, skeletons in the closet, and little black books we should have burned long ago. The only difference is that our secrets aren't displayed as entertainment on such a large scale. The aforementioned sad lot didn't expect so much of their "entertaining" to be performed off camera and in the press. Luckily for them, the integrity of their work outweighed the integrity of their actions. In any case, Chaplin is still our comedic Jesus, and Clara remains our ball-busting Eve. We don't buy tickets to see vanilla innocence, now do we?

STAR OF THE MONTH: William S. Hart

Cowboy screen hero, William S. Hart

To borrow a saying: If the West hadn't existed, Bill Hart would have had to invent it. Some believe that is just what he did, at least cinematically speaking. The Western genre has been a part of American film culture since The Great Train Robbery of 1903, but it wasn't until William S. Hart hopped in the saddle  over 10 years later that the myth of the cowboy and his place in this strange and wild country took shape. Today, with Ford, Hawks, Wayne, Autry, Cooper, and Eastwood providing the well-known and celebrated vertebrae of this branch of filmic history, Bill is forgotten, underrated, and underappreciated. His performances seem hammy; his stories seem cheesy and cliched. It is hard for one to put him or herself into the theater seats of his early, avid fans-- a people who cheered when his sturdy, eagle face appeared on the screen. A William S. Hart film was a promise. You would be entertained, you would be thrilled, and you would take something away with you. Hart, in his iconic, giant hat, atop his trusty pinto pony, Fritz, was a solid guarantee to people living in a world that is anything but consistent. He did not enter the film business until he was nearly 50-years-old and only remained in it for but a decade, but he changed the industry and the American ideal forever. His specific place in celebrity as the quintessential Western hero-- a man of open plains, horses, and bravery-- was a surprise to everyone including him. You see, this rustic, earthy cowboy was born in New York.


William Surrey Hart was born on December 6, 1864 (most likely) to Nicholas Hart and Roseanna McCauley. He was the first son to follow two daughters, Mary Ellen and Frances. He would also be the youngest, despite the fact that his mother birthed another two daughters and two more sons. Only the eldest three would survive. This is perhaps the result of the hard living the family had to endure. Nicholas was what Bill would later refer to as a pioneer of white gold: flour. The patriarch was born with itchy feet, and his ill-adept entrepreneurial wishes to set up his own mill led the family all over the country, providing for Bill memories of life in desolate and under-populated towns throughout the United States: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota, etc. Roseanna's ill health, exacerbated by her difficult births and her mental and emotional struggles in the open West, resulted in her temporary hospitalization. Bill remained traveling with his father, helping out his sparse neighbors with plowing and thrashing, and made friends with the Sioux Indians, who taught him to speak in their tongue and use their sign language. With a limited to non-existent education, Bill learned early how to sustain himself in isolated conditions: he used his imagination. His memory of his boyhood days, where he and his father traipsed all over the map, was inflated and exaggerated in his mind. He had only fondness for these pure, adolescent days-- days of playing games with the Sioux boys, whom he came to love and admire, of riding horses, and of roughing it in general. His recollections always poeticized his life; that was how he survived it. In truth, life was hard, lonely, frustrating... but then he knew no different. Being dirt poor, being constantly uprooted, was normalcy. When he was brought back to New York to rejoin his mother and sisters, and when his father ultimately gave up on his own dreams of a Western lifestyle-- much to Roseanna's relief-- Bill missed the peace of the frontier and the blue skies.

Bill in an early theater role in "Ben-Hur" as Messala.

You couldn't blame him. New York, though exciting, was a big difference from the free West. He was a "country bumpkin" as far as his new school chums were concerned. He dressed weird, he spoke Sioux gibberish, and he was an awkward loner. A life of isolation doesn't prepare one for social graces. Bill lacked his father's gregarious personality, possessing instead his mother's shier demeanor, but he did have his father's guts. When he was picked on for his manners or for his "girly singing voice," Bill was known to throw out a powerful slug that would silence his naysayers rather quickly. Still, his sense of not belonging and his fear of judgement, his social paranoia, and his mistrust, would never leave him. He would build a wall around himself for protection and decorate it with pictures of wild horses and rolling plains. While he found time for himself, entering in and winning several speed-walking races at the Manhattan Athletic Club for example, he did his duty to his family. His father was a hard worker but an unreliable one, and due to his failed business schemes, poor eyesight, injuries-- his hand was caught in a conveyor at one point-- and his early death, Bill at 30 was left to be the breadwinner. As he wasn't educated enough to really make much of himself, he took what jobs he could. Entry at his desired West Point was off the table, so he worked as an errand boy, a horse trainer, a cashier, whatever paid the bills. What money he earned went toward the family, though he did find time for himself to take a few dancing and fencing classes and even a trip to Europe. It had been his loving father's suggestion that he polish himself off a bit in the old world. See, Bill wanted to act. This was but another example of the dreamer in Bill retreating into imagination over reality.


