[img]1673|exact|Tom Mix in a Famous Pose||no_popup[/img]

One day back in 1972, I was watching an early morning television talk show, the name of which escapes me.

A little old lady was being interviewed by the host. Seems that when she was an aspiring actress in the 1920s, one of her earliest assignments had been to ride double with the famed cowboy Tom Mix when he performed a stunt at a hotel in Santa Monica.

She rode behind Mix while his horse actually climbed four flights of stairs, to the top of the hotel, and then he – they? – plunged into the swimming pool in the basement.

“Weren't you afraid?” asked the host.

“Not at all,” the woman replied cheerfully. “I was with Tom Mix!”

I was reminded of this story when my co-producer and cinematographer Mark Morris and I drove to Florence, AZ, to film the site of Tom Mix's death in a car accident in October 1940.

Mix's life story and untimely death will be seen in the Scene Dock documentary, “Celluloid Cowboys.”

Part one of the three-episode series will be completed in April.

Mix was 60 years old on Oct. 11, 1940, when he was driving his 1937 Cord convertible south on Highway 79, not far from Florence, on his way back to Hollywood.

Mix had not appeared in a film since 1935 when he starred in the Mascot Production serial “The Miracle Rider.” Since 1935, he had been appeared in the Sam B. Dill Circus that he owned and was run by his daughter Ruth.

[img]1672|exact|From left, actor Douglas Fairbanks, Will Rogers and Tom Mix||no_popup[/img]

What happened?

According to witnesses, Mix was driving at least 80 miles an hour when he came across construction barriers at a bridge that had been washed away by a flash flood. Witnesses in a work crew at the site said that his car rolled into a gully and then, bizarrely, a metal suitcase in the jump seat of the car struck Mix in the back of the head, breaking his neck.

Mix died instantly.

The gully was renamed Tom Mix Wash, and seven years later the Pinal County Society erected a monument, a cobblestone brick pile topped by a riderless horse, head bowed.

[img]1674|exact|Desert Monument to Mixs Legend||no_popup[/img]

The plaque on the monument reads:

“In memory of Tom Mix, whose spirit left his body on this spot and whose characterization and portrayals in life served to better fix memories of the Old West in the minds of living men.”

Mr. Hawkins may be contacted at rjhculvercity@aol.com