Trivia: A veteran of Selig two-reelers in the early 1910s, burly American character actor Horace B. Carpenter came to the forefront after joining the Lasky Feature Play Company (later Paramount) in 1914. For pioneering director Cecil B. DeMille, Carpenter played Spanish Ed in The Virginian (1914) and Jacques D'Arc in Joan the Woman (1916), both still extant, before striking out on his own, directing and acting in some of the cheapest Westerns and action melodramas ever produced. Returning to acting exclusively after the changeover to sound, Carpenter continued to play his stock-in-trade, kindly fathers and ranchers in scores of B-Westerns. Thus, it came as an unpleasant surprise when the veteran actor, out of sheer poverty one imagines, accepted to play Dr. Meinschultz, devouring a cat's eye in the 1934 exploitation thriller Maniac. Carpenter survived this indiscretion with his career somewhat intact and continued to play scores of supporting roles and bit parts right up to his death of a heart attack.

Trivia: American actor Art Acord has the distinction of being one of the very few real cowboys to play one in early westerns. Acord was a wild one who began riding the rodeo in Wild West shows at the turn-of-the-century. In 1909, he went on to become a stunt man in very early western single-reelers. Five years later he began working for Mutual under the name Buck Parvin. He fought in WW I and upon his return became one of Universal's star cowboys during the 1920s. He married twice during that time. When sound became popular, Acord's career took a major dive. He then relocated to Mexico where he worked in a rodeo. In 1931 Acord was found dead in his Chihuahua, Mexico hotel room. Apparently he'd taken cyanide, but though his death is officially listed as a suicide, there are those who think Acord may have been murdered.

Trivia: A legendary stuntman/stunt coordinator, Cliff Lyons was as handsome as any of the stars he doubled and had indeed starred in his own series of silent Westerns under the name of Tex Lyons. Having begun his professional career performing with minor rodeos, Lyonsdrifted to Hollywood in the early '20s, where he found work as a stuntman in such films as Ben-Hur (1925) and Beau Geste (1927). In between these major releases, the newcomer did yeoman duty for Poverty Row entrepreneur Bud Barsky, who produced eight Westerns in Sequoia National Park starring, alternately, Lyons and Al Hoxie. Lyons would do a second series of eight equally low-budget jobs for producer Morris R. Schlank, filmed at Kernville, CA, and released 1928-1930. This time, he would alternate with another cowboy star, Cheyenne Bill. Commented Lyons: "We would go on location and make two pictures at a time -- one of Cheyenne Bill's and one of mine -- and also play the villain in each other's." Sound put an end to Lyons' starring career and he spent the next four decades or so as a riding double for the likes of Johnny Mack Brown, Buck Jones, Ken Maynard, and even Tom Mix (in the 1935 serial The Miracle Rider). In his later years he became closely associated with good friends John Wayne and John Ford, for whom he also did some second-unit directing. Although not as remembered today as Yakima Canutt, Lyons was a major force in the burgeoning stunt business and many of his innovations are still used by modern practitioners of the craft. He was married from 1938 to 1955 to B-Western heroine Beth Marion, with whom he had two sons.