William S. Hart: Projecting the American West

by Ronald L. Davis

Stage actor turned Hollywood star, William S. Hart (1864―1946) was for movie fans a cherished symbol of the romantic Old West. His silent westerns offered excitement, lessons in righteous behavior, and a nostalgic vision of the American frontier. This intriguing biography explores the personal and professional life of Hollywood’s prototypical cowboy hero. Born in Newburgh, New York, Hart grew up in a Victorian atmosphere that gave rise to the rigid morality prevalent in many of his films. From 1914 to 1924, he appeared in or produced more than sixty movies, but it was not until he abandoned Shakespearean characters for parts in The Squaw Man and The Virginian that Hart truly assumed his western persona. For the first time, readers are given insights into Hart’s somewhat lonely and tragic personal life, his quarrels with exploitive studios, and his association with such latter-day frontier legends as Charles M. Russell, Bat Masterson, and Wyatt Earp, who regarded him as a kindred spirit. Other highlights of this book include excerpts from his previously unpublished letters to starlet Jane Novak, Hart’s one-time fiancée, as well as numerous photographs from studio and private collections. Drawing on Hart’s papers, primary sources of the Motion Picture Academy, oral histories, and contemporary newspapers, this chronicle of Hart’s life is the first since his own starry-eyed autobiography, My Life East and West , appeared in 1929.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2003

About the author

Ronald L. Davis is professor of history emeritus at Southern Methodist University (SMU) where he served as director of the university's DeGolyer Institute for American Studies and the Oral History Program.

Reviews

[Isidore · Rating 2 out of 5]

This slender volume offers an overview of Hart's life and an appraisal of his work, without detailed analysis of individual films.

Unfortunately, the tragic view of life which was central to Hart's personality and art appears to arouse the author's hostility. In fact, Prof. Davis has little use for Hart as a human being, assaulting him with a wide range of denigratory epithets: "rigid", "melodramatic", "immature", "self-pitying", "whining", and even "wimpish"(!). Hart's famous 1939 spoken introduction to TUMBLEWEEDS, which most viewers find quite moving, is here described as "bombastic". In short, the reader is caught in a clash of personalities between author and subject.

The book's greatest asset is an abundance of new biographical information, gleaned from Hart's own letters and other sources, pertaining mostly to his later years.

Diane Koszarski's COMPLETE FILMS OF WILLIAM S. HART, with its excellent introductory essay, is a good introduction to this film-maker's work. Despite Prof. Davis' efforts, there is still a need for full-length biographical study which takes Hart seriously as a person and as an artist.