John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in a 1914 Stutz Bearcat speedster

When I saw this picture, I knew I had to share it.

The "Duke" having some fun!

From memory, there was a Stutz Bearcat in the Pacific Auto Rental Collection. I wonder if this is the same car?-GZ

Another photo of the same car and and a picture of one of the lobby cards for the 1957 movie Wings of Eagles.-GZ

Layden,

I have seen the Model T and a pig races, but I didn't know they had Stutz and a pig races!

Actually that is a Hollywood picture. Am not sure that holding a pig would be the best way to pose a promotional picture for your budding Hollywood starlet career.

Actually that is a Hollywood picture. Am not sure that holding a pig would be the best way to pose a promotional picture for your budding Hollywood starlet career.

Layden,</SPAN>

The young silent movie actress with the pig sitting in the Stutz Bearcat is Pearl White. Note the big smile on the pig’s face! I would smile in that position too. </SPAN>

Click photo to see larger image.

This series of Pathé </SPAN>Studio photos was taken in 1916 when she was filming the silent serial movie Pearl of the Army. The pig was in the movie. These Pathé Studio publicity photos now reside in the Library of Congress film archive.

Pearl White became a very successful and celebrated silent movie star in America and France. She loved her yellow Stutz Bearcat and always drove it at speed. The Stutz became one of her trademarks. </SPAN>

At that time the silent movie industry was still largely based in New York. In fact, Pearl White never even visited Hollywood.

Many silent movie actors and actresses were not able, for different reasons, to make the transition from silent movies to “talkies.” Some voices and some acting styles were deemed to be not appropriate for talking movies. And some actors and actresses simply did not want to move from New York, or New Jersey, or Florida, to California in the early 1920s. In Pearl White’s case she had damaged her voice when acting on stage as a young person (she starting acting at age 6) and that is why, in 1910 at the age of 21 years, she had moved into silent movies.

Here is another Pathé Studio photo of Pearl White sitting on the hood of the Stutz Bearcat speedster with the pig. The pig is smiling and looks very happy. I sure wish I had a movie starlet as a radiator ornament to sit on my Stutz, with or without the pig!

Click photo to see larger image.

Note the 1916 New York license plate.

Pearl White drove cars in many of her movies. She made her last silent movie Terror in 1923 in France, which included scenes with her driving racing cars through the streets of Paris and over the hilly French countryside.

She was idolized by women in America and in France and she has been credited with encouraging women on both Continents to learn to drive in the very early days of motoring. She was an early role model for young women who admired her courage and independence.</SPAN></SPAN> She died of liver failure in Paris in 1938 at the age of 49.

Cheers, James

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And a later shot of the pig....

From memory, there was a Stutz Bearcat in the Pacific Auto Rental Collection. I wonder if this is the same car?

Yes, it is. It appeared in a host of films while with PAR. It was Red & black, changed to off white for The Great White Hope in 1970.

The next year it appeared in the TV movie Powderkeg, the pilot film for the Bearcats! TV series. That was its last screen role that I know of.

A late friend bought it from PAR and it's still in his family's collection.

I wrote a story on the car for the Stutz News, the magazine of the Stutz Club.