User:MBlackstone/Harry Arthur Gant

Harry Arthur Gant (February 11, 1881 – July 26, 1967) was an American cowboy and a pioneer of silent film. He was a key member of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, one of the earliest makers of films for African-American audiences.

Gant was a cowboy in Colorado and Wyoming from the 1890s until 1912. He participated in rodeo events and Wild West shows, with the Cheyenne Frontier Days, Dr. Carver’s Wild West Show and Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Show, as well as organizing shows on his own. When the Denver Press Club wanted to honor Teddy Roosevelt in 1910, they asked Gant to organize a chuck wagon dinner for 450 invited guests. On the fateful day, the cook was too inebriated to perform his duties and Gant stepped in. As he stood over an open fire grilling steaks and chatting with Roosevelt, T. R. pointed to one and said, “I want that one. I won’t have to salt it, for the sweat running off your nose has already done that.”

By 1911, Gant had a reputation as a man who could get things done. When a unit of the Edison Studios came to Colorado to shoot silent films with a Western flavor, the director J. Searle Dawley was advised to get Gant’s help for arranging men, animals and locations. Gant doubled for the New York actors in riding scenes. He worked on at least two of Dawley's films in 1911, released under the titles A Perilous Ride and A Romance of the Cliff Dwellers (filmed in part near Ignacio, Colorado).

In 1912, Dawley returned to Colorado to make The Charge of the Light Brigade, and again enlisted Gant’s help. Gant arranged for 250 infantry and 250 cavalry men from nearby Fort D. A. Russell, despite their being members of three Black regiments (9th and 10th Cavalry and 24th Infantry, known as the Buffalo Soldiers). Gant doubled as Lord Cardigan for the riding scenes of the Charge. When Dawley moved the Edison unit to California, Gant went with them.

Gant soon taught himself to operate a camera, and worked on numerous silent films at the Edison Studios in Long Beach, California. He was a charter member of the Static Club, an early organization of cameramen working to solve technical problems with the equipment and film of the day. After the Edison company left the film-making business, Gant worked for a number of other studios in Long Beach, Santa Barbara, and Hollywood.

In 1915, Gant was working with Noble Johnson, a friend of his from their cowboy days in Colorado and Wyoming. Johnson was one of the few African-American actors playing mainstream roles. Together, they developed the idea of making films for the “race market”, featuring Black actors in major roles. Johnson found investors in the African-American business community of Los Angeles, and the Lincoln Motion Picture Company was formed. Gant was an officer and its director and cameraman, and the only white member. Lincoln made films from 1915 to 1922, and Gant went on to make other Black films, including Georgia Rose (1930), the first Black talkie, which was also a musical.

Based on his self-taught understanding of geology, Gant became convinced around 1918 that oil could be found in the Signal Hill area near Long Beach. He tried to arrange leases and funding to drill, but was unable to get financial backing. After others found oil there, he went on to drill four dry holes elsewhere in California and in Arkansas.

He returned to Hollywood in 1926, and worked another twenty years as a cameraman, actor and crew. He was an extra and cameraman in the 1936 version of The Charge of the Light Brigade; in this film, he pioneered the use of a camera attached to the stirrup, to get close-up shots of horses′ galloping legs. Gant must be the only person to have appeared in two versions of The Charge of the Light Brigade.

In 1931, Gant co-founded an organization for men in the Los Angeles area who had ridden the range before 1900. There were many former cowboys who worked as extras, stuntmen, and wranglers for the movie studios, and also men who handled livestock for slaughterhouses. They called themselves the Chuck Wagon Trailers, and held twice-yearly “roundups” where the men could reminisce about the old days and eat chuck wagon cooking. Among the early members were Noble Johnson, the actor; and Al Jennings and Emmett Dalton, former outlaws. As the members aged, the criteria for entry were adjusted, and eventually women members were admitted. Gant was re-elected its “foreman” each year for twenty years. The organization continued to meet up to 2011, still using the old chuck wagon, with membership open to anyone with an interest in the Old West.

In 1946, Gant retired to the San Fernando Valley. In 1959 he completed his memoir, which he titled I Saw Them Ride Away. His objective was to show the 'present generation' of 1959 the difference between the true Old West and the fictional version portrayed in films. No publisher accepted it in time for that generation, but it was eventually published in 2009.