Mark Archuleta, "The Reel Thrilling Events of Bank Robber Henry Starr: From Gentleman Bandit to Movie Star and Back Again" (U North Texas Press, 2025)

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Mark Archuleta (author)
Episode: "The Reel Thrilling Events of Bank Robber Henry Starr: From Gentleman Bandit to Movie Star and Back Again"
Publisher: University of North Texas Press, 2025
Date: September 24, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Dr. Miranda Melcher interviews Mark Archuleta about his new book chronicling the life of Henry Starr, an infamous but lesser-known American outlaw. Starr’s unconventional journey sees him move from modest beginnings, through a prolific career as a bank robber, to a surprisingly short stint as a silent film star. The conversation explores not only Starr's life and era, but also the fascinating intersection of crime, media, and American mythmaking. Archuleta shares his own motivations for bringing Starr’s story to light and reflects on the themes of reinvention, justice, and celebrity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Mark Archuleta’s Personal Journey

• Background: Fifth-generation Coloradoan; degree in English Literature; moved to Hollywood for acting and screenwriting.
• Inspiration for the Book:
  • Came across Starr’s autobiography in a bargain bin and noticed a physical resemblance (“this guy looks like me” – Mark Archuleta, 02:50).
  • Starr’s life had cinematic qualities: the outlaw-turned-movie-star, with high drama—pardoned by Teddy Roosevelt, robbing two banks at once, and acting in movies.
  • Archuleta initially wanted to adapt Starr’s story into a screenplay, but the research outgrew the film format, leading to the book.
    Notable Quote:

“Of course I said, that is a movie.” – Mark Archuleta, 04:55

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2. Henry Starr’s Early Life and Path to Crime

• Background: Born 1873, Indian Territory; partly Cherokee descent; early ambition to be a rancher.
• Victim of Systemic Corruption:
  • U.S. Marshal system incentivized wrongful arrests—marshals (paid per action) targeted the vulnerable: “They would prey upon poor whites, blacks, Indians, people who really couldn’t defend themselves...” (06:48)
  • Starr framed and imprisoned twice as a teen; after acquittals, local stigma as “criminal” persisted.
• Turning Point:
  • “Well, you know what, if I’m going to be branded a bad guy, I’m going to be the best bad guy I can be.” (09:24)

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3. Rise as a Bank Robber

• Methodology: Starr was a “meticulous planner”—carefully cased targets, escape routes, towns, and habits.
• Media Celebrity:
  • By 19, had his own dime-novel series.
  • Sentenced to hang by age 20; life full of drama and reinvention.
• Changing Motivations:
  • Fluctuated between attempts at straight living and recidivism, mainly due to lack of opportunity, persistent legal threats, and social exclusion.
  • Even after Roosevelt’s pardon, old warrants and reputation hounded him.

Notable Quote:

“He ended up robbing more banks than any man in America.” – Mark Archuleta, 09:35

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4. The Struggle to Go Straight & Societal Barriers

• Repeated Imprisonment and Social Stigma:
  • Even at attempts at honest work (real estate, café), communities rejected him upon learning of his past.
  • “He just couldn’t make his way.” (13:14)
  • His autobiography was a failed attempt at legitimate income.

Host’s Reflection:

“Unfortunately that does make a lot of sense given that trajectory.” – Dr. Miranda Melcher, 15:09

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5. From Outlaw to Film Star

• Real-Life Outlaw as Screen Actor:
  • Brief historical moment (1910s-20s) where actual outlaws could star as themselves—predating celebrity criminal fiction (Hart, Gable, etc.).
  • Comparison to Al Jennings and Emmett Dalton, the only two other outlaws to make similar transitions.
  • Starr starred in the film “A Debtor to the Law,” directly reenacting his own sensational exploits.
  • “The pitch to Henry Starr was, you know, people want authenticity, you know that, and that’s what you are.” (21:43)

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6. Hollywood Dreams and Hostile Reception

• Censorship Backlash:
  • Stark’s film debuted as Prohibition began: The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, seeking new moral crusades, targeted “bandit” movies.
  • Oklahoma theaters agreed not to show his film, fearing censorship laws; had to self-distribute via small town screenings.
  • Nevertheless, some local councils approved, noting the film’s effective moral messaging.

