Eva Novak

As a fetching, shapely silent screen co-star, Eva Novak would be best known for her early work as cowboy Tom Mix's love interest in ten of his popular westerns. Although she sparked a number of florid dramas and light comedies with other top actors of the day, in retrospect it was with Mix with whom she would be memorably partnered. Born on Valentine's Day in St. Louis, Missouri in 1898, Barbara Eva Novak was one of a bevy of beauties who was able to parlay her wholesome good looks into a career. The daughter of Joseph, an immigrant from Bohemia, and Barbara Novak, Eva began as a Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty and first began in comedy for L-KO Company with the shorts Roped Into Scandal (1917) and Hearts and Flour (1917). Two years later she advanced to full length features and was partnered with Tom Mix in such westerns as The Speed Maniac (1919), The Feud (1919), The Daredevil (1920), Desert Love (1920), The Rough Diamond (1921), Trailin' (1921), Sky High (1922) and Chasing the Moon (1922). She also appeared opposite cowboy icon William S. Hart in a couple of his rugged oaters, and was occasionally allowed more versatility in a series of enjoyable comedies and dramas. It was cowboy star Mix who taught the agile Novak how to perform her own stunts in those western adventures and she proved quite good at it until 1921, when she married William Reed (1894-1944), an assistant director and stuntman of his own, who insisted she stop the dangerous tricks. Come the advent of sound, Eva's popularity faded, finishing out her career in Australia with her husband. She returned occasionally to film and sometime TV but nearly always in minor, unbilled character parts until the late 1960s when she retired altogether. Eva died of pneumonia in Woodland Hills, California, at age 90. Older sister Jane Novak also had a formidable career in silent films.