September 29, 2025 • 21 mins
In this episode I spoke with author Mark Archuleta about his boo; "The Reel Thrilling Events of Bank Robber Henry Starr: From Gentleman Bandit to Movie Star and Back Again". In 1921 headlines across the country announced the death of Henry Starr, a burgeoning silent film star who was killed while attempting to rob a bank in Harrison, Arkansas. Cynics who knew the real Starr were not surprised. Before becoming a matinee idol, Starr had been the greatest bank robber of the horseback bandit era.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Let's go. Hello everyone, and welcome back to another edition
of Forgotten Hollywood, your podcasted memories of yesteryear. My name
is Doug Hassen, Opportunity and Forgotten Hollywood for the first time.
What I do on this podcast is take you on
a journey back in time and share with you pieces
of Hollywood that you may or may not know about.
And in this episode we're going to be speaking with
(00:25):
author Mark or Mark Archiletti.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Mark Archiletta archie Letta, I.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Want to make sure I was saying that correctly regarding
his book benk Robert Henry Starr from Gentlemen, Bandit to
Movie Star and back again. Mark, Welcome Forgotten Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well, thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Doug, Well, it's our pleasure and thank you for spending
a few minutes out of your busy day to be
with us and to talk about your book. Regarding Henry Starr,
and as we do with a lot of our authors,
we'd like to give you the opportunity, in your own words,
to tell the listeners what this book is about.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Okay, well, we'll dive right in. So Henry Starr was
a real person. He was a wild West Bank robber.
In fact, he was the greatest bank rubber of all time,
probably over thirty Banks. Was not as famous as Jesse James.
Jesse James would have died when Henry Starr was like
(01:27):
about nine years old, let's say, so they kind of
abridged generations. Henry Starr was sentenced to hang twice. He
had his prison sentence commuted by President Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt,
(01:48):
you know, community sentence. But he ended up variety, you know,
robbing Moore Banks. But what made him really interesting for
me was that even though he began robbing banks on horseback,
he lived long enough to see the invention of the
motion picture camera. So in later in life he became
(02:10):
a silent movie star recreating his greatest bank robberies for
the silver screen.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, and Mark, how did I mean, how did this
project come about? Why? Why Henry? I mean, did you
just stumble on him or is there a connection? And
what what made you write a book on Henry Star?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, so I'm an actor, but I have my degree
in English literature from the University of Colorado, Boulder. But
I moved to Hollywood after graduation, and you know, acted
in a few films. But I could see that if
I was going to make any headway, I needed to
have a project that I could create for myself kind
of and if you recall, Sylvester Stallone had made this
(02:53):
great screenplay and and you know which was Rocky, and
he demanded to be the star of it. So that
was kind of my template. Sure, so I was always
looking for a project for myself, and I was at
this is nineteen ninety. I've been working this a long time.
I went to Crown Books if anybody Remembers when they
(03:14):
used to exist, and I found a book in the
bargain bin and it was called Thrilling Events of Henry
Starr by himself. It was his auto prison autobiography. And
I saw his photo and it went, well, hey, this
guy looks just like me, and so I thought this
would be a good project for myself to do, kind
of the Rocky thing. I read more about him, you know,
(03:36):
with the you know, surviving being sentenced to hang twice,
you know, the commutation, and then I found out that
he was the only bank robber to rob two banks
at the same time. And then of course he becomes
a silent movie star, and I thought, well, that's a movie.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Right, Yeah. Yeah, if that's on a movie, nothing is right.
I mean it kind of sells it.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, it's it's such a great story. And so I've
been working, you know, trying to sell the screenplay for
years and years and years. And over that time, I've
collected so many photos and so much research, and I thought, well, gosh,
you know, I've got all this stuff. So I decided
I'm going to write a book about his life. And
(04:22):
so I approached several different academic publishers, and the University
of North Texas Press said, oh my gosh, we love
this idea, and so, in conjunction with them, published this
book and it only came out in July. So it's
just like fresh fresh out of the oven.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Absolutely. Now, Mark, for you know, the Silent Era over
one hundred years ago, a lot of things have been destroyed. Unfortunately.