Notable Quote:

“He probably was probably one of the most incidents of bad timing in history.” – Mark Archuleta, 23:21

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7. End of the Outlaw-Film Star Dream

• Struggles to Fund/Produce:
  • Hoped to “punch his ticket to Hollywood” with a second picture, but failed to secure funding—especially from local bankers, his former nemeses.
  • “He wanted to reinvent himself, you know, even in this idea of the American myth of reinvention.” (27:34)
• Return to Crime:
  • Mounting debts and lack of opportunity led him to attempt “one last bank job.”

When pressed about the outcome:

“Let’s just say things did not work out in his favor...” – Mark Archuleta, 29:54

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8. The Missing Film & Reconstruction

• Film Lost to History:
  • “A Debtor to the Law” survives only in lobby cards, press materials, and photos; no complete print is known to exist.
  • Archuleta uses surviving artifacts to reconstruct the film’s look and narrative in the book.

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9. Race, Representation, and Mythology

• Marketing and Racial Passing:
  • Movie poster “tried to pass [Starr] off as white,” likely due to Jim Crow environment (film shot in Tulsa near the time of the 1921 race massacre).
  • Black outlaw Cherokee Bill cast by a white actor—reflecting segregated casting and erasure of Black experience in early film.
    Notable Quote:

“You realize that was sort of the sociopolitical environment under which this film was made.” – Mark Archuleta, 32:14

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10. Broader Reflections and Takeaways

• Impact of Environment:
  • Starr’s trajectory demonstrates how environment and systemic injustice can push individuals into cycles of recidivism.
• Life’s Absurdity and Myth:
  • Starr’s evolution from horse-bound bank robber to car-chase, and from outlaw to movie idol, reveals both the unpredictability and the manufactured mythology of American lives.
    Quotable Summary:

“The fact that a guy that began his life robbing banks on horseback does his last crime as, you know, escaping in an automobile and, and in between all of that was the invention of the motion picture camera... just so many quirky things in life.” (35:44)

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11. What’s Next for Archuleta and Starr’s Legacy

• Book Tour:
  • Visiting historic sites of Starr’s life and robberies, including towns that now embrace this part of their local history.
  • Irony: “The funny thing about these towns that had bank robberies, it’s the most exciting thing in their entire history.” (37:24)
• Hopes for Adaptation:
  • Still seeks to bring Starr’s story to screen as a film or limited TV series.

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Memorable Quotes & Timestamps

• “If I’m going to be branded a bad guy, I’m going to be the best bad guy I can be.” – Mark Archuleta, 09:24
• “He ended up robbing more banks than any man in America.” – Mark Archuleta, 09:35
• “There was just this little slim period of history where this could happen.” – Mark Archuleta, 16:57
• “The pitch to Henry Starr was, you know, people want authenticity, you know that, and that’s what you are.” – Mark Archuleta, 21:43
• “He probably was probably one of the most incidents of bad timing in history.” – Mark Archuleta, 23:21
• “You realize that that was sort of the sociopolitical environment under which this film was made.” – Mark Archuleta, 32:14
• “Who knows what he might have become?” – Mark Archuleta, 36:46

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Key Timestamps

• 02:50 – Archuleta discovers Starr’s autobiography and his own motivation
• 06:10-10:10 – Starr’s childhood, systemic injustice, path to crime
• 10:31-15:09 – Rise as a planner/outlaw and changing motivations
• 16:41-21:28 – Outlaws as film stars: historical context
• 21:41-23:15 – Starr enters the movies; “A Debtor to the Law”
• 23:21-26:12 – Censorship and challenges with Starr’s movie
• 27:02-29:44 – Attempting a second film, financial desperation, return to crime
• 30:14-31:58 – The lost film and efforts to reconstruct it
• 31:58-35:00 – Race, representation, Tulsa, and early cinema
• 35:19-39:06 – Lessons from Starr’s life, Archuleta’s ongoing mission

