Actor William S. Hart

One of the earliest western film stars was William Hart.

From Wikipedia:
“William Surrey Hart (December 6, 1864 – June 23, 1946) was an American silent film actor, screenwriter, director and producer….In his twenties, Hart began his acting career on stage and would not consider acting in movies until he was 49 years of age. A successful Shakespearean actor on Broadway who had worked with Margaret Mather and other stars, he appeared in the original 1899 stage production of Ben-Hur.

“Hart went on to become one of the first great stars of the motion picture western. Fascinated by the Old West, he acquired Billy the Kid’s “six shooters” and was a friend of legendary lawmen Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson.

“Hart was particularly interested in making realistic western films. His films are noted for their authentic costumes and props, as well as Hart’s extraordinary acting ability, honed on Shakespearean theater stages in the United States and England.

“Beginning in 1915, Hart starred in his own series of two-reel western short subjects for producer Thomas Ince, which were so popular that they were supplanted by a series of feature films. Many of Hart’s early films continued to play in theaters, under new titles, for another decade. In 1917 Hart accepted a lucrative offer from Adolph Zukor to join Famous Players-Lasky, which merged into Paramount Pictures.

“By the early 1920s, however, Hart’s brand of gritty, rugged westerns with drab costumes and moralistic themes gradually fell out of fashion. The public became attracted by a new kind of movie cowboy, epitomized by Tom Mix, who wore flashier costumes and was faster with the action. Paramount dropped Hart, who then made one last bid for his kind of western. He produced Tumbleweeds (1925) with his own money, arranging to release it independently through United Artists. The film turned out well, with an epic land-rush sequence, but did only fair business at the box office.

“Hart retired to his Newhall, California, ranch home, “La Loma de los Vientos,” which was designed by architect Arthur R. Kelly. In 1939 he appeared in his only sound film, a spoken prologue for a reissue of Tumbleweeds. The 75-year-old Hart, filmed on location at his Newhall ranch, reflects on the Old West and recalls his silent-movie days fondly. The speech turned out to be William S. Hart’s farewell to the screen, and it’s a fitting valedictory. Most prints and video versions of Tumbleweeds circulating today include Hart’s speech. Hart died on June 23, 1946, in Newhall, California at the age of 81. ”

His home was turned into the William S. Hart Ranch and Museum which is open to the public. You can get more information at their website by clicking HERE.

From the Silent Star website:
“What Hart brought to the genre was a freshness and complexity to these stock characters. His heroes were emotionally complex “good bad men,” who, underneath their rugged exterior, exemplified those basic of American values: honesty and loyalty, toughness tempered with fairness. The theme of his films generally relied upon a “transformation,” where the love of a good woman, a “Sunbonnet Sue” tamed the wild man and transformed him into the man of virtue we knew him to be all along. Sometimes the roles were switched: Hart as the noble cowboy who tames the bad girl. Often the bad-woman-turned-good redeemed herself by dying for her man, stepping in front of him to take the bullet with his name on it. However melodramatic, this was still a far cry from the one-dimensional, dime-store novel Westerns of the turn of the century.”