Tom Mix stars in the 1918 Fox feature, "Western Blood," which was shot in the Santa Clarita Valley (although the pictured scene obviously wasn't). 8x10 glossy production still. No, your vision isn't failing you; Tom's boots are in focus but his face isn't.

Stamp on the back of the photograph reads: "William Fox presents / Tom Mix / in Western Blood / Written and Staged by Lynn Reynolds / Fox Film Corporation."

Tom's leading lady in this film is Victoria Forde. According to Birchard (1993), the two were paired in several Fox shorts, but this was the only time Forde co-starred with Mix in a full-length Fox feature. "Western Blood" was released April 14, 1918; Tom (1880-1940) and Victoria (1896–1964) were married less than a month later, on May 5, Tom having divorced his third wife, Olive Stokes, in 1917. Tom and Victoria's marriage produced a child and ended in divorce Jan. 4, 1932. The following month, on Feb. 15, 1932, Tom wed for the fifth and final time. Mabel Hubbell Ward became his widow when he died in a 1940 car crash.

Additional credited cast members in "Western Blood" include Barney Furey, Frank Clark, Pat Chrisman and a fairly young Buck Jones, who was credited as Buck Gebhart (Jones' birth name was Charles Frederick Gebhart).

This is one of many "lost" Tom Mix films. Birchard writes (pg. 133):

Born in Mix Run, Penn., on Jan. 6, 1880, Tom Mix appeared in more than 300 films (counting "shorts") from 1909 to 1935. He occasionally filmed in Newhall from 1916 to the mid-1920s and set up one of his early "Mixville" Western movie towns between Spruce Street (now called Main Street) and Newhall Avenue.

A part-time Newhall resident during that period, Mix lived across the street (probably on Walnut Street) from the Thibaudeau home, which was located at the southwest corner of Market Street and Newhall Avenue. In a televised interview, lifelong Newhall resident Gladys Thibaudeau Laney (1910-2014) said she observed Tom buying his sidekick "wonder horse" Tony on her family's property when she was a young girl. The timing works; Tom reportedly purchased Tony for $600 in 1917 from Pat Chrisman (1882-1953), a horse trainer and actor friend who co-starred in a number of Mix films (Birchard 1993:118).

In the late Teens, Mix established his most famous "Mixville" on Glendale Boulevard in the Silver Lake section of Los Angeles.

Prior to his movie career, Mix appeared in a series of Wild West shows where he was noticed by pioneering film producer Col. William N. Selig, who hired him to handle horses. He worked with Selig, writing, directing and acting, until 1917, when he signed with Fox to star in moving pictures alongside Tony.

Mix reached the height of his popularity during the 1920s, assuming the mantle of King of the Cowboys from William S. Hart, who retired from filming in 1925. But Mix did not adapt well to "talkies," and his career waned in the 1930s. His popularity remained intact, however, as he took his show on the road on the Western performance circuit. It was on the road that he would perish, when his 1937 Cord sent him to an untimely demise on Oct. 12, 1940, south of Florence, Ariz. Adding insult to injury and death, most of the 85 films he made with Fox were lost in a 1937 fire at the company's East Coast storage facility. But Mix was remembered fondly through his radio show and comic books, which outlived him by more than a decade.