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Conclusion

The episode offers a compelling look into the extraordinary, improbable life of Henry Starr—a figure reflective of both the romance and the hypocrisy embedded in the American West and early pop culture. Mark Archuleta sheds light on the intersections of crime, race, reinvention, and celebrity, not just revisiting the myth but interrogating the conditions that shaped it. As history and Hollywood keep colliding, Starr’s story asks us to consider who writes—and who erases—the scripts of American legend.

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For more, read:
The Reel Thrilling Events of Bank Robber Henry Starr: From Gentleman Bandit to Movie Star and Back Again (University of North Texas Press, 2025).
Mark Archuleta is touring Oklahoma and Arkansas to share more of Starr’s story—and perhaps, finally, to inspire the Hollywood treatment this saga deserves.

Transcript

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

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[Mark Archuleta]

Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Hello and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to be speaking with Mark Archuleta about his book that is going to take us to a very interesting part of law adventure film. There's a whole bunch of things going on. The book is titled the Real Thrilling Events of Bank Robert Henry Starr, published by the University of North Texas Press in 2020. And as that title suggests, we're going to be talking about Henry Starr, who is a film star, who is a bank robber, who is those things on film. It gets complicated and interesting and the book takes us very much into the history of what is going on. Some crazy stories and I think we're going to have quite a fun conversation about all things Henry Starr here. So, Mark, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

[Mark Archuleta]

Oh, well, thank you for inviting me. I'm excited to share the story of Henry Starr. A lot of people have not heard about him, but his, his story is just so amazing. I'm, I'm so happy to share it today.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Well, before we get into his story, I wonder if we can talk a little bit about yours. So could you please introduce yourself a bit and then tell us why you decided to write this book.

[Mark Archuleta]

Well, again, my name is Mark Archuleta. I am originally from Colorado. I'm like a fifth generation Coloradoan. I went to the University of Colorado, Boulder, got my degree in English Literature. After graduation, I moved to Hollywood to pursue an acting and screenwriting career. I got a starring role in several films. But I soon realized that as a Hispanic actor that there weren't going to be a lot of roles for me at this time. So this was like in the late 80s, unless I was willing to play domestic or a gang member, which of course I was not particularly excited about for, you know, just perpetuating a cliche that, that Hollywood wanted. So I was always on the lookout for a project for myself. I had always believed this legend about Sylvester Stallone having written Rocky and that it was such a great script that he could demand that he play the lead in it. So I was always looking for a project for myself. And in 1990 I was at a bookstore that doesn't exist anymore called Crown Books. And in the, the bargain book section for just like, I don't know, maybe a dollar or something really, really cheap, I found the book called Thrilling Events Life of Henry Starr by himself. And this was an autobiography that Starr had written in 1913. And I looked at the COVID photo, I said, hey, this guy looks like me. So I cracked it open and I find out, well, you know, he was a Wild west bank robber. He was sentenced to hang twice. He had his sentence commuted by President Teddy Roosevelt, who for heroism he would then go on to rob two banks at the same time, which was the, the pinnacle of, for bank robbers. And then later in life, he had lived long enough to see the invention of the motion picture camera. And so he became a silent movie star in his later years. And of course I said, that is a movie. And so I've been trying to get his story made into a motion picture for years and years and years. And over the years I've gathered so much research, photos and documents and all kinds of things that I said, well, that's never going to fit in a two hour movie, so I should publish a book. And I went pitching to different academic publishers. University of North Texas Press was very excited about it. And you know, two years of the editorial process, it came out in July of 2025.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

That is a great origin story that really in and of itself works like, you know, I can imagine the scenes in my head. So that obviously gives us rather a lot to Talk about here, I think starting from the kind of obvious place of. Henry Starr presumably was not born a bank robber. So what was his early life like?

