Marilyn Mills on AllMovie

Perhaps Hollywood's finest woman stunt-rider of the 1920s, Dutch-born Marilyn Mills (née Bruening) toured vaudeville as a trick rider before being chosen as Mary Pickford's riding double in Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall (1924). With her horse Beverly, Mills came close to becoming Hollywood's first true cowgirl star but was defeated in the long run by the penny-pinching production and distribution methods provided by her husband, Gower Gulch entrepreneur J. Charles Davis. Instead, she has gone down in history as the discoverer of Gary Cooper who, billed as "Frank Cooper," played villainous bits in both Tricks and Three Pals (both 1925).