BOWLING GREEN, Mo.– Pike County native Jack Daugherty never got to see his final film. The actor and stuntman committed suicide a month before “The Main Event” was released on June 22, 1938.

He was born Virgil Ashley Dougherty in Bowling Green on Nov. 16, 1895. He later changed the second letter in his last name to “a” and used the more regal-sounding first name “Jack.” The family moved to California when Daugherty was young. He appeared in Broadway musicals before making his first film in 1915. Upon returning from service with the Marines during World War I, the actor picked up where he’d left off.

Daugherty had known actress Barbara La Marr since she was a dancer in Chicago, but did not fall head-over-heels until they met again in Hollywood in 1921. The six-foot-one-inch, freckle-faced, red-headed Missouri boy had a rough-edged talent, and was courageous to the point that some might call crazy.

In the days before computerized camera tricks, Daugherty once was captured jumping from an airplane onto a motorcycle. He would astonish colleagues during filming breaks by doing a hand stand from the saddle of his trotting horse.

Daugherty eventually grew to resent La Marr’s fame, and the pair separated. Though there’s disagreement, they apparently were still legally married when she died of tuberculosis at age 29 on Jan. 30, 1926.

Daugherty married actress Virginia Brown Faire in 1927, but they were divorced two years later. He continued to make films with such stars as Bob Hope, Spencer Tracy, W.C. Fields, Gary Cooper, Janet Gaynor and Ralph Bellamy.

Alcohol abuse, legal problems and unpaid debts took a mounting toll. On May 16, 1938, Daugherty died of self-inflicted carbon monoxide poisoning. He was 42.

In the featured image, Jack Daugherty is photographed with Barbara La Marr.