[Mark Archuleta]

He was born in 1873 in, at Fort Gibson in what was then Indian territory. He came from good, good parents. George was half 50 unit percent Cherokee and his mother was Mary Gordon was 25%. He had dreams of being a rancher, but his father fell ill when he was still in elementary school and so he had to quit and start helping, you know, his mom survive with, with two other children. She remarried. Her, you know, her new husband did not like Henry Starr very much. But the, the, the biggest issue that came about is, and people may not understand at the time, Marshall system was very corrupt and they didn't earn a salary like you would expect a, you know, a police officer or somebody today. They got paid by the job. So for example, if they had to deliver a summons or a writ or transport a prisoner, they were, they were paid for that particular job and then they were paid per diem, you know, to, to execute that job. Well, what this did was it incentivized U.S. deputy marshals to create their own work. And in this sense they would arrest, falsely arrest people and then bring them to the court in Fort Smith, Arkansas. And the further away you were, the more per diem you made. So the, the deputy system, what they did was they would prey upon poor whites, blacks, Indians, people who really couldn't defend themselves or didn't have status in society to protect themselves from this. So Henry Starr was about 16 years old and two deputies framed him for bringing a liquor into the Indian territory. He was transported under chains, right, we're talking a 16 year old. And then he was put in the adult prison population. They didn't have such a thing as of juvenile detention. So he was thrown in with the general population. The leader of the prison gang, you know, his gang attacked Henry Starr, but, but he was quite handy with his fists and was able to defend himself. But he did end up having to sell everything he owned to hire basically a shyster lawyer. He was acquitted of the charges and you know, went back home. A year later he was framed for horse stealing. Again, same thing happened. He was taken under, you know, in chains to Fort Smith. And when they came to trial, the, the guy that had accused him of horse stealing, well, he had been in cahoots with the deputy and so they were going to split the per diem and all the money. When he got in the stand, he crumbled and admitted that it was All a lie. So Henry Star had been falsely accused twice. He returns back home and of course now he's branded as a criminal. Right? You know, two times he's been arrested. The, the, the law couldn't be wrong. And so his dreams of being a rancher, you know, he had a, a sweetheart, you know, and everybody kind of, you know, the family started looking at him askew. So he said, well, you know what, if I'm going to be branded a bad guy, I'm going to be the best bad guy I can be. And so he set out starting robbing train depots and trains and banks, and he ended up robbing more banks than any man in America.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Well, certainly with a background like that, I can see why he'd go, well, you know what? If you're not going to look at me, not going to let me do anything good then, okay then. But why a bank robber? Of all the kind of possible criminal things he could turn to? And how did he become, you know, the famous one, the really successful one? Obviously deciding to rob a bank doesn't mean you're going to be good at it.

[Mark Archuleta]

Well, the, you know, one of the qualities that, that Henry Starr had was that he was a meticulous planner. He, he talked about when he robbed the bank of Bentonville in 1893, that he had been visited the town and spent a week there and he studied, you know, what were the habits of, of the, the bankers, what was the habits of the town? Did the, did the sheriff carry a gun on him? You know, when was the, the money brought in with the. Where were the hardware stores located in case they, they got into trouble and needed. Because hardware stores had guns, you know, if they needed to, could they get in there? What were all the possible escape routes? So, so he was a meticulous planner and of course, so things were generally successful. What's interesting is that he, at the age of 19, he had his own dime novel series and at 20, he was sentenced to hang. So it was quite an exciting life for a, a teenager at the time.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Yeah, he's definitely pretty young at this point. He keeps robbing banks, though. Is it always because he sort of wants to do the spectacular or do his motivations change as he gets older?

