Historically, the motion picture industry has been good at telling exciting tales that also reinforced cultural, ethnic, racial, and gender stereotypes. Some of the films mentioned in this blog post may fit that description.
But the horses working alongside the actors and film crews didn't know about stereotypes; they were just doing their jobs.
This story is about the horses.
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Some Arabian (and Not Really Arabian) Horses
in Silent Films, 1921-1926
Part One
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| Rudolph Valentino and the Kellogg Arabian stallion Jadaan in "The Son of the Sheik." Valentino played two parts in the 1926 silent classic, The Sheik and The Son of the Sheik. Jadaan was the older character's mount. |
Around the turn of the 20th century, most Americans had never seen a purebred Arabian horse in person or on film; there just weren't that many of them spread across the country at the time. They might have seen paintings in a museum, or photographs and Homer Davenport's drawings of the Arabians he imported to the United States in a newspaper.
But to the entertainment community, and many Americans, a horse was "an Arabian" because someone said it was. There was just something about the words "Arabian horse" that nineteenth and early 20th century entertainment promoters loved.
(And indeed, horses themselves don't assign breed names to themselves. That's the result of geography, domestication, selective breeding, and humans deciding that certain horses are called by a particular breed name because of their parentage, color, size, and so on, often establishing a breed registry to keep some horses in and others out of the bloodlines.)
Around the time the first motion pictures were made, pop culture purveyors used the term "Arabian" as a synonym for "exotic-looking horse," "trick horse," "horse in a costume," or sometimes "white (or black) (or spotted) horse under saddle or pulling a chariot." The "Arabian" could be a fancy horse n a stage production, a circus, an equestrian event, or a silent film. It didn't necessarily matter if the horse was, demonstrably, what breeders of the time would have called a purebred or even a part-bred Arabian.
The first Arabian horses with Middle Eastern bloodlines were brought to the United States in the early 1700s, with a few subsequent importations throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Until the Arabian Horse Club was established in 1908, there was no recognized way to register your Arabian horse in this country.
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| Rutland, Vermont Weekly Herald, 11 June 1908 |
Volume 1 of the Arabian National Stud Book, published in 1913, shows only a little over 100 registered Arabians in the United States.
But silent films of in the 1920s boasted hundreds of horses promoted as "blooded Arabians," "steeds of the desert," "Arab chargers" and the like. Hollywood back then was big on movies featuring so-called "Arabian horses," but producers usually brought in other kinds of horses, or horses whose Arabian ancestors were never written down, to play the part of Arabians.
Usually, but not always.
In this series, we'll look for purebred Arabians in silent films in the 1920s. We'll review a two (yes) examples of purebred Arabians in the US that appeared in films; one film lost, one film preserved. We'll discuss a few silent films that were shot in the Middle East, Israel, Algeria, and Egypt, that used local horses. And we'll see a couple of examples of silent films with other breeds of horses that, demonstrably, had Arabian ancestors -- but they weren't Arabians themselves.
Unfortunately, many silent films have been lost to time, and it isn't always easy to find still photographs of the horses in those films, so we can't see what those "Arabians" really looked like.
We'll start with a quick look at the most famous Arabian of the silent film era: W. K. Kellogg's stallion Jadaan 196 (196 is his American registration number).
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Jadaan was indeed one of the best-known and most beloved Arabian horses between the First and Second World Wars. Although Jadaan sired 21 purebred Arabians, he is best remembered as "the horse that Valentino rode" in the star's last film, "The Son of the Sheik." Rudolph Valentino (1895-1926) was wildly popular at the time, and when he died suddenly a few months after "Son of" was released, Jadaan was promoted as "Valentino's horse."
