A COWGIRL OF THE RODEO, MOVIES & THE SEA

            We lost one of the great cowgirls when Polly Burson passed away April 4^th of this year, at the age of 86.  Her life was unique.  She had a great sense of humor, was courageous as they come, tough as a boot, and accepted life as it was dealt to her.  Cecil Jones, a long-time friend from Garden Valley , California , said of her, “When God made Polly He broke the mold!”

            Polly was born in Ontario , Oregon , on December 24^th, 1919 .  “I got cheated out of all birthday presents by being born on Christmas eve,” said the smiling octogenarian, as she told me her life story back in 2003 as we sat in her living room at an Oxnard , California .  Her grandfather raised and sold horses to the army but when World War I arrived his market vanished.  Polly’s mother was one of nine children, and having a bit of gypsy in her she took her daughter and headed to the racetracks where she was a jockey.  While her mom made a living racing, little Polly was harnessed and tied to a tree or nearby fence while ‘mom’ worked.  The cowboys would always release her and she would wander down to the Indian village nearby and play with the youngster or find some other activity to pass the time.  The cowboys enjoyed instructing  the little dark haired ‘imp’ go up to someone and call him a ‘son of a bitch’, which she did not realize was such an insult!  Polly admitted her upbringing was unusual.

            Polly remembered few children in her life, due to her mother’s profession, however, one year she did attend school with Little Tin Horn Hank Keenen, the son of a well known rodeo clown.  He had long blond curls, and always dressed in a frilly shirt, short pants and Polly used to ask him, “Are you a boy or a girl?”  She never remembered getting an answer.  As Polly grew older she began to ride calves, horses, whatever was available.  It didn’t take long for those adults around her to recognize she had a natural talent to ride.

            Vera McGinniss, a well known cowgirl and trick rider of the day, told Polly’s mother that she thought Polly might become a good trick rider.  She offered to let the youngster come spend the winter at her ranch and she would teach her how to trick ride.  Polly’s mother agreed and for six months the young girl spent her days with Vera and her husband, Homer.  “Don’t ever lie to Vera, always tell her the truth,” advised Homer.  Polly remembered her months at the McGinniss home as very different than she anticipated.  She polished Vera’s loving cups, won at various rodeos across the country for trick riding, on a regular basis.  She also took Vera’s horses on long rides each day for exercise, riding one and leading the other.  One day she rode through a big orchard and found a group of children playing ball.  She tied the horses to a nearby tree and joined the ball game.  When she returned to the McGinniss ranch, later than usual, Vera asked her where she had been.  Polly remembered the advice she had been given and told her the truth, which she was hesitant to do.  Fortunately, for Polly Vera had watched her through binoculars and knew all along what she had done.  “Vera never taught me a thing about trick riding the whole time I was there, but she did teach me some manners, which was something I lacked dearly,” recalled Polly.

            When she returned to her mother and step-father, John Dreyer,  her mother found a white horse, at Pendleton RoundUp, that was ridden by an Indian, that she thought would make a good trick riding horse for Polly.  That evening they went to a nearby Indian village, found the horse with the headlights of the car, bought him for $50 and Polly was on her way to becoming a trick rider.  When asked how she learned to trick ride her answer was, “I watched other trick riders, then I’d try the trick I had seen them dot, making lots of mistakes, and I made a hell of a lot of them.”  She saw Tad Lucas do a real ‘showy trick’ where she was upside down, doing a head stand, on the shoulder of the horse.  Dick Griffith, a well known trick rider, helped her learn to master the trick.  Buff Brady, Jr., also helped Polly whenever she needed advice.  During those days trick riding was still a competition at rodeos.  Dick Griffith was a trick rider who could make a mistake and somehow turn it in to what looked like another trick.  The audience would never be aware he’d erred.  Polly said she always wanted to learn how he did that.