Was it tough to find material to basically back up
some of the things in your book? Yes.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So in nineteen nineteen, he gets out of the Oklahoma
State Penitentiary. He was serving time for the stroud A
double bank robbery, and at that time, movie producers mobbed
him because the motion picture industry was just going through
the roof, and they but Western's like william S Hart
(05:24):
and people like that. They said that, you know, people
are getting tired of, you know, movie stars pretending to
be cowboys, and so they wanted somebody authentic, and there
was nobody more authentic than Henry Starr. So he made
the motion picture A Debtor to the Law, and this
was an autobiographical story. He went back to the towns
(05:46):
where he had robbed banks, and he even hired the
same people that were involved in the banks, and they
cast them as actors. But the film is lost to history.
It does not exist currently, and I'm hoping somebody finds
a can of film somewhere in their great grandfather's shed.
(06:09):
But what did exist was the lobby cards, the press kit.
There were a couple of interviews, lots of newspaper interviews,
and so in the book, I try to recreate what
that motion picture would have looked like. And the challenge
was when he told his life story, it had to
(06:31):
be told through the prism of film, and sometimes it
came out very different than the reality.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah. Absolutely, were you able to get any reviews of
anybody that actually had seen the film?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, So this was an interesting time. So his film
came out in like the end of nineteen nineteen nineteen twenty,
and this was just as a prohibition had passed right
the Women's Christian Temperance Union, having successfully defeated demon Rum
(07:05):
as they called it, now wanted to turn their sites
a different direction. And what they focused on was film
censorship that was corrupting the youth of America. And so
of course a former bank robber that's becoming famous for
his crimes became the focus of their campaign. So they
(07:28):
really attacked Star, trying to get legislature in Oklahoma but
also nationally to censor it. So he had a tough
time of trying to get his film into major theaters
because those theaters made a deal and said, if you
canceled the legislation, we will promise not to show his films.
(07:51):
So Henry Starr had to like carry the film canister
from littletown to little town to get people to watch it.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
How was his initial thought of when he was initially
approached to be in a film. Was he more than happy?
Was he a little gun shy? What was his reaction?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
So he had been married and he had a son
who was a teenage boy by the time he got
out in nineteen nineteen, and he felt a certain amount
of shame that he had, you know, brought upon both
his family and also his people. He was he was
part Cherokee, his father was fifty percent and his mother
(08:35):
was quarter. So he really did feel a sense of
guilt that, you know, he hadn't lived an upright life.
He gets out and he kind of just wanted to
live a low key existence. But they, you know, for
movie producers, convinced him that this could be a new
leash on life. You know, he what was he going
to do. He wasn't really trained for anything, and this
(08:57):
would be an opportunity, perhaps if everything worked out, to
be able to go to Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Absolutely interesting. Now, Mark, in the writing and the research
of your book, what surprised you.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Well, I think what surprised me was how funny Henry
Starr was. So he wrote his autobiography and boyd he
has a great sense of humor and he and he
tells these stories of life on the lamb. For example,
he meets a preacher who asks him to eradicate the vermin,
(09:38):
which are prairie dogs on his property, you know, for
a night's stay. In exchange for a night's day and
he goes okay, so you know, and Henry Star is
a great shot, and he and he clears out all
these prairie dogs and then he wakes up the next
morning and the preacher is serving him the prairie dogs
for breakfast. So just you know, he has a real
(10:01):
sense of humor. That he was an autodidact. You know,
he didn't have formal education. He had to quit school
when he was a little kid because his father died
and he had to really go to work, and he
always regretted that. So he educated himself while he was
in his stints in prison. And so he was a
(10:22):
very bright person. Both lawmen and people that he robbed
kind of fell in love with him because he was
so darn charming.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Wow, very interesting interns out now. Obviously you didn't get
a chance to see the film obviously because it's lost history.
