When one thinks of the Western hero, a few notable names come to mind: John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, maybe Randolph Scott, and with good reason. Each of them, with a stable of heroic characters, was instrumental in developing the Western as the one true American film genre. But every movie genre has a first, and the first Western hero isn’t any of these names. In fact, it’s a name you’ve likely never heard before — a Western hero who didn’t even have to say a word. Or make that couldn’t say a word, given that his legacy is in a series of silent-era films. That man’s name is William S. Hart, and his journey to stardom is an utterly fascinating story.
Who Was William S. Hart?
William S. Hart was born in Newburgh, New York on December 6, 1864, and it wasn’t long before he began his acting career with his first stage performance in 1889 as part of the famed Daniel E. Bandmann’s Company. He worked tirelessly to make a name for himself as an actor and became noted for his roles in Shakespearean plays on Broadway. He was a director at the Ashville Opera House in North Carolina for a time. Hart became enamored with the Old West, having played the Western hero in plays like The Virginian and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine. He owned Billy the Kid’s “six-shooters,” which he would lend to the studio behind the 1930 film Billy the Kid, and counted among his friends legendary Western lawmen Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson.
In 1914, Hart came to Hollywood with a specific goal in mind: to make authentic Western films, not for what passed as Hollywood’s depiction of the Old West. After appearing in two short films as a supporting character, he became a star as the lead in 1914’s The Bargain, a film that would be added to the National Film Registry as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” in 2010. The Bargain is also one of only seven films out of 52, made between 1915 and 1919, that Hart starred in that he wasn’t also the director. His first entry as actor/director came immediately following The Bargain, 1914’s The Passing of Two-Gun Hicks, in partnership with producer Thomas Ince. Hart’s approach to making a Western relied heavily on its realism. As film historian Richard Koszarski best explains in his book Hollywood Directors, 1914-1940, “Demanding realism in his [film] settings, Hart knew that it was not merely his physical presence, but the entire design of his films that audiences recognized. They knew a Bill Hart film from a Broncho Billy through the integration of landscape and action, the characteristic dilemmas of the protagonists, and the gritty realism of the studio interiors. Hart was obsessed with all these details, and made sure they dominated the screen 100 percent of the time.”
William S. Hart Was Wildly Popular, Until a New Kid Came to Town
William S. Hart’s films, with their gritty realism, authentic props and costumes, and a “good bad guy” (a character that lives an immoral life, but has a heart of gold, becoming clean and honest at the end of the movie) were wildly popular, among the highest grossing in the industry. However, Ince had been profiting by keeping Hart’s salary ridiculously low. In 1917, Hart accepted a lucrative offer to join Famous Players-Laskey, the predecessor of Paramount Pictures, from Adolph Zukor. With this new relationship came a new film companion, the first of his kind: Fritz the horse. The brown and white pinto, as previously cited, was the first horse to be named on film, followed by the likes of Roy Rogers’ Trigger, or The Lone Ranger’s Silver.
But like all great Western heroes, Hart’s ride into the sunset came in the early 1920s, as his penchant for authenticity and moralistic themes started to fall out of favor, replaced by the likes of Tom Mix, who brought to the Western a faster pace, more action, flashy costumes, and far more upbeat.
William S. Hart Went Through Hell for ‘Tumbleweeds’
But Hart wasn’t a quitter, even after being dropped by Paramount Pictures. He took one last stab at “his kind of Western,” 1925’s Tumbleweeds, considered by many to be Hart’s greatest work (sits at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes). He financed and produced the film on his own, and released it through United Artists. The film didn’t catch on with the public like the films at the height of his popularity, but Hart took issue with United Artists’ handling of the movie. So much so that Hart took United Artists to court, suing them for $500,000. The case dragged on for years, with a judge ruling against him initially, but in 1940 Hart won the reopened case. According to the local Santa Clarita Valley newspaper The Signal, the judge who had ruled against him earlier had been bribed by United Artists. So while Hart was awarded around $700,000 for his troubles, the judge went to San Quentin for eight years. Tumbleweeds would be Hart’s final film, as he would retire from acting in 1925.
William S. Hart was the definitive Western hero and its most famous for years, but his contributions after his retirement are even more heroic, leaving a legacy that lives on to this day. He gave land and money to countless charities and organizations in Newhall, California, where he had settled in a large home he called “La Loma de los Vientos.” The local school district, one of the beneficiaries of Hart’s selfless giving, was named The William S. Hart High School District in his honor, as was William S. Hart Senior High School and a baseball field complex in Santa Clarita. He donated his 265-acre ranch for the public to enjoy, which became William S. Hart Regional Park. His 10,000-square-foot home stands in the park as a museum filled with the actor’s personal effects and movie paraphernalia, Western art, and Native American artifacts. It may also still contain Hart and his sister, who, according to a local junior high student news site, haunt the museum, making strange noises and leaving the scent of coffee throughout the day. Whether that’s true or not is up for debate, but what is true is that William S. Hart’s spirit does live on in the films he left behind and in the fruits of his kindness.