EARP, WYATT

EARP, Wyatt: translation

(1848–1929)

   Legend and numerous films detailing Wyatt Earp’s exploits usually contain the following elements: Earp was a tough lawman who tamed Dodge City with the help of his brothers, Virgil and Morgan, as well as famous deputy Bat Masterson. After taming Dodge, Earp and his brothers moved on to Tombstone, Arizona, where they tangled with the Clancys at the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Doc Holliday, a tubercular dentist and gunfighter, usually appears in movies about Earp. Among the many films starring the legend are Frontier Marshal (1939), with Randolph Scott; My Darling Clementine (1946), with Henry Fonda; Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), with Burt Lancaster; Tombstone (1993), with Kurt Russell; and Wyatt Earp (1994), with Kevin Costner.

   Like all legends, the Wyatt Earp story is open to scrutiny, and Earp himself perpetuated the mystery. He lived out his last years in California cultivating his legacy. He contracted with Stuart Lake on an authorized biography, the details of which have not stood the test of later research. Most of what early Hollywood took as history of the Earp era evidently came from the aging gunfighter’s personal stories. Some would argue that Hollywood’s version of the old West comes not so much from history as from perhaps the most influential historical consultant in film history, Wyatt Earp himself.