Renowned Arabian horse authority Carol Woodbridge Mulder knew Jadaan personally. She remembered:
"Jadaan was one of the most important horses in the history of the Kellogg Ranch. He became, probably, the best known Arabian in America of his time and did much to promote the popularity of the breed. This all began when Hollywood movie idol Rudolph Valentino rode Jadaan as his cinema co-star in the short period between Kellogg's purchase of the horse in March 1925 and Valentino's death on August 23, 1926. The general public saw and admired Jadaan in the Valentino movie and, for the next 19 years, people never ceased coming to the Kellogg Ranch to see 'Valentino's horse' and the movie tack Jadaan had worn with Valentino; I seem to remember the latter as red suede leather, quite nicely made, with large colored glass 'gem stones' affixed. In summary, Jadaan helped acquaint the public with Arabian horses and helped bring people to the Kellogg Ranch when they then so the other horses as well.
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| Jadaan poses at the old Kellogg Ranch stables |
"Jadaan was an extremely handsome and impressive horse who absolutely radiated Arabian type and style. He was always at attention. He head was typy, dry, and refined with large, dark eyes and nice ears. He had a beautiful, expressive face. His neck, which he carried high, was long and he used it in a very pleasing, reachy manner....
"This stallion also had a kind disposition. He was a very safe horse to ride and many different people rode him. When I was a child growing up, Jadaan was one of my favorite horse friends."
-- from "The W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Ranch Part IV: The First Purchase," by Carol Woodbridge Mulder, 1987, published in The Crabbet Influence, May-June 1987.
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| Jadaan 196 with Rudolph Valentino |
I'll write a separate blog post on Jadaan, because there's so much more to the story of "the best known Arabian in America of his time." Jadaan survived the switch from silent films to the "talkies," and went on to work in later films with other actors aboard.
But for this series, I wondered: was Jadaan was the first, or the first named, demonstrably purebred Arabian in an American feature film? He was the first named Arabian horse, and he has certainly earned this distinction, because a) we know his name; and b) we can still see him -- handsome, proud, and kind -- on the silent silver screen today.
But Hollywood's lesser-known history tells us that Jadaan was probably not the first purebred Arabian horse to appear in an American movie. That title may go to some anonymous, but registered, Arabian horses whose owner happened to be a film producer who needed some Arabians for his next feature film, set in a fictional Middle Eastern desert. Sadly, their movie has been lost, so we don't know their names or if they even made it into the final cut. It's going to take us awhile to get to them, because there's so much to the story.
This is not an exhaustive list; I know I'm missing some films that promoted the participation of Arabian horses. But I do hope to demonstrate that the early Hollywood film industry loved promoting horses as "Arabians," whether they were Arabians or not.
This series also underscores the importance of Southern California locations during the silent film era, particularly those areas covered in sand, and/or with enough space to build a mock Roman hippodrome, or stage a battle or chase scene in the sand with a Cast of Thousands.
The Sheik (1921)
I started by looking for information on the other horse Valentino rode, in the original 1921 film "The Sheik" (exteriors filmed in Oxnard), forerunner to the 1926 "The Son of the Sheik." Several newspaper accounts referred to Valentino's mount as an "Arabian." The Tampa Bay Times newspaper provided more details on how this particular "Arabian" came to be in the film:
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| Tampa Bay Times, 20 December 1921 |
"There are plenty of bronchos, fancy stock, and so on, but few Arabian horses, on the Pacific Coast, where "The Sheik" was filmed. At one time it was thought that a horse would have to be imported for Valentino's use, but finally a wealthy stock man was discovered in a remote town who made a specialty of breeding this king of equines. He was induced to loan one -- a fine white horse, but he would not sell it. He refused to accept pay, but asked only to be allowed to see that the horse was properly treated. So director [George] Melford permitted him to accompany the troupe to the desert."
So I wondered -- who would have owned purebred Arabians in "a remote town" in California in 1920-1921? F. E. Lewis bred Arabians at his Diamond Bar Ranch in Spadra, near Pomona -- not really a "remote town." Richard Walton Tully bred Arabians in Sierra Madre, just outside Los Angeles. Anita Baldwin bred Arabians in Arcadia, but she was neither "a wealthy stock man" nor did she live in a "remote town." Legendary media baron William Randolph Hearst (not usually identified as a "stock man," although he certainly owned livestock) started breeding Arabians in 1919, but surely a man as busy and wealthy as Hearst did not personally follow a film crew around Oxnard to make sure his horse was okay. Chauncey D. Clarke, who bred Arabians in the Coachella Valley, might have fit the description...
