Talk:Tom Mix

Place of death

• Note to the anonymous poster who put discussion about place of death in the article - please put such discussion here on the Talk page, not in the article itself. - DavidWBrooks 20:24, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Just for the record, here is the snippet that DavidWBrooks deleted:

"I do not believe the place of death is correct. He actually died some time after the accident in a hospital in Los Angeles, CA. Tom Mix had a rare bllod type and some was rushed to L.A by plane.My father who was a California Highway Patrolman at the time took the blood from the Airport to the Hospital. It was widely reported in the newspapers at the time."

This story is inconsistent with the written recollections of Mix's wife, Olive Stokes as found on this page: http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm/bookshelf/index.htm Looks like Mix died at the scene. --Lockley 20:04, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• He DID die on scene, according to newspaper reports the following day.

From The Arizona Republic (Oct 13, 1940): Two highway employees, John Adams of Oracle and A.A. Armenta of Casa Grande, discovered the overturned vehicle.

Martin Younkers, Beloit, Wis., and Anthony Monts, Rockford, ill., who said Mix had passed them on the highway north of Tucson, helped pull the actor's body from under his racing model. Younkers and Monts said a heavy suitcase had fallen against Mix' head, buring his face in the soft ground. A physician reported later the blow broke his neck.

--Jadewik (talk) 00:51, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

seatbelt

The statement "He was wearing his seat belt" during the accident was inaccurate. The automotive seat belt was patented in 1956 and the first cars so equipped were Volvos in 1959. Seat belts were not even introduce on aircraft until the 1930s.

museum theft

Hope this information is appropriate here.

Here is info on all handguns and serial numbers that were stolen from the TM Museum on 4-13-02:

Smith & Wesson 357 Magnum 55668 Colt 38 special 56131 Derringer, single shot, no number S & W 38 special 12716 Colt Bisley 45 299014 Iver Johnson 22 202 Colt 38 453520 Colt 38-40 330558 Colt 38 530719 Colt 38 630719 Colt 38 456131 S & W 32-44 2102 Colt 38 524511 matched pair of Colts, serial nos. 530719 and 524511

In December, 2004, there were some arrests made.

Mix as an author

I added brief bibliographic information about Mix's authorship. Along with the location of those monographs. Mark Preston 05:55, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• Here is what Mark Preston added to the article, my comments follow:

According to records held in the California Digital Library (Melvyl) Tom Mix is also an author of:

The West of yesterday, by Tom Mix, and Tony's story, by himself. Compiled and edited by J. B. M. Clark, from interviews with the author. Los Angeles : The Times-Mirror Press, 1923.

Western songs; piano accompaniment, [ukulele] and guitar chords [comp. by Tom Mix and Will Livernash] Chicago : Cole Pub. Co., c1935.

• The book appears to be a wholly non-notable "fan book" written by a different author (along with a claim that Tony the horse wrote some of the book himself) and sold under Mix's name (which was highly recognizeable in North America in 1923). This reference to a single book which Mix did not write certainly does not support any notion of mentioning Mix as an author.

• The songbook looks like a similar kind of effort, this time in sheet music publishing (kind of like the iPod sales of its day). The credit specifically says this is a compilation, Mix didn't write any of these songs. Mix was never known as a songwriter or singer. There is no evidence the songs in that collection were written by Mix (never mind a songwriter or performer is never called an author).

• These items might fit in the trivia section, though on second thought they don't even seem encyclopedic enough for that. Gwen Gale 09:04, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Mix at Wyatt Earp's Funeral

quotation below from American History Jul/Aug '94 (accessed through Ebscohost database), for verification and in case anyone wants to work it into the article:

Mix and Hart served as pallbearers at Wyatt's funeral. Photos of the pallbearers outside the mortuary show Mix, then only forty-nine years old, looking ashen and debilitated. In 1969, Rogers St. John wrote in The Honeycomb: "I found it brave that [Mix] cried all the time he was carrying his old friends casket." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Some jerk on the Internet (talk • contribs) 14:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Tom's Wives & Military Carrer

According to his obituary in Tucson newspaper, The Arizona Daily Star (Saturday, October 13, 1940), Tom mix had been married a total of three times. Olive Stoke, a circus cowgirl was his first wife. They had a daughter, Ruth, before they divorced. In 1917 Tom mix married film actress Victoria Forde. They had a daughter, Tomasina, before divorcing. In February 1932, Mix married his third wife, circus aerialist Mabel Ward in Yuma, Arizona.

Also, in Phoenix Newspaper The Arizona Republic (Saturday, October 13, 1940), Tom Mix is reported to have sailed for Cuba on June 21, 1898 where he saw action in the battle of Guaymas at Christobel hill and he served as a scout and courier for General Chaffee. The paper goes on to say that he was shot through the mouth with the exit wound in his neck. He recovered and, during the Boxer Rebellion, Mix was put in charge of a Gardiner gun by the commandant of the ninth infantry entrenched before Peking. He was again wounded-- a grazed bullet to his forehead-- but recovered in Washington. The article also says mix fought in the Boer War and witnessed the battle of Spinecob as a non-combatant before returning to the US to be a cowboy in TX and OK.

I didn't want to add this to the main article because... I have no idea where the other wives names came from and I don't know where the information about military career was provided from. As I've researched other historical instances, I've noticed there can be some historical inaccuracies between newspapers. Though, the Republic does tend to have its facts straight a majority of the time.... Put in the main article? --Jadewik (talk) 00:41, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Link to Deleware newspaper I found through Google shares a similar article to the one I saw about Mix's life and military service which was printed in the Arizona Republic: Tom Mix, Movie Actor Dies in Auto Accident. Sunday Morning Star. Wilmington, Deleware. Oct 13, 1940. pp1. --Jadewik (talk) 18:05, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

It appears as though most of the questionable information provided on Tom Mix's life (eg- being a Rough Rider, catching robbers and cattle thieves) stems from a book "The Fabulous Tom Mix" by Olive Stokes Mix, one of Tom's Ex-wives. "The Life and Legend of Tom Mix" by Paul E. Mix actually provides historical information that negates the newspaper articles which relied heavily on information provided about actor Tom Mix in Olive's book. Olive's book is a story-book adaptation of her life with Tom Mix, including some of the stories Tom and his mother told Olive about Tom's pre-Olive life. Little did Olive know, Tom liked to make up stories... a fact Paul Mix explains as Tom's effort to not be branded deserter. --Jadewik (talk) 00:12, 1 December 2010 (UTC)