Doc Holliday Ooooooooooh The outlaw man's roar Ooooooooooh The outlaw man Filled with bug juice The moonshine in his hand Hot headed with a temperament The speediest, deadliest man with a gun A bloody gambler but a gentleman dog A frontier vagabond who charms all the dames. Doc Holliday is a figure from the Old West, a gunman and a gambler who was part of the legendary shootout at the O.K. Belle Starr gained notoriety as an outlaw on the western edge of.
In the opening scenes of the movie 'Tombstone,' Wyatt Earp asks his brother Virgil if he happened to see anything of Doc Holliday while he was in Prescott on his way to Tombstone. Virgil replies, 'Yeah. He had a streak when we left, him and Kate.' The scene soon cuts away to show Holliday sitting at cards in a saloon, with a monumental painting of a nude woman on the wall behind him and his elegantly dressed Hungarian mistress, Kate Elder, at his side. On the green baize table in front of him are the scattered paraphernalia of poker: paperboards, poker chips and silver coins, a gold pocket watch. And across the table, his anger seething, sits gambler Ed Bailey who is clearly losing this hand.
'Why, Ed Bailey,' says Doc in his best gentlemanly Southern drawl while he gives a tap to the pearl-handled pistol in his pocket, 'are we cross?'
'Them guns don't scare me,' replies Ed Bailey darkly. '‘Cause without them guns you ain't nothin' but a skinny lunger.'
Bitstarz com scammers. Walter Huston, Actor: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. For many years Walter Huston had two passions: his career as an engineer and his vocation for the stage. In 1909 he dedicated himself to the theatre, and made his debut on Broadway in 1924. In 1929 he journeyed to Hollywood, where his talent and ability made him one of the most respected actors in the industry. He won a Best Supporting. The American West is famous for its notorious outlaws — who robbed banks, trains, and stagecoaches — as well as bold lawmen who chased them down. But none were quite like Doc Holliday. He wasn't as lawless as many others, but engaged in his fair share of gunslinging and gambling.
'Ed, what an ugly thing to say. I abhor ugliness. Does this mean we're not friends anymore? You know, Ed, if I thought you weren't my friend, I just don't think I could bear it.' And to show his cordial intent, Doc pulls out his pistols and lays them down on the table with the coins and the poker chips. 'There. Now we can be friends again.'
Ed Bailey knifing scene from the movie 'Gunfight at the OK Corral'
But the words only enrage Ed Bailey, who lunges across the table at Doc – and gets a knife slid into his side by the smiling doctor while Kate pulls a derringer to cover their retreat. It's one of the classic scenes from the legend of Doc Holliday: the knifing of Ed Bailey in a Fort Griffin, Texas, saloon – only this time set in the Arizona Territory capital of Prescott. The change of venue was just a convenience for the sake of the film, letting the audience know two important things in this opening scene of Doc Holliday: he was a cold-blooded killer and he passed through Prescott on his way to Tombstone. And as long as those two things are true, does it really matter where the knifing happened?
What matters is that the knifing of Ed Bailey likely didn't happen anywhere – not in Fort Griffin, Texas, nor in Prescott, Arizona, nor any of the other towns Holliday visited in his Western travels. In fact, the story of the Ed Bailey knifing was never even told during Holliday's lifetime. The first appearance of that story comes nine years after Doc Holliday's death, in an 1896 article in the San Francisco Enquirer. The article claims to be an interview with Wyatt Earp, who was in San Francisco at the time, and tells a gory tale about Doc slicing up Ed Bailey and leaving him for dead. Problem is, the story as told is so flowery and wildly descriptive that it's hard to believe it came from the famously laconic and spare-on-words Wyatt Earp. And it may have been this very article that Wyatt was referencing years later, when he said:
'Of all the nonsensical guff which has been written around my life, there has been none more inaccurate or farfetched than that which has dealt with Doc Holliday. After Holliday died, I gave a San Francisco newspaper reporter a short sketch of his life. Apparently the reporter was not satisfied. The sketch appeared in print with a lot of things added that never existed outside the reporter's imagination…'
Was the Ed Bailey knifing one of those imaginary incidents? As far as researchers can determine, poor Ed Bailey himself never existed, as his name appears nowhere in historical record. And how did Doc Holliday manage to kill a man who didn't exist?
'Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal': Some truth, lots of legend
But although the Ed Bailey story is likely just the imaginings of a reporter looking for a good story, when author Stuart Lake included it in his 1931 historical novel, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, the story became legend. Now it's one of the pillars of the Doc Holliday myth, and even though the pillars are sunk into very shallow ground the incident is used to show how Holliday had turned from a gentleman to a killer. It's a convenient example – but not real history.
