Hoot Gibson(1892-1962)
- Actor
- Producer
- Director
A pioneering cowboy star of silent and early talking Westerns, Hoot
Gibson was one of the 1920s' most popular children's matinée heroes. In
his real life, however, he had a rather painful
rags-to-riches-and-back-to-rags career, a problem that seemed to plague
a number of big stars who fell victim to their high profile and wound
up living too high on the hog.
An unfortunate byproduct of stardom is, of course, the misinformation
that is often fed to the public over the years by either overzealous
publicity agents or the actor himself. The many variations of just how
Gibson earned the name tag "Hoot" is one of them: (1) As a youth, he
loved to hunt owls; (2) while a teenager working on a rodeo ranch,
other ranch hands called him "Hoot Owl" and that the name was shortened
to just "Hoot"; (3) he picked up the nickname while a messenger with
the Owl Drug Company; and (4) while touring briefly in vaudeville, he
would hoot when the audience cheered and, thus, the nickname.
What facts are known about Hoot is that he was born Edmund Richard
Gibson on August 6, 1892, in Tekamah, Nebraska. As a child he grew up
among horses and received his first pony at the age of 2-1/2. His
family moved to California when he was 7. At age 13 the adventurous
youth ran away from home and joined a circus for a time. Later work
included punching cows in both Wyoming and Colorado (at the time, a
territory and not a state). While working on the Miller 101 Ranch at
Fort Bliss, Oklahoma, as a horse wrangler, Hoot developed a strong,
active interest in the rodeo scene--in particular, bronco busting. In
1907 he signed a four-year contract with the Dick Stanley-Bud Atkinson
Wild West Show, which toured throughout the US and (later) Australia.
By 1910 Hoot had found an "in" to the movie business as one of the
industry's first stuntmen (for which he was paid $2.50 for performing
stunts or training horses). Director
Francis Boggs was looking for experienced
cowboys and stunt doubles to appear in his western short
Pride of the Range (1910)
starring Tom Mix; both Hoot and another
future cowboy star, Art Acord, were hired.
Hoot lost a solid Hollywood contact in Boggs, however, when the
director and his working partner, producer
William Nicholas Selig, were both
shot in October, 1911, by a mentally disturbed employee (Selig was
injured, but Boggs was killed). Gibson managed to find other stunt work
in director D.W. Griffith's
western short
The Two Brothers (1910) and
several others for the next few years.
Acting, at this point, was not his bread-and-butter income. Hoot still
continued to forge a name for himself on the rodeo circuit with his pal
Acord. In 1912, at age 20, he won the title "All-Around Champion
Cowboy" at the famed annual Pendleton (Oregon) Round-Up. He also won
the steer-roping World Championship at the Calgary Stampede. While on
the circuit, he met fellow rodeo rider Rose August ("Helen") Wenger.
They eventually married (there is still some question about whether
they legally exchanged vows) and she took on the marquee name of
Helen Gibson. She even found film
stunt work herself and eventually was chosen to replace
Helen Holmes as star of the popular
movie serial
The Hazards of Helen (1914)
during mid-filming. Hoot himself had a minor role in the Universal
cliffhanger.
Hoot picked up a couple of more strong connections in the film industry
with western star Harry Carey and director
John Ford. Gibson gained some momentum
as a secondary player in a few of their films, including
Cheyenne's Pal (1917),
Straight Shooting (1917),
The Secret Man (1917) and
A Marked Man (1917). With the
outbreak of World War I, however, Gibson's film career was put on hold.
He joined the US Army, eventually attaining the the rank of sergeant
while serving with the Tank Corps, and was honorably discharged in
1919. He returned immediately to Universal and was able to restart his
career, quickly working his way up to co-star status in a series of
short westerns, most of which were directed by his now close friend
Ford. The two-reelers usually co-starred either
Pete Morrison or Hoor's wife
Helen, or sometimes both. Films such as
The Fighting Brothers (1919),
The Black Horse Bandit (1919),
Rustlers (1919),
Gun Law (1919),
The Gun Packer (1919) and
By Indian Post (1919) eventually
led to his solo starring success.
During this prolific period, he was frequently directed by
George Holt
(The Trail of the Holdup Man (1919)),
Phil Rosen
(The Sheriff's Oath (1920))
and Lee Kohlmar
(The Wild Wild West (1921)).