But based on his writings and others, what type of
what type of an actor was he? Was he good?
Was he just like eh so Bill?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So there's there's been this rumor among historians that that
didn't really delve into the movie picture part of his life.
They've mostly delved into the criminal part. That's why my
book is very different because it's primarily focused on the
motion picture part. And so these other historians have always
(11:14):
put forward this theory that he was a really bad
actor and so he had to be replaced in the role,
and that was true at all. That wasn't true at all.
He's obviously the star of the film. It's obviously it's
him in the pictures all the time. And then people said,
you know that that if he could just make one
(11:36):
more picture as a lead, then he could, you know,
just punch his ticket to Hollywood and fame.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Yeah, so he was basically one movie away from maybe
having a breakout career.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah. And then can I tell you what happened next?
So anybody who follows Hollywood, you know, and history of
Hollywood knows that getting financing for a film is not easy, right,
So even in nineteen twenty one, that was a challenge.
And so he wanted to make a second motion picture to,
(12:14):
like I said, punch his ticket to Hollywood. So he
went around and he went to different cities in Oklahoma
pitching to their their you know, bankers and people like
that to fund his picture in exchange for promotion for
the town. Of course, bankers weren't his biggest fans, and
so yeah, and so he was having trouble finding financing.
(12:42):
And he, you know, was a gambler, played cards, and
he was hoping that he could you know, gamble his
way to getting the financing. But it wasn't working, and
he was getting more and more in debt. And so
if he was going to do this, if he was
going to re invent himself make this new motion picture,
(13:02):
he needed money. And so, even though he was completely reformed,
he didn't know always where to find money, Yes, and
so he decided to rob one last bank.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Wow, full circle.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Well that's it. So the you know, the the subtitle
of my book is generally banded to movie star and
back again. And you know, if you want to find
out what happened in that last bank robbery, yeah, yeah,
gotta buy the book.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Absolutely, don't just want to tease you have a little
anger there, a little bit, right.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah, Or you know, I've got the screenplay ready to go.
So if your listeners are interested in financing of film,
I've got one ready to go. And if not, I've
been casing a few banks myself.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
You heard it. Here first, guys on that. That's great.
You know, Mark, you've kind of mentioned this a couple
of times. Obviously in the subtitle Gentleman Bandit, you also
said that a lot of his people that he was
robbing robbing kind of fell in love with him. In
(14:22):
terms of that, maybe just shed a little bit more
light on why that was. Was he just he just
had that face, that look, the way he just treated people.
What what made him so appealing for lack of a
better word, when he was doing something so wrong.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
So I think the big reason why he's not as
famous as let's say, Jesse James and the James Younger
gang and you know, Dillinger and folks like that, is
because he wasn't a violent criminal. And you know, he
was a gentleman bandit. Nobody was ever killed in the
commission of one of his band robberies. And you know,
he was a meticulous planner, and part of that was
(15:05):
to make sure that people stayed safe. And he would
tell his gang, look, you know, unless it's your life
for theirs, nobody gets killed, right, And so that was
part of, you know, the reason why also law enforcement
liked him because he wasn't a violent guy. One great
story is that in the middle of the Stroud Bank robbery,
(15:29):
he has a gun pointed at the bank president and
he's saying, you know, open the vault. President says, well,
it's on a timelock, and Henry Starr says you better
open it, you know, threatening him, and then they hear
the screen door bang. Yeah, banks had screen doors back then.
And they turned around and there's nobody there. And then
(15:51):
they look down and there's a four year old little girl.
