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 Three
By the 1920s, Americans were accustomed to circuses, equestrian events, stage productions, and silent films featuring horses billed as "Arabians," that were not really Arabians as we know them today.
It might have been challenging for a silent film producer to find real Arabian horses for his next attempt at making a blockbuster film...unless he happened to be a film producer who already owned real Arabian horses.
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Richard Walton Tully,
San Francisco Examiner,
8 May 1912
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Such was case with Richard Walton Tully (1877-1945), a playwright who also happened to be one of California's earliest Arabian horse breeders. There's enough information on Tully and his wife, novelist Eleanor Gates (1874-1951), for more than one more blog post, so I'll just summarize their story here.
In 1908, Tully and Gates traveled to the East Coast of the US to buy some Arabian horses for their ranch in Santa Clara County, outside San Francisco.
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| San Francisco Bulletin, 20 July 1908 |
The Tullys bought Arabians from political cartoonist Homer Davenport, who had famously traveled to the Middle East to buy Arabian horses and bring them back to America. Among the horses purchased by the Tullys were the stallions *Obeyran and *Ibn Mahruss.
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Eleanor Gates Tully and *Obeyran,
in the 2 July 1911 edition of the San Francisco Examiner.
The stallion died in 1911. |
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*Ibn Mahruss, in the 10 October 1908 issue of the Brattleboro, Vermont
New England Farmer newspaper. The "Ibn" ("son of") was often left off his name in newspaper articles. His stockings were different than those of his sire, *Mahruss II.
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In 1911, the couple bought ranch property near Arcadia, northeast of Los Angeles. A newspaper reported that the Tullys would bring "18 Bedouin thoroughbreds" (Arabians) from their Northern California property.
Tully sat on the Board of the Directors of the newly-formed Arabian Horse Club of America. But in 1912, the Tullys separated. Richard Tully sold some of their Arabians, and he and Eleanor finally divorced in 1914.
Perhaps not surprisingly, one of the other Southern California Arabian breeders Tully did business with was heiress Anita Baldwin (1876-1939), the daughter of real estate millionaire Elias Jackson "Lucky" Baldwin. A true Renaissance woman, some of Baldwin's songs were featured in the 1914 Broadway production of Tully's play "Omar the Tentmaker." Also in 1914, she became the owner of *Ibn Mahruss.
1914 was a busy year for Tully. His stage play "Rose of the Rancho" was adapted into a feature film directed by Cecil B. DeMille. In 1922, Tully followed up by adapting his own play "Omar the Tentmaker" for a silent film directed by James Young.
Cue the Arabian horses. The real ones!
With Omar the Tentmaker (1922) we come to what may be the first documented case of unnamed, but registered, Arabian horses being used in an American silent feature film before 1926's "The Son of the Sheik." The story was based on "the life, times, and Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam," called "the astronomer-poet of Persia."
Tully wrote the screenplay and produced the film. It was shot in Hollywood and on Catalina Island. The cast included:
Guy Bates Post, as Omar, the tentmaker;
Virginia Brown Faire as Shireen;
Nigel de Brulier as Nizam ul Mulk;
Evelyn Selbie as Zarah;
and John Gribner as Mahruss (a servant).
(Hold that thought, on these characters' names.)
Noah Beery and a young Boris Karloff also had roles in the film.
Newspapers around the United States reported that Tully would use his own "full-blooded Arabians" in the film. If the cameras did roll with Tully's Arabians in the viewfinder, this may be the first documented instance of Arabian horses in a US feature film. The problem is, we don't know which of Tully's horses appeared, because the newspaper stories did not say. And, sadly, the film has been lost.
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Sacramento Union, 22 October 1922
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We don't know whether Tully's Arabians were ridden or driven, if they were shown close-up, or if they just appeared in the background of some shots. Still photos from the film available online don't show any horses. Since the film has been lost, we can't see what the horses looked like -- assuming they made it into the final cut of the film -- and compare them to a list of the registered Arabians Tully owned around that time.
We can, however, see which horses he owned a few years before the film was produced.
In the 1918 edition of the Arabian Stud Book, four years before the film "Omar the Tentmaker" was released, Tully is listed as the owner of these horses. (The number after a horse's name is its registration number in the Arabian National Stud Book.)
Yimeta 17 (bred by Homer Davenport)
Obeyran II 18, foaled in 1905 (son of the Tully's older stallion; bred by Homer Davenport)
Sheba 19
Galfia II 53
Yusanet 57 (bred by Homer Davenport)
Shireen 154 (previously owned by Anita Baldwin)
Nanjun 316
Nizam el Mulk 317
Zarah 318;
and Zeenaba 319.
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Obeyran II 18 as a young horse,
in The Rasp magazine, 1914 |
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Shireen 154 as a yearling in 1915,
when she was owned by Anita Baldwin |
Take a look at the names of Tully's Arabians: Mahruss, Nizam el Mulk, Shireen, and Zarah were also the names of characters in Tully's 1914 play and his 1922 film!
In the 1923 Supplement to the Arabian Stud Book, Tully is still shown as a member of the organization, but is not listed as the owner of any Arabians, so he had sold his remaining Arabians after shooting was completed on "Omar the Tentmaker."
I will keep looking for photographs of the Arabian horses in the film version of "Omar the Tentmaker." Perhaps they are buried in the archives of a public or private collection somewhere in California.
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Even though the film version of "Omar the Tentmaker" is now lost, it must have had some impact back in its day. On New Year's Day 1929, purebred Arabians from W. K. Kellogg's Horse Ranch in Pomona led the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena. The theme of their entry was "Omar the Tentmaker." The entry was headed by Jadaan, ridden by actor and horseman Victor McLaglen, wearing the "Son of the Sheik" costumes Kellogg had purchased from a film studio supply company after Rudolph Valentino's death.
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| Pasadena Evening Post, 28 December 1928 |
In her book Romance of the Kellogg Ranch, Mary Jane Parkinson wrote that, following the horses, the Kellogg Company provided a float showing an "oasis," with the theme "Omar the Tentmaker." The float broke down along the parade route, but the Kellogg Arabians did not.
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Whatever happened to Richard Walton Tully's registered Arabians? A brief 1913 newspaper report had said that Tully moved some of his Arabians to "the famous Tejon rancho" to breed for polo, army, and other purposes.
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| San Francisco Chronicle, 20 March 1913 |
A 1936 newspaper article by Tex Ewell reported that "the Tejon Ranchos of Kern County" [California] had, at some point, purchased Nizam el Mulk 217 [317], "Majnum" [Nanjun] 316, Zeenaba 319, Zarah 318, Sheba 319 [19], Zarah 318, and Yusanet 57."
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| Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, California), 27 February 1936. |
I'll put Ewell's entire article at the end of this post.
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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.
Omar
Here's the American Film Institute's entry on "Omar the Tentmaker."
Anita Baldwin
The Gilb Museum in Arcadia has an interesting exhibit on Anita Baldwin:
Whatever Happened To...
Here's the entire article by Tex Ewell in the Contra Costa Times:
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