It was at this time that he and wife Helen separated and divorced. In
the early 1920s, Hoot went on to marry another Helen--Helen Johnson.
They had one child, Lois Charlotte Gibson, born in 1923. The couple
divorced in 1927.
Superstardom came with the John Ford (I)full-length feature western
Action (1921), which was taken from "The
Three Godfathers" story. It starred Hoot,
Francis Ford and
J. Farrell MacDonald as a trio of
outlaws on the lam who find a baby. From that point on, both Hoot and
Tom Mix began to "rule the west". Gibson's light, comedic,
tongue-in-cheek manner only added to his sagebrush appeal, especially
to children and women. His vehicles were non-violent for the most part,
and he rarely was spotted carrying a gun while riding his palomino
horse Goldie. Not a particularly handsome man, his boyish appeal and
non-threatening demeanor were his aces in the hole--a major distinction
that separated him from the more ascetic cowboy stars of the past.
By 1925 Hoot was making approximately $14,500 a week and spending it
about as fast as he was making it. He successfully made the transition
to talkies and, in 1930, married popular Jazz-era actress
Sally Eilers, a third party to his previous
divorce. The couple made three features together:
The Long, Long Trail (1929),
Trigger Tricks (1930) and
Clearing the Range (1931).
When she found celluloid success on her own with
Bad Girl (1931), Sally decided to split
from Hoot professionally and personally. They divorced in 1933.
Hoot lost his Universal contract in 1930, which signified the start of
his decline. While he secured contracts with lesser studios during the
early 1930s, such as Allied Pictures and First Division Pictures, the
quality of his films suffered. By this time Hoot had already begun to
feature race cars and airplanes in his pictures. such as
The Flyin' Cowboy (1928) and
The Winged Horseman (1929).
Airplanes in particular became a large, expensive passion of his. In
1933 he crashed his biplane during a National Air Race in Los Angeles,
which had pitted him against another cowboy star,
Ken Maynard. Fortunately, he
survived his injuries.
With the advent of talking films, singing cowboys such as
Gene Autry and
Roy Rogers were becoming the new
rage, and both Hoot and Tom Mix felt the kick. Yet he managed a couple
of "comebacks" by pairing up with others stars. He joined old silent
film teammate Harry Carey and 'Guinn Big Boy
Williams' in the "Three Mesquiteers" western
Powdersmoke Range (1935), and
was billed second to Ray Corrigan
in the Republic serial
The Painted Stallion (1937).
Hoot left films and toured with the Robbins Brothers and Russell
Brothers circuses during 1938 and 1939 before retiring from show
business altogether. His multiple divorces and reckless spending habits
had taken their toll on his finances. For a time he found work in real
estate before Monogram Pictures offered the stocky-framed actor a
chance to return in 1943. Hoot teamed up with cowboy star
Ken Maynard in the popular "Trail
Blazers" series, and the duo were later joined by
Bob Steele.
Chief Thundercloud replaced a
difficult Maynard on a couple of the films, but by the end of the
series Gibson and Steele were riding alone together. The nearly dozen
films in the series began with
Wild Horse Stampede (1943)
and ended with Trigger Law (1944),
the latter being his last hurrah in films.
Hoot then returned to real estate. By the time he appeared as a
surprise guest on the popular sitcom
I Married Joan (1952) starring
Joan Davis, his Western features of
the 1930s and 1940s, as well as those of Maynard, Steele and others
were a large staple of films seen by a TV audience that couldn't get
enough Western fare. He did a favor for old friend
John Ford by appearing in a cameo role
in the director's 1959 film
The Horse Soldiers (1959). His
last movie spotting was a guest cameo in the "Rat Pack" film
Ocean's Eleven (1960).
Hoot married a fourth and final time on July 3, 1942, to one-time radio
singer and actress Dorothea Dunstan.
This marriage took hold and lasted for 20 years until his death. By the
1960s Gibson was on the verge of financial collapse after a series of
bad investments. Diagnosed with cancer in 1960, rising medical costs
forced him to find any and all work available. He was relegated at one
point to becoming a greeter at a Las Vegas casino and, for a period,
worked at carnivals.