This is a true story. This four little girl. Old
little girl walked into the bank because on every Saturday
morning she would come in and they would give her
a shiny penny. And so he told the little girl,
you know, you be good and I will buy you
in ice cream. And so he puts her in a
(16:12):
chair gives her a lap full of pennies. Now what's
great is when they come back and Stroud to film
the life story, they recast a little girl because you know,
it had been a couple of years. But that real
little girl was in the audience watching them film, and
he sees her and he says, didn't I promise to
buy you in ice cream? She goes yeah, So he
(16:33):
pulls out a dollar bill and gives her and he
kept his promise and bought her on ice cream.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Oh wow, that's that's kind of a cool story that
on a couple one that he was very particular that
he didn't want anybody to get hurt. He was just
doing this for the funds, if you will. But also,
you know, not everybody would have treated a child in
that same manner and then kept his promise years later, right, Yeah,
(17:01):
he was.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
He's just a remarkable character.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, absolutely wow. In terms of that what you said
that he kind of had a little bit of a
regret of putting in his family, his his people through this.
Any other regrets that he had also, I think you
said he had a nineteen year old son at the
(17:26):
time when he was coming out of prison and had
that regret anything.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Else, Well, I think that, you know, his his biggest
regret was, you know, having to drop out of school,
you know, like when he was a kid, you know,
because his father died and and you you know, well
a lot of people don't know in that era was
that the US Deputy Marshall system was was very corrupt
(17:53):
and you know, they didn't make a salary, so how
they made their money was by false rests, and because
he didn't have a father there to protect him, he
was twice arrested for false crimes. And then they didn't
have a juvenile system back then, so he was thrown
in with the major criminals and so his life he
(18:18):
was branded as a criminal, even though the chargers were
dropped and they were false. So he decided, well, you know,
if people are going to think I'm a bank rubber
or I'm a bad guy, I'll be the best I
can be, right, you know that, right, And so that
was the biggest regret that you know, because of that system.
It turned his life and his goals. He wanted to
be a rancher. He was a good kid, and so
(18:42):
it just set him on this path of crime that
was kind of unnecessary because the legal system was so corrupt.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Yeah, you know, that is so sad to think that
you had somebody that was on the path to righteousness,
if you will, and the system itself made them corrupt.
Not that he was himself being crapped, but the system
kind of forced his hand for lack of a better word. There.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yeah, Yeah, they had tremendous potential, and I think he
knew it. And that was a regret. Yeah, that's why
he wanted to turn his life around. You know, that's
why he wanted to be you know, he wanted to
make movies and the Debtor to the Law film really
had the message that crime doesn't pay. He really wanted
(19:28):
to like give back and change the perception of him.
And you know, you know, Warren warn't kids off that
it's not all glamorous.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah. Absolutely, Well, Mark, I know we're here close on time,
but I'm just going to really kind of give you
the last word, if you will, and talking about your
book and it's out, people can purchase it now, and
just kind of give you the last word.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah. So the title of the book you can find
it is the Real Thrilling Event of Bank Robber Henry Starr.
Reel is like movie reel rob and the subtitle is
from Gentlemen Bandit to movie Star and back again. You know.
My name is Mark Archletta. The book is available on Amazon,
(20:15):
Barnes and Noble. I think you get a discount on
bookshop dot org. So I always tell people that, or
you know, if you just with the title of the book,
you can go to your favorite independent bookseller. You know,
if you have your you know, your friendly local place,
just give them the title and they can order it
from you.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Absolutely and uh I strongly encourage our listeners to go
out and get a copy of Mark's book Bank Robert
Henry Starr. We also want to say thank you to
the University of Northern Texas Press for getting us a
copy of the book. And you know, with these podcasts
we only get the chance to really tip the ice
(20:55):
tip of the iceberg. I really encourage you to go
out and conte you reading and get a little bit
more of the story. Hopefully we left you there with
a little bit of a teaser there about after that
movie and making that second one and what happens. But Mark, really,
(21:15):
we really appreciate you coming on and it's been in
a few minutes with us today to talk about your book.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Well, Doug, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
It's a pleasure. Thank you, and thank you for listening
to this episode. For gott in Hollywood your search for
Doug Haster Forgot in Hollywood. You can also find me
on Twitter, Instagram at hes dog fourteen. If you listen
to this podcast on iTunes another podcast service, please subscribe, rate,
and review the episode. Tune in next time for the
latest episode of Forgotten Hollywood. Thank you for listening and
we will see you then
Let's go. Hello everyone, and welcome back to another edition
of Forgotten Hollywood, your podcasted memories of yesteryear. My name
is Doug Hassen, Opportunity and Forgotten Hollywood for the first time.
