Ken Maynard

His horse was Tarzan, a half-Arabian, half-American Saddle horse. Maynard bought him in the mid-1920's.

Studio publicity incorrectly puts his birthplace at Mission, Texas. Ken was a trick rider with the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show and later with Ringling Brothers and was also a champion rodeo rider. His movie debut, The Man Who Won (1923), was the first of many for this early cowboy movie superstar. He was famous for the stunts he could enact with his horse Tarzan. Maynard was the first singing cowboy in the movies.

During the 1930s, he dropped out of movies and went back to rodeo work.

From 1932 through 1940 nearly every character he played was named Ken; from 1943 through 1944 all the characters he played were named either Ken Maynard, Marshal Ken Maynard or U.S. Marshal Ken Maynard.

In 1933 he raced follow cowboy star Hoot Gibson in the National Air Race. He flew his J6-7 Stearman biplane. Hoot crashed the plane he was flying.

Maynard's saddle, used in his films from about 1935-on sold for $23,000 at the High Noon auction in Mesa, AZ in January, 2003.

Deteriorating finances forced Maynard to work for circuses as his film career waned after 1936, including an attempt that year at his very own "Wild West Circus", also called the Diamond K Wild West Show, which operated out of his California ranch. He completed at least three stints with the Cole Brothers-Clyde Beatty Circus from 1937-1940, and worked the Arthur Brothers Circus and the Biller Brothers Circus.