It was an unhappy end for a cowboy who brought so much excitement and
entertainment to children and adults alike. Gibson died of cancer at
the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, California, just a
couple of weeks after his 70th birthday. He was interred in the
Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California. In remembrance, he
received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and, in 1979, was
inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National
Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
Gibson was one of the 1920s' most popular children's matinée heroes. In
his real life, however, he had a rather painful
rags-to-riches-and-back-to-rags career, a problem that seemed to plague
a number of big stars who fell victim to their high profile and wound
up living too high on the hog.
An unfortunate byproduct of stardom is, of course, the misinformation
that is often fed to the public over the years by either overzealous
publicity agents or the actor himself. The many variations of just how
Gibson earned the name tag "Hoot" is one of them: (1) As a youth, he
loved to hunt owls; (2) while a teenager working on a rodeo ranch,
other ranch hands called him "Hoot Owl" and that the name was shortened
to just "Hoot"; (3) he picked up the nickname while a messenger with
the Owl Drug Company; and (4) while touring briefly in vaudeville, he
would hoot when the audience cheered and, thus, the nickname.
What facts are known about Hoot is that he was born Edmund Richard
Gibson on August 6, 1892, in Tekamah, Nebraska. As a child he grew up
among horses and received his first pony at the age of 2-1/2. His
family moved to California when he was 7. At age 13 the adventurous
youth ran away from home and joined a circus for a time. Later work
included punching cows in both Wyoming and Colorado (at the time, a
territory and not a state). While working on the Miller 101 Ranch at
Fort Bliss, Oklahoma, as a horse wrangler, Hoot developed a strong,
active interest in the rodeo scene--in particular, bronco busting. In
1907 he signed a four-year contract with the Dick Stanley-Bud Atkinson
Wild West Show, which toured throughout the US and (later) Australia.
By 1910 Hoot had found an "in" to the movie business as one of the
industry's first stuntmen (for which he was paid $2.50 for performing
stunts or training horses). Director
Francis Boggs was looking for experienced
cowboys and stunt doubles to appear in his western short
Pride of the Range (1910)
starring Tom Mix; both Hoot and another
future cowboy star, Art Acord, were hired.
Hoot lost a solid Hollywood contact in Boggs, however, when the
director and his working partner, producer
William Nicholas Selig, were both
shot in October, 1911, by a mentally disturbed employee (Selig was
injured, but Boggs was killed). Gibson managed to find other stunt work
in director D.W. Griffith's
western short
The Two Brothers (1910) and
several others for the next few years.
Acting, at this point, was not his bread-and-butter income. Hoot still
continued to forge a name for himself on the rodeo circuit with his pal
Acord. In 1912, at age 20, he won the title "All-Around Champion
Cowboy" at the famed annual Pendleton (Oregon) Round-Up. He also won
the steer-roping World Championship at the Calgary Stampede. While on
the circuit, he met fellow rodeo rider Rose August ("Helen") Wenger.
They eventually married (there is still some question about whether
they legally exchanged vows) and she took on the marquee name of
Helen Gibson. She even found film
stunt work herself and eventually was chosen to replace
Helen Holmes as star of the popular
movie serial
The Hazards of Helen (1914)
during mid-filming. Hoot himself had a minor role in the Universal
cliffhanger.
Hoot picked up a couple of more strong connections in the film industry
with western star Harry Carey and director
John Ford. Gibson gained some momentum
as a secondary player in a few of their films, including
Cheyenne's Pal (1917),
Straight Shooting (1917),
The Secret Man (1917) and
A Marked Man (1917). With the
outbreak of World War I, however, Gibson's film career was put on hold.
He joined the US Army, eventually attaining the the rank of sergeant
while serving with the Tank Corps, and was honorably discharged in
1919. He returned immediately to Universal and was able to restart his
career, quickly working his way up to co-star status in a series of
short westerns, most of which were directed by his now close friend
Ford. The two-reelers usually co-starred either
Pete Morrison or Hoor's wife
Helen, or sometimes both. Films such as
The Fighting Brothers (1919),
The Black Horse Bandit (1919),
Rustlers (1919),
Gun Law (1919),
The Gun Packer (1919) and
By Indian Post (1919) eventually
led to his solo starring success.
During this prolific period, he was frequently directed by
George Holt
(The Trail of the Holdup Man (1919)),
Phil Rosen
(The Sheriff's Oath (1920))
and Lee Kohlmar
(The Wild Wild West (1921)).
It was at this time that he and wife Helen separated and divorced. In
the early 1920s, Hoot went on to marry another Helen--Helen Johnson.
