William S. Hart

Biography

Long before the West was a back-lot, William S. Hart learned its silence firsthand in the Dakota badlands, then swapped the howl of prairie wind for the clatter of a Manhattan post office in 1888. That year he traded stamps for Shakespeare and stepped onstage. Eleven winters later he strapped on Messala’s armor in the first Broadway “Ben-Hur,” and by 1907 he was the soft-spoken cow-puncher who made “The Virginian” sting. Cameras found him in 1914 when “His Hour of Manhood” unspooled—two reels, one weathered face. Thomas H. Ince snapped him up for Triangle in 1915; two revolutions of the sun later Zukor lured him to Famous Players-Lasky with a contract fat as a cattle baron’s wallet. Fame lasted until scandal—an ultimately tossed paternity suit—galloped alongside the changing tastes of the Jazz Age. His final ride came in 1925: “Tumbleweeds” rolled for United Artists, then the screen darkened. Hart retreated to a Newhall ranch where real dust still settled, while moviegoers chased the circus thrills of Tom Mix and Hoot Gibson. He rests today under Greenwood Cemetery’s Brooklyn elms, the first cowboy who never needed to smile to prove he was the hero.