            Polly trick rode at the Madison Square Garden rodeo for five years, plus rodeos from one end of the country to the other.  In 1939 she married George Mills, an up-and-coming rodeo clown.  She met him at San Francisco during a rodeo.  When trick riders were performing there would be five or so people holding a ribbon to keep the trick riding horse on a straight path in the arena.  As Polly rounded the end of the ribbon, doing a Russian drag,  sand would hit her in the face.  Eventually she figured out George Mills was holding the end of the ribbon and he was kicking sand in her face.  “So romantic,” Polly chuckled.  The day they decided to get married Polly rode a mount at the Bay Meadows race track and made $25.  The money she made went for the wedding ring and to pay the Justice of the Peace to marry them.  They found him in a garage, and that is where they got married – in the garage.  George then bought a tent, a Coleman stove, and a bed, all for $5.00.  Polly said, “I was raised in a tent and was hoping I could work my way out of it.  The tent George bought wasn’t even an ‘uptown’ tent, it had a dirt floor.  I also inherited George’s unmarried brother, Hank Mills, when I married George.  You had to have a lot of heart to put up with the likes of those two.  It wasn’t anything for us to be driving in the night to the next rodeo, and stop for a cup of coffee to stay awake.  The two men would stir their coffee until the spoon was good and hot, then put the hot spoons on my neck.  I had blisters all the time.  They were just downright ornery.”  Needless to say, Polly and George eventually divorced.

            Doff Aber, an early day top-rate cowboy,  had a wife that lived in the Hollywood area, and when ever Polly went through town she would stay with her.  She was a script girl in movies and knew all the producers and directors.  Ms. Aber encouraged Polly to try and find work in the movies as a stunt gal as the money was so good for such work.  Unfortunately, without a card, which was required to work in the movie industry, you could not get a job.  To get a card you had to have movie experience – Catch 22.

            Polly married Wayne Burson, a stunt man and double for several movie stars, including Jimmy Wakely and Roy Rogers.  One day a casting director with Republic Studios called Wayne and asked if his wife could do a high fall.  His answer was, “Of course.”  Polly had her first movie stunt job. 

            “The furthest I had ever fallen was off a horse,” recalled the courageous gal, “now I have to do a high fall.  When I got on the set  I looked down and the fall was at least 75 feet.  There was a fireman’s net at the bottom, but just big enough to catch me.  It was one of those one time shots and I’d better do it right.  When it was over they said it was great.  I don’t know if the wind blew me off, someone pushed me or what, but I did it and  got $150.  I thought this was a real gravy train.”

            Polly was a very popular stunt woman and doubled for Betty Hutton on the movie, The Perils of Pauline.  Her abilities of riding horses and doing stunts from horseback were not a trick every stunt woman could perform.  One of the more difficult tricks she performed she explained was, “I had to come running down a hill on horseback, jump on to a moving train, shoot at the Indians following the train, kill about three of them, cross the top of a boxcar, then another boxcar, then a coal car, go around the outside of the steam engine, go across the cowcatcher, on the front of the engine.  The director asked me to repeat it three times.  I thought the first one was a good run.  After the third attempt I stepped up to director  and said, ‘Are you having fun?’  That is exactly what he was doing.  He was just having fun watching me.  The first take was good enough!”

            The accounts of stunts Polly accomplished, which were attempted or botched by others, were numerous.  She also doubled for actresses Susan Hayward, Maria Montez, Yvonne DeCarlo.  She also had many friends in the movie business including Audie Murphy, James Arness, Peter Graves, and  John Wayne.

            The talented lady also went to Europe and the Far East with various rodeo and wild west groups, including Bobby Estes, of Baird , Texas , when he took his group to France .  The trips were disasters financially, but the experiences she encountered traveling around foreign countries and learning their culture, were worth the worries, she admitted.  In fact, from the last trip abroad she came back to Oxnard , California , her home, with $1.25 in her pocket.  She went back to work in the movie industry, and began looking for a sailboat to buy.  She had fallen in love with the sea.  Eventually she found a 26 foot cabin cruiser and she and third husband set sail.  While moored in Mexico Yul Brynner making a movie there, used her boat as a dressing room.  Later she bought a larger boat and set sail around the world  heading to Hawaii , Christmas Island, BoraBora, Tahiti, Cook Island , Fiji and New Zealand .  She eventually sold the boat in Samoa and headed back to California and back to the movie business.  In the movie, Earthquake, Polly received facial injuries that were serious enough she considered retiring.  A brief  three week job on the movie, Hero, with Dustin Hoffman, in 1996, was her last job.  She retired.to her place in Oxnard , in the Marina , where she could still smell the salt air and see the sailboats she loved so dearly.

            Polly never had children.  But the acquaintances she made throughout her lifetime of rodeo, the movie industry, and traveling around the world, gave her a wealth of memories that sustained this ‘one of a kind’ gal until the end.  You might say her ‘family’ was a gathering of universal friends.  She was inducted in to the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 2002, presented with the Tad Lucas Award by the Rodeo Historical Society, and was given the Golden Boot Award, the Western movie equivalent to the ‘Oscar’, for her stunt work in movies.  There will never be another one like Polly.