Morbid Fact Du Jour For October 13, 2011
Today’s Unmussed Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Thomas Edwin “Tom” Mix (born Thomas Hezikiah Mix, January 6, 1880 – October 12, 1940) was an American film actor and the star of many early Western movies. He made a reported 336 films between 1910 and 1935, all but nine of which were silent features. He was Hollywood’s first Western megastar and is noted as having helped define the genre for all cowboy actors who followed. On the afternoon of October 12, 1940, Mix was killed in an automobile wreck in Florence, Arizona. Here is the colorful original article from the Oct 13, 1940 Reading Eagle:
Florence, Arizona, October 12 (U.P.) – Tom Mix, the shootin’est movie cowboy there ever was, died today in an automobile wreck, when his green speedster turned over on an Arizona desert highway at 80 miles an hour.
He was dead when passersby lifted him from the wreckage near here. His neck was broken.
Mix, who never was as good behind the wheel as he was at the bridle of his horse, Tony, met death near a bridge construction job. His custom-built auto swung in an arc down into a wash near a detour sign, swerved up on the other side, and whirled over. It had no top.
Construction workers and motorists pried the machine with timbers from the bridge they were building, and hauled out the body with diamond-studded belt still in place, and ten-gallon white sombrero still jammed on Mix’s brow.
He died with his high-heeled cowboy boots on. His cream jacket and cream-colored breeches were not even mussed.
Culled from: Wikipedia and the Reading Eagle
Dammit, why can’t they write fun fashion-obsessed obituaries like this anymore? I would have loved to have seen Michael Jackson’s…
That one’s a real howler. And it raises the question: he is driving like a bat out of hell, his car has no top, he flips, breaking his neck, and his hat stays on his head? How’s he do that?
Nice little swipe at his bad driving too.
Reminds me of one of those goofy headlines you see collected in books of goofy headlines/typos/etc.:
“Tom Mix and his wonder horse Tony are featured. In some stunts, Tom shows almost human intelligence.:
Now why on earth would anybody discard a fine reliable name like Hezikiah?
Michael Jackson died with a diaper on.
Really?
Shouldn’t surprise me very much, since in a lot of ways MJ never grew up.