What I do on this podcast is take you on
a journey back in time and share with you pieces
of Hollywood that you may or may not know about.
And in this episode we're going to be speaking with
(00:25):
author Mark or Mark Archiletti.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Mark Archiletta archie Letta, I.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Want to make sure I was saying that correctly regarding
his book benk Robert Henry Starr from Gentlemen, Bandit to
Movie Star and back again. Mark, Welcome Forgotten Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Well, thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Doug, Well, it's our pleasure and thank you for spending
a few minutes out of your busy day to be
with us and to talk about your book. Regarding Henry Starr,
and as we do with a lot of our authors,
we'd like to give you the opportunity, in your own words,
to tell the listeners what this book is about.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Okay, well, we'll dive right in. So Henry Starr was
a real person. He was a wild West Bank robber.
In fact, he was the greatest bank rubber of all time,
probably over thirty Banks. Was not as famous as Jesse James.
Jesse James would have died when Henry Starr was like
(01:27):
about nine years old, let's say, so they kind of
abridged generations. Henry Starr was sentenced to hang twice. He
had his prison sentence commuted by President Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt,
(01:48):
you know, community sentence. But he ended up variety, you know,
robbing Moore Banks. But what made him really interesting for
me was that even though he began robbing banks on horseback,
he lived long enough to see the invention of the
motion picture camera. So in later in life he became
(02:10):
a silent movie star recreating his greatest bank robberies for
the silver screen.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, and Mark, how did I mean, how did this
project come about? Why? Why Henry? I mean, did you
just stumble on him or is there a connection? And
what what made you write a book on Henry Star?
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, so I'm an actor, but I have my degree
in English literature from the University of Colorado, Boulder. But
I moved to Hollywood after graduation, and you know, acted
in a few films. But I could see that if
I was going to make any headway, I needed to
have a project that I could create for myself kind
of and if you recall, Sylvester Stallone had made this
(02:53):
great screenplay and and you know which was Rocky, and
he demanded to be the star of it. So that
was kind of my template. Sure, so I was always
looking for a project for myself, and I was at
this is nineteen ninety. I've been working this a long time.
I went to Crown Books if anybody Remembers when they
(03:14):
used to exist, and I found a book in the
bargain bin and it was called Thrilling Events of Henry
Starr by himself. It was his auto prison autobiography. And
I saw his photo and it went, well, hey, this
guy looks just like me, and so I thought this
would be a good project for myself to do, kind
of the Rocky thing. I read more about him, you know,
(03:36):
with the you know, surviving being sentenced to hang twice,
you know, the commutation, and then I found out that
he was the only bank robber to rob two banks
at the same time. And then of course he becomes
a silent movie star, and I thought, well, that's a movie.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Right, Yeah. Yeah, if that's on a movie, nothing is right.
I mean it kind of sells it.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, it's it's such a great story. And so I've
been working, you know, trying to sell the screenplay for
years and years and years. And over that time, I've
collected so many photos and so much research, and I thought, well, gosh,
you know, I've got all this stuff. So I decided
I'm going to write a book about his life. And
(04:22):
so I approached several different academic publishers, and the University
of North Texas Press said, oh my gosh, we love
this idea, and so, in conjunction with them, published this
book and it only came out in July. So it's
just like fresh fresh out of the oven.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Absolutely. Now, Mark, for you know, the Silent Era over
one hundred years ago, a lot of things have been destroyed. Unfortunately.