[Mark Archuleta]

Yeah, I would say the motivations changed as he got older. And he, you know, he always went through periods of being completely reformed. So, you know, I talked about what kind of motivated him to be a bank robber at the very beginning. He then is, you know, sentenced to hang and spends probably the next 10 years in prison. He gets out in 1903. And this is after Teddy Roosevelt pardons him and he returns to Guthrie, Oklahoma. He is, you know, 27, almost 30 years old, somewhere in that range, gets married, has a child, wants to just live a straight, normal life. And, you know, he goes into real estate. But then what happens is, you know, he had robbed Bentonville 10 years earlier and he still had not served his time in Arkansas for that. So Arkansas contacted the governor of Oklahoma and wanted to extradite him. And he heard from a friend that the governor was going to grant it. And so he fled into the Osage hills and he just kind of stewed out there and got angry and felt like he was being unfairly punished. He had just spent the last 10 years in prison. So even he admits he was hot headed and he started robbing banks again. He, he gets, you know, after several years, he gets captured again. He serves time in Colorado State Penitentiary where he becomes a model prisoner. He was always a model prisoner wherever he went. Also, you know, he would teach other prisoners how to read and write and do arithmetic and, and so after three or four years, he was pardoned from the Colorado State Penitentiary. He, one of the restrictions is that he has to stay in Colorado, which was kind of unfortunate in terms of recidivism because he didn't have the support that he would family support that he would have if he was allowed to return to Oklahoma. So he moved to a small little town of Holly, which is sort of famous for their sugar at the time. He tried to have a straight job. He opened a cafe. But when people found out he was, you know, an ex con, they didn't want to go to his cafe. So they allowed him to, to move to Wyoming, but he had to keep his name. He tried working on a railroad, selling furniture, just all the things that, you know, were sort of normal jobs. And he, and he just couldn't make his way. So he wrote an autobiography. He was hoping that that would bring in some money, but ultimately he just ran up to the fact that, that he couldn't make a living being straight. So he goes back into bank robbery again. So yeah, so the motivations for, for crime changes as he gets older and he finds that his, his options are, are smaller.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Yeah, unfortunately that does make a lot of sense given that trajectory.

[Mark Archuleta]

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[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

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[Mark Archuleta]

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[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

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[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

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[Mark Archuleta]

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[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

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[Mark Archuleta]

Yeah, yeah. There, you know, I look at this as this very narrow window in the history of film where a real life bank robber could also appear as themselves and, and be a star on the screen. You know, for example, you had the Jesse James and Cole Younger gang just give you a kind of context of the date. So Jesse James would have been assassinated when Henry Starr was about 9 years old. On the other spectrum, John Dillinger was born when Henry Starr was 30 years old. So there's just an interesting crossover of, of crime and he kind of rose in at the, the low tide. But Frank James, who is the surviving James brother and Cole Younger, who is the surviving younger brother, they, you know, were old men and, but they came before the time of motion pictures yet they, they didn't really have any skills either. So the, the best way for them to make money was to go into entertainment. Since film didn't exist at the time. They created the great Cole Younger, Frank James historic Wild west show and they kind of like the Buffalo Bill Show. They went from town to town, they sold their autobiographies, they sold a songbook, they sold cushions with their images on it because you know, they were in stadiums with bench seats, rodeo arenas probably. And then you, you know, of course you had like Dillinger on the other end who, you know, when, when he was killed outside the Chicago's Biograph Theater, he was watching Manhattan Melodrama with, with Clark Gable playing a bad guy. So, so you know, you didn't need real bad guys playing themselves. You had, you know, film industry had evolved to the point where of course you had Clark Gable, you had real actors. So as I say, there was just this little slim period of history where this could happen. So there were two other outlaws that became movie stars. One was Al Jennings and the other was Emmett Dalton. Al Jennings was not really a much of an outlaw. He, he was, he tried robbing banks. Somebody called him the most inept outlaw ever because he tried to rob a train. And he's riding along the side of the train and he pulls his gun and tells the conductor to, to stop the train. This conductor just looked at him and kind of laughed and you know, hit the steam and speeded away. And the only trainee could rob was one that was stopped to take on water. But he was a really a great racontour and, and so eventually the Saturday Evening Post does a whole profile of his life, turns into a book. Then you know, at the very beginning of silent filmmaking they say hey, we want to make a movie out of your book. It was called Beating Back. So he was really the first star. He starred as himself in Beating Back. Emmett Dalton is the only survivor of the Dalton gang. They had tried to pull off a double bank robbery in Coffeyville, Kansas in 1892. Everyone in the gang was killed but him. He was captured, sent to prison for 15 years. He comes out, he's a 34 year old paunchy man with, with gun, gunshot wounds. The city of Coffeeville wants to create a, a publicity campaign and, and they, so they want to recreate the Coffeeville bank robbery from years ago because the guy in town just bought a new motion picture camera and he becomes a consultant on that. He helps write on it and then, then the next iter it's so popular. Not, not the civic part of this promotional ad, but the, the bank robbery part is so popular. So they decide to make a emotion picture out of it and he em Dalton doesn't star in the first one, but then he stars as himself in the next version. They just keep creating new versions and, and then eventually one version he not only plays himself, but he plays two of his brothers. So. So yeah, there were two other outlaws besides Henry Starr that, that became matinee idols.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Okay, that definitely is a very narrow path and moment for this to happen. Is Henry Star also playing himself or sort of outlaws like himself that that's what the niche is, right, for him to become a film star?