This was not the most prudent decision, considering the number of mouths he had to feed. While his sister Frances eased the family burden by getting married and decreasing the household by one, and Mary Ellen found work of her own, Bill was still taking a great risk in setting his sights on such a temperamental career. The pay was not good, work was scarce, and a reputation was hard to build. This perhaps exemplifies a collision between Bill's more rebellious self and his dutiful self. His father had left him with a Hell of a burden. He was a young man, after all, and he wanted to live! It may have been a slim chance for him to accomplish his thespian dreams, but the gamble was worth it to him. The pull he felt for the stage was one so strong that he could not deny it. The road he chose was rocky; they don't have the phrase "starving artist" for nothing. Somehow, Bill managed to get work with different acting companies and troupes, build up his resume, and also his reputation. Starting with Daniel E. Bandmann's theatrical company in 1888, he worked his way through classic and contemporary pieces portraying everything from Iago in Othello to Messala in Ben-Hur. He found that he liked the complicated, darker roles more than the typical, heroic ones. His reviews grew better with each performance, and by the time he started on The Squaw Man, he was a theater star. This show was a big hit and acted as a bit of foreshadowing. The audience responded best to Bill in a Western setting, and he himself would enjoy any role relating to the West above and beyond the others, if only because he got to demonstrate his first-hand knowledge of cowboys and Indians.

Filming at Inceville

Despite his success, Bill always struggled between jobs. Though he had managed to support and buy a house for himself, his mother, and Mary Ellen to live in, the long breaks between gigs was at times terrifying. Not unaccustomed to poverty, Bill didn't fear the meager lifestyle, but he was not a young man anymore and needed more stable income to protect himself and the women in his life. Fatefully, he saw his first Western film. A light-bulb went on over his head. This was it! He would make motion pictures about his favorite thing, if only to correct all of the obvious blunders and inaccuracies he noticed in the genre. Bill was picky. He considered himself an authority on the West, as brief as his adolescent experiences on the plains had been, and he was personally affronted when stories didn't add up, costuming was wrong, or behaviors were inconsistent with his personal experiences. He was on a mission, and when the Klaw & Erlanger Co. went to California on tour with "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine," Bill went with them and stayed to check out the growing film scene. Fortunately, he had what every actor in Hollywood needs: a hook-up. No sooner did he arrive than he discovered that his old friend Thomas Ince-- whom he had met while traveling with "Heart's Courageous" in 1903-- was running the California branch of The New York Motion Picture Company, known as "Inceville." Tom was against the idea of making more Westerns. Being a shrewd businessman, he saw the fading audience reaction and tried to persuade Bill to pursue other projects. But Bill was stubborn. He returned to New York briefly, but came back West by the spring, determined in his agenda. After making a couple of two-reelers, he tirelessly coerced his pal to let him star in a feature-length motion picture, which Hart had developed and expanded from an original short. Tom finally conceded, and The Bargain hit theaters in 1914. It was a smash success! Hollywood had its first cowboy star.


William S. Hart as a cowboy hero is far removed from the icons we recall better today. He possesses the boyish bashfulness of Gary Cooper but lacks his seduction. He possesses the tough love moral compass of John Wayne but lacks his more intimidating masculinity. Bill was more of an experiment, though he claimed to be as authentic as authentic can be. Over time, his reputation as a real cowboy became exaggerated by his own publicity stories and his friendships with men like Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson. There is disagreement about just how much of a "cowboy" he truly was. Some said he was an ace shot with a gun; others said that he couldn't hit a bull's-eye if it were inches away from him. Some recalled him as a great rider; others said that he was afraid of horses. In Bill's own estimation, as presented in his biography My Life East and West, he was a salt of the earth, true blue, prairie man, but this was probably more wishful thinking than fact. But, as embellished as his reputation may have been, his affection for the lifestyle he projected was never false. Hart's heart was the West. In the end, people bought him as a fact because he was real in his intention. He was no rhinestone cowboy; he was an every man. His stories of a conflicted, anti-hero turned good guy would speak to audiences who were both thirsty for Western nostalgia and looking for answers and direction in a topsy-turvy world. Bill's movies were moral lessons. He always found God. He always did the right thing. He always fell for the pure woman who taught him right from wrong. Parents wanted their children to go to Bill's matinees-- it was just as effective as sending them to church. And so, from Inceville to Triangle to Famous Players, Bill brought vivid and exciting stories to an America eager to witness a reproduction of their not so distant history: a day when saddle and spur were the order of the day, and rugged, rough, but conscionable men helped build the country into the more comfortable place of steam engines and flicker shows that they currently enjoyed.

