Remembering Tom Tyler: 67 years ago (a week from) today

As we move in to the 67th year since Tom Tyler’s passing, the social media pages for Aventuras de Tom Tyler will be commemorating him during the last week of April 2021 through movies and tv shows from his film career, up to the end. You are invited to join us; please share posts of these movies and tv shows, and for those of you who first saw Tom Tyler appearing on popular television westerns like “The Lone Ranger”, “The Gene Autry Show”, and “Steve Donovan, Western Marshal”, keep in mind that a rare disease like scleroderma does not define its victim. Tom shall always be remembered the way he wanted to be remembered.

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“Phantom of the Air” 1933 to be released on DVD and Blu-Ray

 I am very happy to announce that “Phantom of the Air” (1933) will be released in 2021 on both DVD and Blu-ray by VCI Entertainment. Many thanks to GMichael Dobbs for bringing this promo video on Youtube to my attention. “Phantom of the Air” is an exciting 12-chapter airplane film serial about an inventor, William Desmond, whose latest invention, the Contragrav, is in danger of being stolen by LeRoy Mason and his henchmen. There is plenty of airplane stunt action and suspense in this serial, with Tom Tyler is the pilot and love interest to Gloria Shea. View the chapter promo below!

Collectibles: Tom Tyler on the R-94 Movie Scenes cards - Part 1

One of the most sought after movie card collectibles are those belonging to the R-94 Movie Scenes.  It could be that these are rare, especially those being Tom Tyler on the front of these cards, much like the United Postal Card Supply Company arcade cards, which makes them highly collectible. The R-94 cards were manufactured in two different sets, each set being two slightly different sizes. According to “The American Card Catalog: The Standard Guide on All Collected Cards and Their Values” edited by J P Burdick et al, the R-94 cards were thought to have been originally distributed with either gum or candy (cards with an R designation were included with one or the other edible product; cards bearing a W indicated being one of a set of strip cards). These cards are blank backed, the left and right edges serrated, a common depiction of strip cards, or a series of cards sold from a single strip.

The first set of R-94 strip cards, or R-94-1, measure 3" x 2 3/8”in size and came in the following colors, with one film scene often appearing in multiple monochrome colors: red, green, brown, blue, and purple. Not all R-94-1 cards are of film scenes, however; some of them were of solo shots of Hollywood stars, such as Thelma Todd and Milton Sills. It is this set which produced a series of card scenes from “Terror Mountain” (1928) with Tom in each scene.

The R-94 cards were most likely distributed as early as 1929.

Tom Tyler accidentally shot while filming western

The title of this article sounds like that is how the Los Angeles Evening Citizen News released this rather shocking news item on August 3, 1931, only days before Tom Tyler’s 28th birthday. This notice was actually a second paragraph in a rather brief release about a man from Glendale, California, getting injured during a polo game at the Hollywood Polo Club in North Hollywood. Considering the date range of his filming schedule, it appears that Tom Tyler’s unfortunate shooting accident took place while filming “The Man from Death Valley”, a lost Monogram film. Luckily for Tom, the shooting was not from a disgruntled actor, cameraman nor director, but from Tom’s own hand.

It seems that while Tom was on horseback in high-speed pursuit he reached for his gun to shoot at someone but instead accidentally discharged the gun, resulting in the gun’s blank going into his thigh. The painful incident placed a temporary hold on filming and a trip to the hospital where Tom received prompt medical treatment for the injury. By the time Tom was back on his feet, he was able to complete filming this action-packed western.

                                            Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, Aug. 3, 1931

Collectibles: Tom Tyler on the R96-3 movie card

One of the rarer Tom Tyler collectible color movie cards is from the R96-3 set, issued around 1938 or 1939. These cards were originally issued as panels or sheets measuring 6" x 8" containing six different stars in two rows of three, often with a film genre for each panel. For the R96-3 panel that contains a full-color photo of Tom Tyler as Sundown Saunders from “Powdersmoke Range” (1935), the theme is western stars. There are a minimum of seventeen known different panels of Hollywood stars on them. When cut from the panels, each card measures 2 ½” x 3 1/8” in size. The backs of the cards are blank with no identifying manufacturer. At least 64 cards in the set were issued, and some of the cards printed appear on more than one panel, or as duplicates in the set. Other Hollywood star who appeared in the R96-3 series include William Boyd, Hoot Gibson, Buck Jones, Dean Jagger, and Sally Payne.

Inviting the Children to the Circus

One of Tom Tyler’s favorite means of giving back to his community was meeting children from community homes, or orphanages, as they were also called back in the early twentieth century. Whenever Tom visited his hometown of Hamtramck, Michigan during studio vacation time, he would stop by St. Ann’s Community House and chat with the youth who stayed there. According to “The Tom Tyler Story” by Mike Chapman, Tom would also share meals with the excited children who frequently patronized his westerns at the local movie house. Naturally, these events included entertainment, which help raise money for St. Ann’s. However, this is just one example of Tom’s generosity towards children. During 1937, the year he took a break from his acting career to tour nationwide with Wallace Brothers Circus. Tom requested his personal representative to check for local orphanages in cities where he would be appearing and offer to invite the children in these homes to come see him perform. One such orphanage was Bethany Home in Rock Island, Illinois. 

Bethany Home was located in the former Gilpin Moore House, a beautiful historical home built in the French Second Empire architectural style. An orphanage since 1906, orphaned children lived in this particular house until Bethany moved to a new location in 1941. When Nellie Seiler, the superintendent of Bethany House made the announcement of Tom Tyler appearing with Wallace Brothers Circus to the resident children, they were excited to go see their hero perform live in person. According to The Rock Island Argus dated July 26, 1937, Tom is quoted as having said: “I am having the thrilling time of my life traveling around the nation meeting all the boys and girls in person. Many of these have written mail to my Hollywood address at one time or another.” 

The trip alone to the circus must have been filled with laughs and shouts of delight as the members of Bethany Home boarded the Tri-City Railway train all the way to Moline, Illinois, where Tom was to appear. By the time the boys and girls took their seats at the circus, Tom made his entrance in the center of the ring, welcoming them all for coming to see his exuberant performance. With Tom and his entourage of cowboys, cowgirls and Indians, the fast paced entertainment was a lifetime event to remember and pass down to their families for generations after.

                                                   from The Dispatch, Moline, IL, July 27, 1937

Happy New Year 2021!

As Aventuras de Tom Tyler enters its seventh year of operation from its rather modest start back in January 2015 – and plenty of attention from fans around the globe, some new projects regarding Tom Tyler are planned for 2021 (originally for 2020 before the pandemic took a substantial chunk out of the year). The quarantined time allowed me to give attention to Tom’s lost film search, communicate with his biographer Mike Chapman, as well as his nephew Ray Slepski. I will be forever grateful for the privilege of speaking with Tom’s family and sharing in some fabulous memories of Tom at the height of his career.

For the regular visitors to the website, chances are you’ve already noticed the homepage is updated. I also plan on translating more Spanish film booklets to English like the recent “Red Hot Hoofs” (1926) as time permits.

I do want to thank everyone for their support, including all Tom Tyler fans on social media, regular blog readers and site visitors. Let’s make the year 2021 the best one for Tom Tyler yet!