[Mark Archuleta]

Yeah, so he, you know, he gets out of Oklahoma State Penitentiary in 1919 and you know, since he's been incarcerated, the motion picture industry has exploded. It's just, it's been. Been enormous. And so he swamped with offers to become a movie star because, you know, at the time, you know, one of the talk top box office stars was William as Hart, who was, you know, a Shakespearean trained actor. And the pitch to Henry Starr was, you know, people want authenticity, you know that, and that's what you are. And, and Henry Starr was also handsome, charming, he was very bright. People really enjoyed his company. So he had the charisma to be a movie star. So the first film that he makes is called A Debtor to the Law and it's really his life story. So he is playing himself, recreating the biggest moments, you know, the biggest bank robberies and things in his life. But he also wanted to explain why he became an outlaw. And, and so he addresses, you know, the deputy marshal system and being falsely accused of crimes and you know, and ultimately the message, hey, you know kids, crime doesn't pay. That, that was his idea.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

And was he successful in achieving this? Was he successfully received as a film star?

[Mark Archuleta]

Well, the, he probably was probably one of the most incidents of bad timing in history. So his movie comes out in 1919 and that was the same year that prohibition had passed. So the Women's Christian Temperance Union having a tremendous success with this, they were done. And so they needed something new to focus on. And so they took up the cause of film censorship and how the motion picture industry was corrupting the, the youth. And so Henry Starr coming out and being a, an ex con, making a movie about his life while he was a real target. So they were pressuring lawmakers to pass laws not only in the state of Oklahoma, but nationally to have a censorship board. And particularly the law was written to prevent Henry Star himself from being able to show motion pictures. So the theater owners in Oklahoma, of course are frightened. They certainly don't want either a state or a federal board of censorship preventing them. They didn't want every movie that comes in to the state to go through a board of censors who could decide what they could show in their theaters. So they agreed. They said, look, we, we will not show any bandit pictures. We will not show Henry movie. So just right out of the gate, his you know, he finishes motion picture and there, most of the movie theaters will not show it. So he. The one nice thing about the era at the time is like every little town had its own movie theater. Even if it was just a. A sheet pinned to a wall, as long as they had a projector, people. There was just people working crazy about motion pictures at the time. I mean, it's kind of hard to conceive, but people used to go every day of the week. If there was something new to see, they would go every day of the week. So, so, you know, he, he hired somebody to drive the film cans from town to town and he. Sometimes he had. They actually had to meet with the city council to approve it because, you know, they didn't want to corrupt their kids. So it was shown. It was in Texas and across Oklahoma and Kansas and in Arkansas.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

And did people like it?

[Mark Archuleta]

Well, yeah, one, one review in a town where they had the, the ministers and the city council, you know, approve it. They had to watch it beforehand before unleashing this film on the. And the youth said no. It actually, it was. Had a good moral message. And, and Henry Starr got good reviews for his acting. And you know, Henry Starr was, was told, look, if you can make one more picture, you know, that. Where you can really demonstrate, you know, your charisma and your appeal, you know, you could punch your ticket to Hollywood. So he did want to make another motion picture.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

But.

