Decidedly Grim

Today’s Rooting-Tooting Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Artemus Acord was an authentic cowboy and rodeo champ when cast in Cecil B. DeMille’s Squaw Man.  Soon after, Acord shipped off to fight in World War I, where his real life rooting-tooting acts of bravery earned him medals.  He returned to Hollywood and became one of the most popular actors in silent westerns, displaying a natural genius for capturing the bravado of the American cowboy era.  He performed his own stunts, and reportedly could withstand any number of bottles crashed over his head without flinching.  He didn’t need to act too much for his barroom brawls, or for belting back a shot of rotgut, since he always insisted the colored water normally used to fill whiskey bottles contain the real thing. When his drinking became a burden, he was canned, primarily because of an arrest for bootlegging. Acord went down to Mexico, in hope of finding a part in low-budget cowboy films, but he got quickly into trouble and more barroom fights, nearly being stabbed to death in one. In the end, Acord was employed as a miner below the border when he had the brilliant idea to stage his own kidnapping – he was certain the publicity would facilitate a triumphant return to the Silver Screen. When Acord brought the local police in on the scheme, he managed to get into more hot water by screwing around with one officer’s wife. Eventually, Mexican authorities stated Acord died of suicide by ingesting cyanide, even if autopsy reports show the size of his enlarged liver may have caused his death (at age forty in 1931) from complications of chronic alcoholism. Others believe he was murdered by Mexican police. All but a few of Acord’s more than 100 films have been lost.

Culled from: Genius and Heroin: The Illustrated Catalogue of Creativity, Obsession, and Reckless Abandon Through the Ages

Facts