They had one child, Lois Charlotte Gibson, born in 1923. The couple
divorced in 1927.
Superstardom came with the John Ford (I)full-length feature western
Action (1921), which was taken from "The
Three Godfathers" story. It starred Hoot,
Francis Ford and
J. Farrell MacDonald as a trio of
outlaws on the lam who find a baby. From that point on, both Hoot and
Tom Mix began to "rule the west". Gibson's light, comedic,
tongue-in-cheek manner only added to his sagebrush appeal, especially
to children and women. His vehicles were non-violent for the most part,
and he rarely was spotted carrying a gun while riding his palomino
horse Goldie. Not a particularly handsome man, his boyish appeal and
non-threatening demeanor were his aces in the hole--a major distinction
that separated him from the more ascetic cowboy stars of the past.
By 1925 Hoot was making approximately $14,500 a week and spending it
about as fast as he was making it. He successfully made the transition
to talkies and, in 1930, married popular Jazz-era actress
Sally Eilers, a third party to his previous
divorce. The couple made three features together:
The Long, Long Trail (1929),
Trigger Tricks (1930) and
Clearing the Range (1931).
When she found celluloid success on her own with
Bad Girl (1931), Sally decided to split
from Hoot professionally and personally. They divorced in 1933.
Hoot lost his Universal contract in 1930, which signified the start of
his decline. While he secured contracts with lesser studios during the
early 1930s, such as Allied Pictures and First Division Pictures, the
quality of his films suffered. By this time Hoot had already begun to
feature race cars and airplanes in his pictures. such as
The Flyin' Cowboy (1928) and
The Winged Horseman (1929).
Airplanes in particular became a large, expensive passion of his. In
1933 he crashed his biplane during a National Air Race in Los Angeles,
which had pitted him against another cowboy star,
Ken Maynard. Fortunately, he
survived his injuries.
With the advent of talking films, singing cowboys such as
Gene Autry and
Roy Rogers were becoming the new
rage, and both Hoot and Tom Mix felt the kick. Yet he managed a couple
of "comebacks" by pairing up with others stars. He joined old silent
film teammate Harry Carey and 'Guinn Big Boy
Williams' in the "Three Mesquiteers" western
Powdersmoke Range (1935), and
was billed second to Ray Corrigan
in the Republic serial
The Painted Stallion (1937).
Hoot left films and toured with the Robbins Brothers and Russell
Brothers circuses during 1938 and 1939 before retiring from show
business altogether. His multiple divorces and reckless spending habits
had taken their toll on his finances. For a time he found work in real
estate before Monogram Pictures offered the stocky-framed actor a
chance to return in 1943. Hoot teamed up with cowboy star
Ken Maynard in the popular "Trail
Blazers" series, and the duo were later joined by
Bob Steele.
Chief Thundercloud replaced a
difficult Maynard on a couple of the films, but by the end of the
series Gibson and Steele were riding alone together. The nearly dozen
films in the series began with
Wild Horse Stampede (1943)
and ended with Trigger Law (1944),
the latter being his last hurrah in films.
Hoot then returned to real estate. By the time he appeared as a
surprise guest on the popular sitcom
I Married Joan (1952) starring
Joan Davis, his Western features of
the 1930s and 1940s, as well as those of Maynard, Steele and others
were a large staple of films seen by a TV audience that couldn't get
enough Western fare. He did a favor for old friend
John Ford by appearing in a cameo role
in the director's 1959 film
The Horse Soldiers (1959). His
last movie spotting was a guest cameo in the "Rat Pack" film
Ocean's Eleven (1960).
Hoot married a fourth and final time on July 3, 1942, to one-time radio
singer and actress Dorothea Dunstan.
This marriage took hold and lasted for 20 years until his death. By the
1960s Gibson was on the verge of financial collapse after a series of
bad investments. Diagnosed with cancer in 1960, rising medical costs
forced him to find any and all work available. He was relegated at one
point to becoming a greeter at a Las Vegas casino and, for a period,
worked at carnivals.
It was an unhappy end for a cowboy who brought so much excitement and
entertainment to children and adults alike. Gibson died of cancer at
the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, California, just a
couple of weeks after his 70th birthday. He was interred in the
Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California. In remembrance, he
received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and, in 1979, was
inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National
Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.