Saddlebag Dispatches—Winter, 2016

73 in 1950. Cameron Mitchell played the lawman in an episode of Alias Smith and Jones with Bill Fletcher as Doc. Ron Hayes made four appearances as Wyatt Earp on the Bat Masterson Show, that starred Gene Barry. The crew of the starship Enterprise and first incarnation of Doctor Who have had adventures with Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday.

Gerald Mohr played the gunfighting dentist in season one of Maverick and Peter Breck took over the role for seasons four and five. Jack Kelly, who played Bart Maverick on the Maverick series, played Doc in an episode of The High Chaparral in 1967.

Randy Quaid played Doc in the TV movie Purgatory, making him and Dennis the only brothers to play Holiday. Willie Nelson played Doc in the TV movie Stagecoach.

The actual gunfight took place on October 26th 1881 in the vacant lot adjacent to the Ok Corral’s rear entrance.

The early movies all had Ike Clanton dying in the shootout with the exception of Hour of the Gun, which had Wyatt Earp killing him in Mexico. Ike Clanton was killed by a lawman while rustling cattle, six years after the gunfight at the OK Corral. Several movies have Wyatt returning to Tombstone years after the gunfight, this never happened. When Wyatt Earp left Arizona, he never returned to Tombstone.

Very few people in the United States knew of Wyatt Earp until the first movie in 1923, and the Stuart Lake book that was written in 1931. Wyatt did attract national attention when he refereed the Bob Fitzsimmons and Tom Sharkey heavyweight fight on December second in 1896. Wyatt stopped the fight and awarded Sharkey the win after a controversial low blow by Fitzsimmons, that many spectators say never occurred. One report stated that Wyatt had bet a great deal of money on Sharkey. Wyatt had previously refereed fights under the London Prize Ring Rules but not under the Marquis of Queensbury rules.

Doctor John Henry Holiday died in Glenwood Springs, Colorado on November 8th, 1887. He was 36 years old. Wyatt Berry Stamp Earp died in Los Angeles, California, on January 13th, 1929 at 80 years of age. Both of these men helped shape the west and their legacy lives on in movies and television.

A persistent rumor concerns the final movie that Wyatt acted as technical advisor. It was Hangman House in 1928. A young John Wayne had his first on screen appearance in that movie and once told Hugh O’Brian that he based his walk and mannerisms in the movies on what he observed from Wyatt Earp. At the end of the movie Tombstone, narrator Robert Mitchum discussed Wyatt Earp’s funeral in Los Angeles. It’s true that William S. Hart and Tom Mix were among his pallbearers, and that Tom Mix wept.

—Terry Alexander is a western, science fiction and horror writer with many publishing credits to his name. He and his wife, Phyllis, live on a small farm near Porum, Oklahoma