Guthrie, Okla., Dec. 23-(AP)-
Miss Lucille Mulhall, the "original cowgirl" of the stage, was killed in an automobile-truck collison Sunday. She was 56 years old.

The accident occurred near her ranch home, to which she retired in 1917, after successful tours of America and Europe.

The car in which she was riding was driven by Jean Breezley, 45, of Guthrie, who also was killed.

Both Theodore Roosevelt and Will Rogers once called Miss Mulhall "the best horsewoman in America." Rogers wrote that "my show career dates from the time I first ran into the Coloenl (Zack Mulhall) in 1899 at St. Loouis. He was in charge of a riding and roping contest. Lucille was just a little kid that year, but she was riding and running her pony all over the place, and that was incidentally her start, too.

"It was not only her start, but it was the direct start of what has since come to be known as the cowgirl."

She once won a bet with Roosevelt by running down a lobo wolf, roping it from the saddle, and killing it with a stirrup iron.

Miss Mulhall retired from the stage in 1917 and, after a divorce from her second husband, the late Tom Burnett, Texas rancher and oil man, in 1922, she resided at the old Mulhall ranch, now reduced to a homestead.

Her first husband was Martin van Bergen, a noted baritone, from whom she was divorced. They had one child, Logan, who now is living in Santa Monica, Calif.