In 1913 a young Tom Mix meets revolutionary Pancho Villa and travels with his band across Mexico on a journey that opens his eyes to life, love, violence, and his own illusions
The Amazing Tom Mix The Most Famous Cowboy of the Movies Tom Mix was a town marshal and cowboy in the Oklahoma Territory, a rodeo champion and a wild west show performer. With his devil-may-care attitude, quick wit and penchant for doing breath-taking stunts on his wonder horse, Tony, Tom Mix went on to become the #1 movie cowboy of silent films, earning millions of dollars at a time when movie tickets cost pennies. While he basked in this incredible acclaim, Tom Mix lived in fear that his deep, dark secrets would be discovered and his career and his cherished heroic image would be destroyed. Celebrated author Richard D. Jensen has spent more than 30 years researching the life of Tom Mix, the man hailed as "the idol of every American boy." With incredible detail, much of it gained from hundreds of original letters, records, documents and eyewitness accounts, The Amazing Tom Mix cuts through 100 years of public relations mythology, tall tales and outright lies to bring the true and inspiring story of a man whose Saturday matinee cowboy image would become the standard for all of the movie cowboys who rode the silver screen after him. "Here is Tom Mix as he really was...a captivating biography ... brilliant ... delightful ... It is a splendid book." -Richard S. Wheeler, five-time Spur Award winning author of Trouble In Tombstone. "... the most complete biography of Mix's life of trials, tribulations and victories." -John Duncklee, author of Bull By The Tale.
Explores the various ways that life in the Mexican-American borderlands has been reflected in fiction and film, as well as in the corridos--the ballads and other songs celebrating the lives and struggles of borderlands people.
Alongside Moctezuma and Benito Juárez, Pancho Villa is probably the best-known figure in Mexican history. Villa legends pervade not only Mexico but the United States and beyond, existing not only in the popular mind and tradition but in ballads and movies. There are legends of Villa the Robin Hood, Villa the womanizer, and Villa as the only foreigner who has attacked the mainland of the United States since the War of 1812 and gotten away with it. Whether exaggerated or true to life, these legends have resulted in Pancho Villa the leader obscuring his revolutionary movement, and the myth in turn obscuring the leader. Based on decades of research in the archives of seven countries, this definitive study of Villa aims to separate myth from history. So much attention has focused on Villa himself that the characteristics of his movement, which is unique in Latin American history and in some ways unique among twentieth-century revolutions, have been forgotten or neglected. Villa’s División del Norte was probably the largest revolutionary army that Latin America ever produced. Moreover, this was one of the few revolutionary movements with which a U.S. administration attempted, not only to come to terms, but even to forge an alliance. In contrast to Lenin, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, and Fidel Castro, Villa came from the lower classes of society, had little education, and organized no political party. The first part of the book deals with Villa’s early life as an outlaw and his emergence as a secondary leader of the Mexican Revolution, and also discusses the special conditions that transformed the state of Chihuahua into a leading center of revolution. In the second part, beginning in 1913, Villa emerges as a national leader. The author analyzes the nature of his revolutionary movement and the impact of Villismo as an ideology and as a social movement. The third part of the book deals with the years 1915 to 1920: Villa’s guerrilla warfare, his attack on Columbus, New Mexico, and his subsequent decline. The last part describes Villa’s surrender, his brief life as a hacendado, his assassination and its aftermath, and the evolution of the Villa legend. The book concludes with an assessment of Villa’s personality and the character and impact of his movement.
A wild ride and revealing portrait of the controversial Pancho Villa, one of Mexico’s most beloved (or loathed) heroes, that finally establishes the importance of his role in the triumph of the Mexican Revolution, by renowned writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II. The last biography of Pancho Villa was published 25 years ago, and this new edition has been translated into English for the first time. This biography marks a kind of reinvention of the legendary Mexican figure of Pancho Villa. It is a masterful reevaluation and heavily researched account of his life. This book makes a new claim, finally giving Pancho Villa his due as the decisive figure in the success of Mexican Revolution. Here he is less the colorful bandito and more the incorruptible conscience that not only won key battles, but also maintained the revolutionary vision and led the way in terms of class consciousness. Pancho Villa is a rollicking, sometimes hilariously comical, sometimes extremely violent, and always very personal portrait of the controversial Mexican historical figure Pancho Villa. Beloved crime writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II (a.k.a. PIT)—the prolific historian, biographer of Che Guevara and the founder of Mexican “neopolicial” fiction—brings his tremendous storytelling skills to an account of one of the Mexico’s greatest legendary characters. With his vibrant narrative style, Taibo describes the adventures of Pancho Villa with incredible stories, the stuff of history and tragedy, backed up by tremendous research. Throughout, Taibo unveils secrets about the life of one of Mexico's most courageous and charismatic leaders. Includes period photographs that indelibly capture the rocky transition from the wild and agrarian past towards modern statehood.
