Arizona explained: Tom Mix, action star

• The actor's heroic exploits were overstated, but he did serve in the Army.
• He starred in hundreds of movies, many filmed in Arizona.
• A memorial stands on Arizona 79 where his car ran off the road in 1940.

Tom Mix was one of Hollywood's first superstars, an action hero with a dazzling smile and commanding personality.

According to his publicists, Mix charged up San Juan Hill alongside Teddy Roosevelt, fought in the Boxer Rebellion in China and the Boer War in South Africa and, in his spare time, served as a lawman in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

In fact, Mix never served overseas and had deserted from the Army.

He was, however, an excellent shot who supposedly could shoot the buttons off a shirt. He was also a fine horseman and athletic enough to do his own stunts — from jumping on (or off) moving trains to dropping from airplanes into rivers. He wore a big white hat, fought fair and square and, along with Tony the Wonder Horse, always saved the day.

All in all, it was a winning combination, which is why Mix was pulling down about $20,000 a week at the height of his career.

Mix was born in Pennsylvania in 1880. He left school after the fourth grade, went to work at a stable and learned to ride, rope and manage livestock.

Immediately after the U.S. declared war on Spain in 1898, Mix enlisted in the Army. Although he never saw action, he earned several promotions, re-enlisted and was assigned to Fort Hancock in New Jersey.

In 1902, for reasons that are unclear (but likely involved his first marriage), Mix went on furlough and never came back. The Army listed him first as AWOL, then as a deserter, but apparently never tried to prosecute him.

Enchanted with Wild West shows (and maybe wanting to put a little distance between himself and Army officials), Mix moved to Oklahoma in 1903. Over the next few years he worked as a cowboy and bartender, served as a night marshal and performed as a drum major in the Oklahoma Cavalry Band.

By 1905, he'd landed a job with the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch Wild West Show, a working ranch that featured Western entertainment. That, in turn, led to an offer in 1909 to handle livestock for the Selig Polyscope Co.'s Western films.

In less than a month, the personable Mix landed the first of several small film roles. In 1913, he moved to Prescott to work at Selig's Diamond S Ranch studio.

Before long, Selig gave Mix a film series; a few years later, the cowboy star ruled the box office.

Mix appeared in hundreds of movies, many of them filmed in Arizona. Nearly all his movies were silent, action-packed Westerns. Most are now lost, although a handful of his later films, such as "Riders of the Purple Sage" and "Destry Rides Again," survive as classic examples of early Westerns.

Talkies arrived in the late 1920s. Like many silent-film stars, Mix was unimpressed. Although there were rumors that a squeaky voice was behind his disdain for the new technology, Mix had a fine voice and eventually performed in several talkies.

But he never changed his opinion that talking only detracted from the action, which is what he thought movies should be about.

Mix married Mabel Hubbell, his fifth wife, in 1932. His final screen appearance came in 1935, when he starred in a "smashing, crashing, spell-binding" 15-episode serial called "The Miracle Rider." See the trailer at youtube.com/watch?v=c-PDcKXlBVk.

(Ralston-Purina sponsored a radio series called "Tom Mix Ralston Straight Shooters" that began in 1933 and ran for about two decades, but Mix never contributed to it.)

On Oct. 12, 1940, Mix took his yellow 1937 Cord Phaeton on a drive from Tucson to Florence. He stopped in Oracle Junction for lunch and, likely, a drink or two.

According to witnesses, Mix was driving fast, maybe 80 miles an hour, on Arizona 79 when he came upon road construction about 20 miles south of Florence.

As the car swerved off the two-lane highway, a heavy aluminum suitcase in the back seat flew forward and slammed into the back of his head, breaking his neck and killing him almost instantly. Mix was 60 years old.

A rough stone memorial, built in 1947, stands near the accident site on the west side of the highway. On top is a rusted, bullet-dinged iron silhouette of Tony the Wonder Horse — head down, reins slack, and riderless.