Was it tough to find material to basically back up
some of the things in your book? Yes.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
So in nineteen nineteen, he gets out of the Oklahoma
State Penitentiary. He was serving time for the stroud A
double bank robbery, and at that time, movie producers mobbed
him because the motion picture industry was just going through
the roof, and they but Western's like william S Hart
(05:24):
and people like that. They said that, you know, people
are getting tired of, you know, movie stars pretending to
be cowboys, and so they wanted somebody authentic, and there
was nobody more authentic than Henry Starr. So he made
the motion picture A Debtor to the Law, and this
was an autobiographical story. He went back to the towns
(05:46):
where he had robbed banks, and he even hired the
same people that were involved in the banks, and they
cast them as actors. But the film is lost to history.
It does not exist currently, and I'm hoping somebody finds
a can of film somewhere in their great grandfather's shed.
(06:09):
But what did exist was the lobby cards, the press kit.
There were a couple of interviews, lots of newspaper interviews,
and so in the book, I try to recreate what
that motion picture would have looked like. And the challenge
was when he told his life story, it had to
(06:31):
be told through the prism of film, and sometimes it
came out very different than the reality.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Yeah. Absolutely, were you able to get any reviews of
anybody that actually had seen the film?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, So this was an interesting time. So his film
came out in like the end of nineteen nineteen nineteen twenty,
and this was just as a prohibition had passed right
the Women's Christian Temperance Union, having successfully defeated demon Rum
(07:05):
as they called it, now wanted to turn their sites
a different direction. And what they focused on was film
censorship that was corrupting the youth of America. And so
of course a former bank robber that's becoming famous for
his crimes became the focus of their campaign. So they
(07:28):
really attacked Star, trying to get legislature in Oklahoma but
also nationally to censor it. So he had a tough
time of trying to get his film into major theaters
because those theaters made a deal and said, if you
canceled the legislation, we will promise not to show his films.
(07:51):
So Henry Starr had to like carry the film canister
from littletown to little town to get people to watch it.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
How was his initial thought of when he was initially
approached to be in a film. Was he more than happy?
Was he a little gun shy? What was his reaction?
Speaker 2 (08:13):
So he had been married and he had a son
who was a teenage boy by the time he got
out in nineteen nineteen, and he felt a certain amount
of shame that he had, you know, brought upon both
his family and also his people. He was he was
part Cherokee, his father was fifty percent and his mother
(08:35):
was quarter. So he really did feel a sense of
guilt that, you know, he hadn't lived an upright life.
He gets out and he kind of just wanted to
live a low key existence. But they, you know, for
movie producers, convinced him that this could be a new
leash on life. You know, he what was he going
to do. He wasn't really trained for anything, and this
(08:57):
would be an opportunity, perhaps if everything worked out, to
be able to go to Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Absolutely interesting. Now, Mark, in the writing and the research
of your book, what surprised you.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Well, I think what surprised me was how funny Henry
Starr was. So he wrote his autobiography and boyd he
has a great sense of humor and he and he
tells these stories of life on the lamb. For example,
he meets a preacher who asks him to eradicate the vermin,
(09:38):
which are prairie dogs on his property, you know, for
a night's stay. In exchange for a night's day and
he goes okay, so you know, and Henry Star is
a great shot, and he and he clears out all
these prairie dogs and then he wakes up the next
morning and the preacher is serving him the prairie dogs
for breakfast. So just you know, he has a real
(10:01):
sense of humor. That he was an autodidact. You know,
he didn't have formal education. He had to quit school
when he was a little kid because his father died
and he had to really go to work, and he
always regretted that. So he educated himself while he was
in his stints in prison. And so he was a
(10:22):
very bright person. Both lawmen and people that he robbed
kind of fell in love with him because he was
so darn charming.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Wow, very interesting interns out now. Obviously you didn't get
a chance to see the film obviously because it's lost history.
But based on his writings and others, what type of
what type of an actor was he? Was he good?
Was he just like eh so Bill?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So there's there's been this rumor among historians that that
didn't really delve into the movie picture part of his life.
