Prominent Poles
Tom Tyler (born Vincent Markowski ) Polish- American actor in silent and sound motion pictures.
Born: August 9, 1903, Port Henry, New York, USA
Died: May 1, 1954, Hamtramck, Michigan USA
Early days. His father was Frank Mark(owski) Sr., a factory worker; mother- Helen Montvilos (Montville). Vincent had two brothers- Frank and Joseph, and two sisters- Maliane (Molly) and Katherine. The family lived originally probably in Witherbee.
Tyler was brought to the Hamtramck area by his father when he was 15 years old (around 1918). The teenager went to work in a factory also, but not for long - he ran away from home at 16 and worked his way west.
Movie career. He went through a number of strenuous jobs (sailor, boxer lumberjack, coal miner, etc.) before landing in Los Angeles and getting work as a movie extra and stuntman. His good looks and athletic physique (he was a champion weight-lifter) led to an offer to play the lead in a series of silent Westerns, which he filmed under the stage name Bill Burns. During a lengthy screen career that spanned nearly thirty years, he starred in about 90 westerns and 7 serials, and did bit parts and supporting roles in dozens of other films. In 1925, FBO signed him and changed his name to Tom Tyler. As the Thirties progressed, however, he began to face stiff competition in the arena of B-Westerns and started taking supporting roles in larger budget pictures such as Stagecoach (1939), Gone with the Wind (1939) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.(1949). In 1940, he was the Mummy "Kharis" in The Mummy's Hand, cast in large part because the producers thought his sharp features and dark eyes matched those of Boris Karloff enough that new footage of Tyler could be intercut with old footage of Karloff. He was also the boxing referee in Abbott and Costello's Buck Private. In 1941, he took on perhaps his most famous role as the eponymous hero of Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941). This serial and several others brought him new fame, but within three years of playing Captain Marvel, Tyler's career was almost erased when his health failed. Rheumatoid arthritis crippled him and he was reduced to occasional minor supporting roles, often for John Ford, for whom he had worked in a number of films prior to his illness In 1943, he starred in The Phantom, based on a famous comic strip. It was Tom Tyler's last major screen role. Nearly destitute, he returned to live with his sister Katherine Slepski in the Detroit area and died there of heart failure at the age of 50 in 1954.
This article uses, among others, material from the Wikipedia article "Tom Tyler" licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. :
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Tom Tyler home page
Tom Tyler 'Starpulse" biography
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