[Mark Archuleta]

Well, if. If anybody is familiar with the way Hollywood works even today, getting financing for your motion picture is not easy. So he did go around trying to raise financing. What one of his pitches was to the Claremore Commercial Club. And Claremore at the time was very famous for their radium baths, which were healing waters that bubbled to the surface and smelled like rotten eggs. Sounds very appealing. And it wasn't actually radium, but they thought that was a great exotic name. So there were all these radium bath houses. It was the big industry at the time. So he, he went to the Commercial Club, which was made mostly of. Of bankers, which might have been the wrong audience right there. And he pitched the idea of his second motion picture. And in this movie, he wasn't going to be playing himself, he. But he, he was going to be playing a bank robber. So, you know, not. Not much of an artistic stretch, but it was kind of interesting to see that, you know, he was moving beyond his own life story and actually telling just more traditional western adventure stories. And in this story, he was going to be an injured bank robber on the lam he lands in Claremore and, and hides out with a doctor friend of his who, who gives him the radium waters and, and he's cured. So it was supposed to be, you know, good for the town because it would advertise radium baths and, and, and good for him because he would be able to make another motion picture. But they, they were waffling on the decision. And Henry Starr was also accumulating debts through gambling. So he, you know, he wanted to reinvent himself, you know, even in this idea of the American myth of reinvention. And he could do that through motion pictures. So he was really desperate to do that and be able to, to move to Hollywood. He, you know, he. The message of his earlier film, A Debtor to the Law, was that he was reformed and, and that crime does not pay. But pushed to the brink, he always knew where money was kept. So he decided to rob one last bank.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Fateful decision. How did that go?

[Mark Archuleta]

Well, you know, I don't know that I want to give that away.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Maybe in broad strokes. What happens to Henry Starr?

[Mark Archuleta]

Well, let's. Let's just say things did not work out in his favor, and that's probably why a lot of people don't know him as a motion picture star.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Yeah, no, fair enough. What happened to that one film he made? Could it still be watched now?

[Mark Archuleta]

It is unfortunately, lost to history. I'm. I'm always hoping that somebody finds a can of film in their, you know, great granddad's shed. You hear about this all the time. Even last year, all of a film that they thought was lost was uncovered and, and has been restored. So my hope is always there. It didn't come from a major motion picture studio, so there weren't a lot of prints to begin with, so the likelihood isn't great. But over the years, I've collected the lobby cards that still exist, the press packet on how they marketed it, additional photos there, there's some interviews, like with the director of the film and people that were on the motion picture. So in this book, I really try to recreate what the film would have looked like had you. You been able to see it. And then, you know, what's interesting is to compare how his life is refracted through the prism of a motion picture camera.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Is there anything you want to tell us about what you figured out about his life and how it was pieced together? I suppose this is the part of the book that most seemed to me what you described. The introduction where you called the book, quote, a hunt for lost Treasure and A Detective Story. Kind of this piece of trying to figure out what would this film have looked like and how did this relate to his life? Seemed to be kind of the most aspect of that. Is there any details of it or anything that kind of particularly intrigued you as you pieced it together?

[Mark Archuleta]

