William S. Hart's gallant fighting heart stopped beating at 11:20 o'clock last night.
Death came to the veteran Western film star at California Lutheran Hospital, with his son, William S. Hart Jr., at his bedside.
His physician, Dr. H. D. Van Fleet, said death came "without a struggle, quietly sleeping away."
Doctors had marveled at the determined fight for life which had carried him through months of illness and declining strength. He had been hospitalized only since June 5, but before that time he had been under medical treatment at his 80-acre ranch in Newhall.
He was 83 when death ended his famous career, one of the most fabulous in the annals of motion pictures.
BORN IN N. Y.----
Born in New York in 1862, he spent his childhood in the Dakota territory. Later going on the New York stage, he came west in 1914 to begin a film career which brought him to heights of fame and prosperity seldom equaled before or since.
"Bill" Hart, as he was known to the millions of film fans who idolized him, had lived in loneliness on his Newhall ranch for the past three years, since the death of his "darling sister," Mary.
During the last weeks of his life, Hart was the center of a legal battle over his guardianship between his son and two friends of the actor. The son was named guardian by the court.
Ed. note: By most accounts, Hart was born in 1864.