Bill brings two swindlers to justice in Tumbleweeds.

Bill's career soared as he starred in The Aryan, Hell's Hinges, The Tiger Man, and The Toll Gate,  but his personal isolation remained. Middle-aged when he became a star, Bill was still a bachelor. After burying his mother, his sister Mary Ellen was his only consistent companion, and their loving but co-dependent relationship was comforting and suffocating to both of them. Bill found himself unable to open his heart to anyone, so set was he in his ways, and Mary Ellen was loathe to let him go. Because she acted as his business advisor in many respects, Bill took care of Mary Ellen, mostly because he had no one else. His affection in life was devoted entirely to animals, particularly to horses and dogs, and he would contribute to charities that practiced the prevention of cruelty to animals. He had an unfulfilled love affair with one time fiance Jane Novak, wed once for 6 months to Winifred Westover, (their lengthy divorce would drag on for several years), and allegedly fell in love with and proposed to nearly every leading lady he ever had. Yet, he remained a lonely man, cut off from the world and living only in his dreams and illusions of boyhood fantasy. He put all of his time, energy, and passion into his work, and his cowboy persona did not stop when the cameras ceased cranking. Harry Carey, Jr. would describe Bill as being always "on." The insecure youth seemingly had matured into an uncertain and thus affected man, who often read as phony to his contemporaries. The real Bill remained hidden behind a mask of his own creations. While friends like Harry Carey, Sr. and the light-hearted Will Rogers left their work on set, Bill didn't seem to know how to relax and unwind. His work, building his Western empire in celluloid, was his life. And he had many followers. Fan mail poured in, big names like artists James Montgomery Flagg and Charles M. Russell considered his friendship an honor, and soon his name was in the same ranks of fame as his heroes Doc Holliday and Buffalo Bill Cody. He was a living legend of his own creation.


But, times change. Soon, Bill found himself rejected by the very studio that he helped build-- despite his loyalty to the men in charge, like Adolph Zukor-- and saw his films losing money instead of gaining. His stubborn refusal to alter his style or stories hampered his career, while new hot shot film stars like Tom Mix started riding away with box office receipts. Bill felt abandoned, betrayed... and though he had often spoken of retirement, he didn't want to leave until he was ready. After a final break with Paramount, Bill made his swan song, Tumbleweeds via United Artists, but it failed to draw in the crowds he had hoped. It was  fairly well-received, and his fans still loved him, but with no studio backing its promotion, that ship sank as soon as it left the dock. With this, aside from a later cameo in Show People, Bill rode away from film forever. He spent his retirement writing his biography and books for boys, such as his Injun and Whitey series, and building his dream house-- "La Loma de los Vientos"-- in Newhall, CA where he had at first operated out of a small ranch. He entertained guests like Maurice Chevalier and Pola Negri, showed his old films, rode his trusty horse Fritz, and made occasional personal appearances. When Mary Ellen was bedridden and then restricted to a wheel chair after a car accident, her dependence on Bill only grew. He grew increasingly despondent, melancholy, and perhaps even bitter about an unfulfilled dream: a castle in the sky that never became a home. He had had success, but not a life of depth that true love could provide. He died a lonely man in June 23, 1946 leaving behind one son, William S. Hart, Jr, and a legacy that could not be surpassed but was indeed expanded upon by a new generation of filmmakers.

Bill and Fritz-- who was a small Pinto Pony, but strong as an ox.

It is a tragedy when someone so worth remembering and honoring is so easily forgotten. While his steadfast fans remained true during his lifetime-- begging him to return to the screen-- the generations that followed would be less familiar with his work, which had acted as the foundation for the entire Western film genre. Acting in, writing, and in effect directing many of his own pictures, Bill was able to define what honor, manhood, and the freedom of open country represented to him, and in turn these things became the representations that America would hold onto and cherish as their own truth. Of course, particularly in film, it is often the integrity of the subject matter that is more beneficial than its authenticity. Bill may not have been the cowboy archetype that he pretended to be, but he presented to his fans an idea that was as necessary as their life's blood. We need heroes, we need sinners, and we need saints, to sometimes paint our realities in broader strokes and inspire us to dream, to have faith, to fight. We chose Bill as one of our favorite idols at a time when a fast-moving and fast-approaching future made us want to look back at a simpler era that was no less complicated by man's eternal struggles. This is a time that is every time. But in the early part of the twentieth-century, our leader wore a large hat, two guns, and a stone face. He delivered us from evil again and again and rode off into the sunset, leaving us only in his warmth. He gave us respect for ourselves, our land, our triumphs, and made us feel safe. A world where William S. Hart was in the saddle was a world that need not fret. Bill would protect us. Let us do him the same honor.