Well, I was always curious when I would see the, the, the poster for a Debtor to the Law. And it was hand painted, right? It was probably taken from a photo, but they did a drawing and then hand painted it in color. And I didn't understand why he had sandy blonde hair and rosy cheeks in the poster because he was, you know, part Cherokee. And photos, he, he certainly represented as, as Cherokee with dark hair and, and dark complexion, dark eyes. And it, and it seemed that the marketer, the marketing of the film, they were trying to pass him off as white. And I didn't really understand that. And, but then, you know, as you do a little more research, you realize I, I realized that the film was shot mostly in Tulsa in 1919 and 1920 and that means that it was filmed in the same environment that would lead to the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. So you realize that that was sort of the, the socio political environment under which this film was made. And you can see it in that aspect as I'm talking about with the, with the movie poster where he was presented as white, but also in the casting of a, of a real life character, Crawford Goldsby, who is known as Cherokee Bill, Henry Starr, when he's on death row with Cherokee Bill. Cherokee Bill, you knows that the, the gallows, his date with the gallows is quickly approaching. And so he gets someone to sneak in a gun to him and he tries to escape. There's a riot, he kills a guard and Henry Starr sort of quells the riot and saves the lives of the, of the other guards. But when that is recreated on film, the character of Cherokee Bill is portrayed by a white man, whereas in reality he was a mixed race, black and white, but really presented as black. So you know, when you go back and you realize that this was in Tulsa under Jim Crow laws, you could see where they would not have wanted the races mixing on a movie set. And so, you know, an obviously historically black man was portrayed by a white man.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Yeah, that's definitely a really interesting thing to figure out kind of what's happening in the film and what's happening around it too. So thank you for sharing that particular detail with us. What are you hoping that readers take away from this overall investigation that you've done to reconstruct Henry Starr and his life and escapades?

[Mark Archuleta]

Well, I think there's a lot of different levels. I mean, I think that it. That his journey shows how much an environment can impact the life of a child and the direction that they go in. I mean, I think in terms of the. The prison system that you can see that that recidivism is high if there's not support, you know, not placed in a. In a community where, you know, they can find a different path, a sort of, you know, sort of the more serious bent. But I think that in other ways, I just really would like people to see how crazy life can be sometimes. You know, that, that the fact that a guy that. That began his life robbing banks on horseback does his last crime as, you know, escaping in an automobile and, and in between all of that was the invention of the motion picture camera. And that just. There's just so many quirky things in life. And that Henry Starr was. Was just a really charming, intelligent man that had he began, given different opportunities, who knows what he might have become?

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Yeah, who knows? Certainly a lot that happened in his life despite not being able to get what he wanted for much of it. And a fascinating excavation to figure all of this out. And obviously, as you told us at the beginning, something you've been intrigued by for quite a long time. So can I ask what's next now that the book is out?

[Mark Archuleta]

Well, I'm. I'm going immediately. I'm going on a book signing tour in Oklahoma and Arkansas. I'm actually going to Bentonville and having an event there. They're actually a pretty big event that's on October 2nd. And then I'm going to Fort Smith where he was on death row for an event there. And then that's on the 4th, Portsmith, Arkansas. And then I'm hitting just all the different towns that he lived in. Oklahoma, Stroud, Oklahoma, in particular, where he did the double bank robbery. Who. The funny thing about these towns that had bank robberies, it's the most exciting thing in their entire history. And so they're actually very excited to, to, you know, have their history come alive. But, you know, even in Henry Starr's time. So in 1915, he pulls off the double bank robbery in Stroud, Oklahoma. He's captured and, you know, they. They move him to a law office, you know, put him in a bed where he's recovering. And the town is swirling with. With cries to lynch him. And he goes to prison. He comes back later with motion picture cameras and the town loves him. They want, they're fighting to be extras in his motion picture. And he casts all the real people from the original bank robbery in it. So it's just kind of funny about the intersection of. Of. Of crime and celebrity and notoriety. It's even happening today. So that's what I'm doing on my book tour. You know, my goal has been trying to make this into either a motion picture or maybe a limited series. And so, you know, taking this around, pitching it, and, and that's what I'm hoping ultimately, that this becomes a. A film or a TV series where even more people learn about this crazy story and how. How strange life can be sometimes.

[Dr. Miranda Melcher]

Well, anyone who wants more. More details from this can, of course, read the book we've been discussing titled the Real Thrilling Events of Bank Robber Henry Star, published by the University of North Texas Press in 2025. Mark, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

[Mark Archuleta]

Oh, this was a real pleasure. I'm, I'm. I'm so excited that you invited me to come on your show. Sa.