The problem with legends is that if we believe they're true, we stop looking for the truth. And the truth of Doc Holliday's life is even more intriguing than the legend. As his cousin Mattie said, 'He was a much different man than the one of Western legend.' The real Doc Holliday is waiting to be found, but to find him we have to look beyond the legends – and the ghost of Ed Bailey.
Fun Links:
'Tombstone' Movie Trailer
'Tombstone' The Knifing of Ed Bailey
Prescott's Whiskey Row
Fort Griffin, Texas
Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal
Click the book cover below for more info or to order.
A True West reader recently wrote: 'While surfing the Internet recently looking for photos of Doc Holliday I found several claiming to be him however on many the facial features didn't match up. What gives? Are there some bogus ones out there?'
Yep, there sure are. In fact there are only two photos of Doc as an adult with real provenance; the graduation pic from dental school in Philadelphia when Doc was twenty and the one taken in Prescott in 1879.
The most common photo claiming to be Doc comes from Bat Masterson who, in his 1907 'Human Life' magazine article, ran a photo he claimed was Holliday. Josie Earp and 'Big Nose' Kate Harony also claimed it was Doc.
Doc Holliday Marshall
However, Karen Holliday Tanner, a relative of Doc's, wrote an article on the subject of Doc Holliday photographs in the 'Quarterly of the National Association for Outlaw and Lawman History' several years ago. She does not accept the Human Life photo and explains why. Her strongest point is that he has a dropping ear lobe in that photo that does not appear in the only two photos that came from the family. It's believed the original of the Human Life photo no longer exists.
Photo expert Bob McCubbin adds: 'I agree with Karen Holliday Tanner, who believes the only two clearly authentic photos of Doc (other than two from the family as a baby in his mother's arms and one about one or two years old) are the head and shoulders 'graduation photo' taken in Philadelphia, and the full standing cabinet card taken in Prescott, Arizona. Both of these came from the family, and the originals now belong to collectors. They both are in Tanner's book.'
.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20200722135538 "Was Doc Holliday An Outlaw")
Doc Holliday Ooooooooooh The outlaw man's roar Ooooooooooh The outlaw man Filled with bug juice The moonshine in his hand Hot headed with a temperament The speediest, deadliest man with a gun A bloody gambler but a gentleman dog A frontier vagabond who charms all the dames. Doc Holliday is a figure from the Old West, a gunman and a gambler who was part of the legendary shootout at the O.K. Belle Starr gained notoriety as an outlaw on the western edge of.
In the opening scenes of the movie 'Tombstone,' Wyatt Earp asks his brother Virgil if he happened to see anything of Doc Holliday while he was in Prescott on his way to Tombstone. Virgil replies, 'Yeah. He had a streak when we left, him and Kate.' The scene soon cuts away to show Holliday sitting at cards in a saloon, with a monumental painting of a nude woman on the wall behind him and his elegantly dressed Hungarian mistress, Kate Elder, at his side. On the green baize table in front of him are the scattered paraphernalia of poker: paperboards, poker chips and silver coins, a gold pocket watch. And across the table, his anger seething, sits gambler Ed Bailey who is clearly losing this hand.
'Why, Ed Bailey,' says Doc in his best gentlemanly Southern drawl while he gives a tap to the pearl-handled pistol in his pocket, 'are we cross?'
'Them guns don't scare me,' replies Ed Bailey darkly. '‘Cause without them guns you ain't nothin' but a skinny lunger.'
Bitstarz com scammers. Walter Huston, Actor: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. For many years Walter Huston had two passions: his career as an engineer and his vocation for the stage. In 1909 he dedicated himself to the theatre, and made his debut on Broadway in 1924. In 1929 he journeyed to Hollywood, where his talent and ability made him one of the most respected actors in the industry. He won a Best Supporting. The American West is famous for its notorious outlaws — who robbed banks, trains, and stagecoaches — as well as bold lawmen who chased them down. But none were quite like Doc Holliday. He wasn't as lawless as many others, but engaged in his fair share of gunslinging and gambling.
'Ed, what an ugly thing to say. I abhor ugliness. Does this mean we're not friends anymore? You know, Ed, if I thought you weren't my friend, I just don't think I could bear it.' And to show his cordial intent, Doc pulls out his pistols and lays them down on the table with the coins and the poker chips. 'There. Now we can be friends again.'
Ed Bailey knifing scene from the movie 'Gunfight at the OK Corral'
But the words only enrage Ed Bailey, who lunges across the table at Doc – and gets a knife slid into his side by the smiling doctor while Kate pulls a derringer to cover their retreat. It's one of the classic scenes from the legend of Doc Holliday: the knifing of Ed Bailey in a Fort Griffin, Texas, saloon – only this time set in the Arizona Territory capital of Prescott. The change of venue was just a convenience for the sake of the film, letting the audience know two important things in this opening scene of Doc Holliday: he was a cold-blooded killer and he passed through Prescott on his way to Tombstone. And as long as those two things are true, does it really matter where the knifing happened?
