From Buckskin to Barbed wire—Texas Guinan Didn’t Play Daring, She Lived It

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Daughters of Daring: Hollywood Cowgirl Stunt Women

Silent-film heroine, real-life stuntwoman, future speakeasy queen.

Meet the woman who jumped fences, flattened outlaws, and later drank with them.

A young Indian woman wearing a buckskin dress and leggings rode her white horse fast into a thick forest. Branches slapped her, but the sound of the hoofbeats not far ahead kept her going. It was imperative she catch up to the rider she was chasing. She urged her horse to go faster and the animal complied. They broke through the other side of the trees, emerging behind a rickety set of fence posts. The woman leaned forward in the saddle as the horse made a spectacular jump over the barbed wire strung between the posts. Horse and rider gained on the bad guy they were pursuing. The leathery-faced villain dressed in rough cow-country garb dared to look back to see how much his lead had shrunk. The woman was bearing down on him now. She was close, determined.

Rising out of her saddle with her horse in full gallop, she placed the reins in her teeth, then placed one foot behind the pommel and the other in front of the cantle. Now standing, she leapt off the back of the horse onto the man she was after. The pair tumbled hard onto the ground. The man tried to get to his feet, but the woman got up first, hurried to him, and hit him over the head with the butt of a pistol. They wrestled a bit until finally the woman cracked him hard on the head with the gun again. Exhausted, she stared down at the unconscious outlaw contemplating her next move.

The actress and stuntwoman playing the part of the Indian maiden in the 1920 silent film directed by DW Griffith entitled White Squaw was Texas Guinan. Agile and daring, the vivacious talent insisted on performing her own stunts in numerous motion pictures made between 1917 and 1933.

To learn more about this amazing lady who went on to own a speakeasy and make a name for herself among some of the country’s most notorious gangsters read Daughters of Daring: Hollywood Cowgirl Stunt Women.

Enter now to win a copy of the book