The western is one of the most popular genres in American film history, and some estimate more than 20,000 of them have been produced. Its popular portrayal of the American West, as a place where good and evil are clearly defined, created heroes that are still among the most respected and remembered in film history. Writers Lane Roth and Tom W. Hoffer, William E. Tydeman III, R. Philip Loy, Gary Kramer, Raymond E. White, Michael K. Schoenecke, Sandra Schackel, Jacqueline K. Greb, Jim Collins, Richard Robertson, and Gary Yoggy each contributed an essay, focusing on the performances of some of the most famous of Hollywood's leading cowboys and cowgirls. Analyses of the works of G.M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson, Tom Mix, Buck Jones, Tex Ritter, Roy Rogers, James Stewart, Barbara Stanwyck, Steve McQueen, and James Arness are included. James Drury of The Virginian relates his firsthand experiences of movie making by way of introducing this collection.
Tom Mix became a major star in the 1920s, earning over $900,000 for his movie work in 1921. Fox refused, however, to renew his contract in 1927, and that, coupled with the stock market crash of 1929, left him virtually penniless. In 1932 Mix resumed his movie career, making Destry Rides Again, his first talkie. Later he became a circus owner and star. This is the story of Mix's life and career; it includes a comprehensive filmography of his work.
In this powerful and evocative memoir, Oscar-winning director and screenwriter, Oliver Stone, takes us right to the heart of what it's like to make movies on the edge. In Chasing The Light he writes about his rarefied New York childhood, volunteering for combat, and his struggles and triumphs making such films as Platoon, Midnight Express, and Scarface. Before the international success of Platoon in 1986, Oliver Stone had been wounded as an infantryman in Vietnam, and spent years writing unproduced scripts while taking miscellaneous jobs and driving taxis in New York, finally venturing westward to Los Angeles and a new life. Stone, now 73, recounts those formative years with vivid details of the high and low moments: we sit at the table in meetings with Al Pacino over Stone's scripts for Scarface, Platoon, and Born on the Fourth of July; relive the harrowing demon of cocaine addiction following the failure of his first feature, The Hand (starring Michael Caine); experience his risky on-the-ground research of Miami drug cartels for Scarface; and see his stormy relationship with The Deer Hunter director Michael Cimino. We also learn of the breathless hustles to finance the acclaimed and divisive Salvador; and witness tensions behind the scenes of his first Academy Award-winning film, Midnight Express. The culmination of the book is the extraordinarily vivid recreation of filming Platoon in the depths of the Philippine jungle with Kevin Dillon, Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Johnny Depp et al, pushing himself, the crew and the young cast almost beyond breaking point. Written fearlessly, with intense detail and colour, Chasing the Light is a true insider's story of Hollywood's years of upheaval in the 1970s and '80s, and Stone brings this period alive as only someone at the centre of the action truly can.
A “fascinating” memoir—and the inspiration for the movie starring Richard Gere—from the man behind the forged autobiography of Howard Hughes (Time). Novelist Clifford Irving’s no-holds-barred account of his faked autobiography of Howard Hughes—one of the greatest literary hoaxes of the twentieth century—is the ultimate caper story. The plan was concocted in the early 1970s, when eccentric billionaire Hughes was already living as a recluse in the Bahamas. An American author, Irving pitched the scheme to his friend, fellow writer Richard Suskind: Through forged letters and fake interviews, they would recount Hughes’s life “in his own words.” Meanwhile, Irving’s wife would open a Swiss bank account in the name of “Helga R. Hughes” using a fake passport. Their success hinged on the assumption that Hughes would never resurface to challenge the book, as he had not spoken to the press in over ten years. Conning Irving’s own publisher of nearly a decade out of a six-figure advance, the three conspirators embarked on a hoax that would fool journalists, handwriting experts, and even a lie-detector test. It was not until Hughes himself emerged from seclusion to denounce Irving that the book was exposed as fraud. This madcap, bestselling memoir “is a story which reads like the best thriller fiction and which contains the seeds of a dozen movie scripts. Mysterious meetings, false passports, a beautiful Danish baroness, Swiss bank accounts . . .” The Hoax is a masterpiece of international intrigue and startling revelations (The Tatler, England). “Brilliant!” —Newsday “A masterpiece!” —CBS Radio "Spellbinding!” —Publishers Weekly “Sensational!” —New York Daily New