They've mostly delved into the criminal part. That's why my
book is very different because it's primarily focused on the
motion picture part. And so these other historians have always
(11:14):
put forward this theory that he was a really bad
actor and so he had to be replaced in the role,
and that was true at all. That wasn't true at all.
He's obviously the star of the film. It's obviously it's
him in the pictures all the time. And then people said,
you know that that if he could just make one
(11:36):
more picture as a lead, then he could, you know,
just punch his ticket to Hollywood and fame.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Yeah, so he was basically one movie away from maybe
having a breakout career.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah. And then can I tell you what happened next?
So anybody who follows Hollywood, you know, and history of
Hollywood knows that getting financing for a film is not easy, right,
So even in nineteen twenty one, that was a challenge.
And so he wanted to make a second motion picture to,
(12:14):
like I said, punch his ticket to Hollywood. So he
went around and he went to different cities in Oklahoma
pitching to their their you know, bankers and people like
that to fund his picture in exchange for promotion for
the town. Of course, bankers weren't his biggest fans, and
so yeah, and so he was having trouble finding financing.
(12:42):
And he, you know, was a gambler, played cards, and
he was hoping that he could you know, gamble his
way to getting the financing. But it wasn't working, and
he was getting more and more in debt. And so
if he was going to do this, if he was
going to re invent himself make this new motion picture,
(13:02):
he needed money. And so, even though he was completely reformed,
he didn't know always where to find money, Yes, and
so he decided to rob one last bank.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Wow, full circle.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Well that's it. So the you know, the the subtitle
of my book is generally banded to movie star and
back again. And you know, if you want to find
out what happened in that last bank robbery, yeah, yeah,
gotta buy the book.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Absolutely, don't just want to tease you have a little
anger there, a little bit, right.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah, Or you know, I've got the screenplay ready to go.
So if your listeners are interested in financing of film,
I've got one ready to go. And if not, I've
been casing a few banks myself.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
You heard it. Here first, guys on that. That's great.
You know, Mark, you've kind of mentioned this a couple
of times. Obviously in the subtitle Gentleman Bandit, you also
said that a lot of his people that he was
robbing robbing kind of fell in love with him. In
(14:22):
terms of that, maybe just shed a little bit more
light on why that was. Was he just he just
had that face, that look, the way he just treated people.
What what made him so appealing for lack of a
better word, when he was doing something so wrong.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
So I think the big reason why he's not as
famous as let's say, Jesse James and the James Younger
gang and you know, Dillinger and folks like that, is
because he wasn't a violent criminal. And you know, he
was a gentleman bandit. Nobody was ever killed in the
commission of one of his band robberies. And you know,
he was a meticulous planner, and part of that was
(15:05):
to make sure that people stayed safe. And he would
tell his gang, look, you know, unless it's your life
for theirs, nobody gets killed, right, And so that was
part of, you know, the reason why also law enforcement
liked him because he wasn't a violent guy. One great
story is that in the middle of the Stroud Bank robbery,
(15:29):
he has a gun pointed at the bank president and
he's saying, you know, open the vault. President says, well,
it's on a timelock, and Henry Starr says you better
open it, you know, threatening him, and then they hear
the screen door bang. Yeah, banks had screen doors back then.
And they turned around and there's nobody there. And then
(15:51):
they look down and there's a four year old little girl.
This is a true story. This four little girl. Old
little girl walked into the bank because on every Saturday
morning she would come in and they would give her
a shiny penny. And so he told the little girl,
you know, you be good and I will buy you
in ice cream. And so he puts her in a
(16:12):
chair gives her a lap full of pennies. Now what's
great is when they come back and Stroud to film
the life story, they recast a little girl because you know,
it had been a couple of years. But that real
little girl was in the audience watching them film, and
he sees her and he says, didn't I promise to
buy you in ice cream? She goes yeah, So he
(16:33):
pulls out a dollar bill and gives her and he
kept his promise and bought her on ice cream.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Oh wow, that's that's kind of a cool story that
on a couple one that he was very particular that
he didn't want anybody to get hurt. He was just
doing this for the funds, if you will. But also,
you know, not everybody would have treated a child in
that same manner and then kept his promise years later, right, Yeah,
(17:01):
he was.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
He's just a remarkable character.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, absolutely wow. In terms of that what you said
that he kind of had a little bit of a
regret of putting in his family, his his people through this.
