TYLER, Tom

(1903–1954)

   Born Vincent Markowski in New York, Tom Tyler had a long career as a cowboy star in low-budget Westerns from the silent erainto the 1930s. Always good-looking in a cowboy costume, he usually worked the bottom rung of the Western film industry with poverty rowstudio productions. But late in his career he did land serious character roles. As the oily gunman Luke Plummer in Stagecoach (1939), Tyler played foil to John Wayne’s Ringo Kid. The shootout at the saloon was perhaps Tyler’s greatest moment in the movies. While his Western career disintegrated in the 1930s to playing Captain Marvel serials, he did manage to end with significant roles in The Younger Brothers, I Shot Jesse James, and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, all in 1949. Tom Tyler’s last days were spent in television Westerns.