What matters is that the knifing of Ed Bailey likely didn't happen anywhere – not in Fort Griffin, Texas, nor in Prescott, Arizona, nor any of the other towns Holliday visited in his Western travels. In fact, the story of the Ed Bailey knifing was never even told during Holliday's lifetime. The first appearance of that story comes nine years after Doc Holliday's death, in an 1896 article in the San Francisco Enquirer. The article claims to be an interview with Wyatt Earp, who was in San Francisco at the time, and tells a gory tale about Doc slicing up Ed Bailey and leaving him for dead. Problem is, the story as told is so flowery and wildly descriptive that it's hard to believe it came from the famously laconic and spare-on-words Wyatt Earp. And it may have been this very article that Wyatt was referencing years later, when he said:
'Of all the nonsensical guff which has been written around my life, there has been none more inaccurate or farfetched than that which has dealt with Doc Holliday. After Holliday died, I gave a San Francisco newspaper reporter a short sketch of his life. Apparently the reporter was not satisfied. The sketch appeared in print with a lot of things added that never existed outside the reporter's imagination…'
Was the Ed Bailey knifing one of those imaginary incidents? As far as researchers can determine, poor Ed Bailey himself never existed, as his name appears nowhere in historical record. And how did Doc Holliday manage to kill a man who didn't exist?
'Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal': Some truth, lots of legend
But although the Ed Bailey story is likely just the imaginings of a reporter looking for a good story, when author Stuart Lake included it in his 1931 historical novel, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, the story became legend. Now it's one of the pillars of the Doc Holliday myth, and even though the pillars are sunk into very shallow ground the incident is used to show how Holliday had turned from a gentleman to a killer. It's a convenient example – but not real history.
The problem with legends is that if we believe they're true, we stop looking for the truth. And the truth of Doc Holliday's life is even more intriguing than the legend. As his cousin Mattie said, 'He was a much different man than the one of Western legend.' The real Doc Holliday is waiting to be found, but to find him we have to look beyond the legends – and the ghost of Ed Bailey.
Fun Links:
'Tombstone' Movie Trailer
'Tombstone' The Knifing of Ed Bailey
Prescott's Whiskey Row
Fort Griffin, Texas
Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal
Click the book cover below for more info or to order.
A True West reader recently wrote: 'While surfing the Internet recently looking for photos of Doc Holliday I found several claiming to be him however on many the facial features didn't match up. What gives? Are there some bogus ones out there?'
Yep, there sure are. In fact there are only two photos of Doc as an adult with real provenance; the graduation pic from dental school in Philadelphia when Doc was twenty and the one taken in Prescott in 1879.
The most common photo claiming to be Doc comes from Bat Masterson who, in his 1907 'Human Life' magazine article, ran a photo he claimed was Holliday. Josie Earp and 'Big Nose' Kate Harony also claimed it was Doc.
Doc Holliday Marshall
However, Karen Holliday Tanner, a relative of Doc's, wrote an article on the subject of Doc Holliday photographs in the 'Quarterly of the National Association for Outlaw and Lawman History' several years ago. She does not accept the Human Life photo and explains why. Her strongest point is that he has a dropping ear lobe in that photo that does not appear in the only two photos that came from the family. It's believed the original of the Human Life photo no longer exists.
Photo expert Bob McCubbin adds: 'I agree with Karen Holliday Tanner, who believes the only two clearly authentic photos of Doc (other than two from the family as a baby in his mother's arms and one about one or two years old) are the head and shoulders 'graduation photo' taken in Philadelphia, and the full standing cabinet card taken in Prescott, Arizona. Both of these came from the family, and the originals now belong to collectors. They both are in Tanner's book.'
In True West's Dan Harshberger's Interview in the January 2018 issue of True West, 'My Favorite Cover Design' he says, 'was the cover of the March 2004 cover, ‘the most famous photo of Doc Holliday' was such a strong image—too bad the photo was a fake!'
Who is this fake photo supposed to be?
The fake photo of Doc is a man named John Escapule. Oddly, he lived in Tombstone at the same time as Doc. Born in France 1856, he arrived Arizona in when he was twenty-one. He was hired by Ed Scheiffelin to haul lumber from the Huachuca Mountains. Later, he ventured into mining and ranching. He died in 1926 and is buried in the Tombstone Cemetery (not boot hill). His descendants still live in 'The Town Too Tough To Die.'
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