Any other regrets that he had also, I think you
said he had a nineteen year old son at the
(17:26):
time when he was coming out of prison and had
that regret anything.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Else, Well, I think that, you know, his his biggest
regret was, you know, having to drop out of school,
you know, like when he was a kid, you know,
because his father died and and you you know, well
a lot of people don't know in that era was
that the US Deputy Marshall system was was very corrupt
(17:53):
and you know, they didn't make a salary, so how
they made their money was by false rests, and because
he didn't have a father there to protect him, he
was twice arrested for false crimes. And then they didn't
have a juvenile system back then, so he was thrown
in with the major criminals and so his life he
(18:18):
was branded as a criminal, even though the chargers were
dropped and they were false. So he decided, well, you know,
if people are going to think I'm a bank rubber
or I'm a bad guy, I'll be the best I
can be, right, you know that, right, And so that
was the biggest regret that you know, because of that system.
It turned his life and his goals. He wanted to
be a rancher. He was a good kid, and so
(18:42):
it just set him on this path of crime that
was kind of unnecessary because the legal system was so corrupt.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Yeah, you know, that is so sad to think that
you had somebody that was on the path to righteousness,
if you will, and the system itself made them corrupt.
Not that he was himself being crapped, but the system
kind of forced his hand for lack of a better word. There.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yeah, Yeah, they had tremendous potential, and I think he
knew it. And that was a regret. Yeah, that's why
he wanted to turn his life around. You know, that's
why he wanted to be you know, he wanted to
make movies and the Debtor to the Law film really
had the message that crime doesn't pay. He really wanted
(19:28):
to like give back and change the perception of him.
And you know, you know, Warren warn't kids off that
it's not all glamorous.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah. Absolutely, Well, Mark, I know we're here close on time,
but I'm just going to really kind of give you
the last word, if you will, and talking about your
book and it's out, people can purchase it now, and
just kind of give you the last word.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Yeah. So the title of the book you can find
it is the Real Thrilling Event of Bank Robber Henry Starr.
Reel is like movie reel rob and the subtitle is
from Gentlemen Bandit to movie Star and back again. You know.
My name is Mark Archletta. The book is available on Amazon,
(20:15):
Barnes and Noble. I think you get a discount on
bookshop dot org. So I always tell people that, or
you know, if you just with the title of the book,
you can go to your favorite independent bookseller. You know,
if you have your you know, your friendly local place,
just give them the title and they can order it
from you.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Absolutely and uh I strongly encourage our listeners to go
out and get a copy of Mark's book Bank Robert
Henry Starr. We also want to say thank you to
the University of Northern Texas Press for getting us a
copy of the book. And you know, with these podcasts
we only get the chance to really tip the ice
(20:55):
tip of the iceberg. I really encourage you to go
out and conte you reading and get a little bit
more of the story. Hopefully we left you there with
a little bit of a teaser there about after that
movie and making that second one and what happens. But Mark, really,
(21:15):
we really appreciate you coming on and it's been in
a few minutes with us today to talk about your book.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Well, Doug, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
It's a pleasure. Thank you, and thank you for listening
to this episode. For gott in Hollywood your search for
Doug Haster Forgot in Hollywood. You can also find me
on Twitter, Instagram at hes dog fourteen. If you listen
to this podcast on iTunes another podcast service, please subscribe, rate,
and review the episode. Tune in next time for the
latest episode of Forgotten Hollywood. Thank you for listening and
we will see you then
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