Then I found a photograph of Valentino astride his "Arabian" mount in "The Sheik," and I stopped wondering which Arabian horse it might have been or who owned her. That's because this white horse does not look like an Arabian. Rather heavy and plain, she had a convex profile and a mostly-white coat with a little dark mottling around her ears and along the front of her neck, like a Medicine Hat Pinto. She might have been part Arabian, but there's no way to tell.
Perhaps her owner knew no better; perhaps he convinced the filmmakers the mare was an Arabian; perhaps "Arabian" simply meant "mostly white horse in a costume."
Still, this older mare did her job well in the film. And we do know her name.
| Rudolph Valentino on Anna Not-An-Arabian, 1921 |
Newspaper accounts name Valentino's mount in "The Sheik" as a reliable mare foaled in 1900, named Anna. I took some screen grabs of Anna and Valentino from a copy of "The Sheik," and a short "Making of The Sheik" film, available online, so we can get another look at her here.
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| Anna with Rudolph Valentino, right |
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| Anna with Rudolph Valentino, left. |
To the people in the movie theaters, Anna's appearance and ancestry probably didn't matter much. Filmgoers in 1921 didn't pay 15 cents to see images of horses racing across the sand at Oxnard Beach; they were there to see Valentino.
Anna is also named in one newspaper article as the horse ridden by Marion Davies in the 1922 silent "When Knighthood Was In Flower." There are five or six white horses in the film; I haven't found any other references to Anna and the "Knighthood" film online. True, Davies was the mistress of W. R. Hearst, but I don't think Hearst ever bred an Arabian that looked like Anna.
Whatever her breeding, Anna seems to have spent most of her career in New York, where she pulled Radames' chariot onto the stage in productions of "Aida" at the Metropolitan Opera for several years before she met Valentino. The gold curtain came down for Anna in 1940, when she died at the age of 39. The Met Opera folks had a nice memorial service for her.
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| Buffalo Evening News, 23 March 1940 |
The Buffalo Evening News article on her passing said that Anna had also appeared in "Ben-Hur." But what kind of production -- film or stage?
There don't appear to be any white horses in the 1907 Kalem film production of "Ben-Hur;" Anna would have been 25 years old when the 1925 classic MGM film version of the story was released, so it's unlikely she was used as a chariot horse in the famous racing scene. (More on the 1925 "Ben-Hur" later in this series.)
So if the story is true, Anna must have performed in one of the popular live stage adaptations of General Lew Wallace's "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ" in the early part of the century. Theater audiences were wowed by the sight of running horses pulling chariots on a treadmill on the stage, in front of a revolving backdrop of scenery that gave the impression of forward motion. Stage productions of "Ben-Hur" ran for 18 non-consecutive years on Broadway, and touring companies took the play on the road around the world through 1920.
So -- Anna was a beloved celebrity mare, but not (by all appearances) an Arabian!
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In Part Two of this series, we'll look at the 1921 silent "Queen of Sheba," the Not- Arabian horses that were promoted as "Arabians," and the performance of one of the 20th century's greatest cowgirls as a stunt rider.
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Thanks
Many thanks to Carol Woodbridge Mulder, Tobi Lopez Taylor, Dolores "Dee" Adkins, and Shay Canfield for their invaluable assistance in preparing this series. Information in this post came, in part, from the wonderful W. K. Kellogg Arabian Horse Library at Cal Poly Pomona.
The Sheik (1921)
The Sheik, Behind the Scenes
Internet Movie Database entry for Rudolph Valentino
Ben-Hur (1907)
A copy of this early adaptation of the story, all 13 minutes of it, is available here:
"Ben-Hur" on stage
There's information on the early theater productions of "Ben-Hur" here:
Arabian Horse History
The US breed registry's history of the Arabian horse is reduced to a PDF you have to search for, on the Arabian Horse Association's youth website...
...and another PDF on Domestic (US) Arabian bloodlines.
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