- In the 1950s he was out of work and reduced to working as a Las Vegas casino greeter and performing in carnivals in order to handle the enormous debts that mounted after a series of cancer operations.
- In 1933 Gibson, an avid pilot, entered the National Air Races. His plane crashed and he was seriously injured, which kept him hospitalized and off the movie screen for several months.
- Won the title "World's All Around Champion Cowboy" at age 20.
- Earned the nickname "Hoot" as a messenger for the Owl Drug Co.
- He was racing against fellow cowboy star Ken Maynard when he crashed the J-5 Swallow he was flying.
- During World War I he served in the Tank Corps of the U.S. Army.
- Learned to ride rodeo bucking horses from a Cayuse Indian named Gilbert Minthorn.
- His horse was called Mutt Buck.
- In the early '50s he found a new audience among young TV viewers, as many of his western feature films were released to television.
- In January 1934 it was announced in industry trade papers that he had been signed by Warner Bros. to make a movie in England at Warner's Teddington Studios, to be entitled "The Cowboy of London". The movie was never made, possibly due to Gibson's injuries from his plane crash in 1933.
- Served as Parade Marshal of the 1925 Calgary Stampede Parade, riding through town alongside of stampede officials Guy Weadick, Ray Knight and Addison Day.
- Inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1979.
- Like most real cowboys, the screen Gibson seldom wore a side gun, and when he did he stuffed into the top of his pants. The holsters worn by almost every movie cowboy did not become popular until the late 1880's.
- Profiled in "Eighty Silent Film Stars: Biographies and Filmographies of the Obscure to the Well Known (2 Volume Set)" by George A. Katchmer (2012).
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