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Outlaw Silent Film Star
Real-life robber Henry Starr played himself in a re-creation of bank robberies in the 1919 silent film, A Debtor to the Law.
A member of the Starr family of criminals, he was distantly related to Belle Starr’s husband Sam. He famously gained a pardon from President Teddy Roosevelt, after he helped disarm Crawford “Cherokee Bill” Goldsby during an attempted prison outbreak, only to return to bank robbery and end up back in jail.
He made the movie the year he got out. Acting did not take hold; he died while robbing a bank in 1921.
Henry Starr
One of the least remembered outlaws of the American West, Henry Starr grew up into a life of crime. He started out stealing horses, but eventually moved on to several bank robberies in the early 1900s and even murder. He is believed to be the first bank robber to use a car as a getaway. Starr claimed to have stolen over $60,000 throughout his career, and before his death he claimed to have stored a large loot stash somewhere that “no one would find in a million years.” It is said the treasure was buried near the Cimarron River in Stevens County, Kansas, but no one has found Starr’s mystery loot yet.
About "A Debtor to the Law"
The film's leading man, Henry Starr, led a gang of bank robbers in Oklahoma at the turn of the century. In March of 1915 they hatched a plan to rob two banks in the town of Stroud at the same time. The plan went awry when a local youth, 17-year-old Paul Curry, figured out what was going on, grabbed a gun and shot Starr, then picked off another gang member. Lawmen captured the rest of the gang, and they were all eventually sent to prison. When Starr was released almost five years later, he got the idea to make a film of the bungled robbery. He attracted some investors and went back to Stroud to film it, playing himself, using townspeople - including the actual tellers he had robbed - as extras and even hiring Curry, the man who shot him. The film reportedly made money, but Starr was cheated out of his share by his business partners. Two years later he was shot to death in Arkansas while trying to rob a bank.
Source: IMDB
More on Henry Starr
A Debtor to the Law, US lobby card. 1919