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Tom makes fun of his own directing chores in BILL HAYWOOD: PRODUCER. Pat Chrisman at the camera, Sid Jordan to
T~m•s left and George Fawcett with head bowed.

companies, and this time they came to Mix, in Oklaho- panied him on the tour, but she later returned to Okla-
ma. In July', perhaps the most famous of all the homa to give birth to their daughter, Ruth, who was
Mix-Selig westerns was made, RANCH LIFE IN THE born on July 13, 1912. Tom again went with Selig, this
GREAT SOUTHWEST. Mix was riot, as some histo- time going to the Di11mond S Ranch and becoming a
rians have stated, merely an extra in this film. Essential- member of William Duncan's unit. Duncan wrote, di-
ly a documentary, the picture showed a series of ranch rected, and starred in a series of one-reel Westerns for
practices and stunts. Olive Mix was shown roping a caH, Selig, and was later to become a top serial star and di-
and Tom bulldogged a steer for the camera. Posters for rector. The year and a half that Mix spent with Duncan
the production showed Tom bringing down the steer, served as a training ground for his futU're starring work.
and he received billing as "U.S. Marshal-Tom Mix." By mid 1914., Selig considered Mix to be ready for a
Tom too a break from picture work in 1911-1912, series of his· own, and to launch this series he put Tom in
joining the Young Buffalo Ranch Wild West Show on a two special productions, ,rHIP OF THE FL YING U, a
tour through_ the northeast and Canada. His wife accom- three-reeler, and the five-reel feature, / N THE DAYS
OF THE THUNDERING HERD. Colin Campbell,
Typical scene, showing Sid Jordan, Victoria Forde, Tom who directed Selig's famous version of Rex Beach's
Mix, Joe Ryan, and George Pankey (1916) THE SPOILERS, directed these two efforts, and both
were exceptionally good Westerns.
The Mix series itself, however, was somewhat less am-
bitious. The first, a single-reeler appropriately titled
THE REAL THING IN COWBOYS, was released on
September 29, 1914, and set the pattern for all that was
to follow in the next two and a half years.
M ix's output was immense. His unit turned out a
single-reel picture every w~ek, along with a series of spe-
cial two and three-reel productions, which were pro-
duced simultaneously with the regular output and re-
leased at four-week intervals. The vast majority of M ix's
films were Western comedies, not hell-for-leather
shoot-em-ups. In them Tom began to develop the screen
personality that was to make him a world-wide favorite.
Mix directed most of his pictures himself:unfortunate-
ly, though his talent as an organizer of scenes was not
undeveloped, he had little regard for camera placement,
maintaining the "front-row-center" point of view of so
many early movies. Details of action were largely lost
through this unimaginative use of the camera. BILL
HAYWOOD-PRODUCER (Continued on page 47)