October 26 Birthday Wishes

H.B. Warner [1875 - 1958]
Fred Graham [1908 - 1979]
Jackie Coogan [1914 - 1984]

Howdy Manco!!

H.B.Warner began his film career in silent films back in 1900. He had already appeared in over 30 silent films, when Cecil.B.DeMille cast him in the leading role in the 1927 film, King Of Kings. This film propelled him to stardom. When the talkies came along, Warner was relegated to the roles of supporting actor, but still managed to appear in several classic films of note, such as .Mr Deeds Goes To Town, .Mr Smith Goes To Washington, It's A Wonderful life and his last acting role in the 1956 remake of, The Ten Commandments.

Fred Graham was a legendary stunt man in Hollywood and was the stunt double for many of Hollywood's biggest stars. He began his stunt career in 1934 in the film, Death On The Diamond and doubled for Clark Gable in Mutiny On The Bounty, For John Wayne in Angel And The Badman and North To Alaska. He was also the stunt double for Gregory Peck, Basil Rathbone, John Payne and many other celebrities in 144 films from 1934-1965. When he was not performing stunts, he was also a supporting actor in films like, The Dawn Parol, The Fighting Kentuckian, Wake Of The Red Witch, Demetrius And The Gladiators, Rio Bravo, and dozens of others, while also appearing in many of the 50's and 60's t.v. westerns like, Have Gun Will Travel, Lawman, Laramie and many other popular series. When he wasn't performing stunts, he was acting in many of the same films and t.v. series, he performed stunts in. He must have been a very busy man.

Actor Jackie Coogan's career was a series of up's and downs and highs and lows. His film career began when he was 5 years old and was cast in A Day's Pleasure by the legendary Charlie Chaplin. Coogan next appeared in another Charlie Chaplin film, The Kid, when when he was 7 years old. During this period of his life, he was one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood. After he turned 13, his career went into a downturn and when he was 21 and his father died and his mother remarried, he asked for the approx 4 million dollars he had earned as a child. His mother refused and the courts only awarded him 126.000.00 of his money. Because of this travesty, California passed the Coogan Bill, which requires that all monies earned by child actors, be placed in a fund until they are grown. Coogan continued to appear in films as a character actor, until 1952, when he snagged the role of Stoney Crockett in the 1952 t.v. series, Cowboy G-Men. During the early 60's, he was cast as Sgt. Barnes on the series, McKeever And The Colonel and in 1964 Jackie took on the role he will always be remembered for, that of Uncle Fester on the 1964-1966 series, The Adams Family, with John Astin and Carolyn Jones. After the series cancelled, Jackie began making guest appearances on many of the popular t.v. series all the way into the 80's. After the Adams Family, Jackie stayed busy in both film and t.v., until his last appearance in 1984.
A bit of trivia about Jackie Coogan!! During his younger days, he was married to the gorgeous pin up actress Betty Grable. Ole Uncle Fester must have been a bit better looking in his youth, huh??

Ed

Also today:

Dylan McDermott (1962-) Made his screen debut in the Vietnam War film Hamburger Hill, and later played in The Blue Iguana, Twister, The Cowboy Way, Texas Rangers (as Captain Leander McNelly), and most recently in The Campaign. He best known for his Golden Globe winning role as Bobby Donnell in the TV series The Practice.

Also: Well-regarded director Don Siegel, who helmed many Clint Eastwood films including Two Mules for Sister Sarah, Coogan's Bluff and The Beguiled. He also directed Duke Wayne's final movie, The Shootist.

Good call, Art. Siegel also directed Duel at Silver Creek with Audie Murphy, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Hell is for Heroes with Steve McQueen, Death of a Gunfighter with Richard Widmark, Dirty Harry, Charlie Varrick with Walter Matthau, Telefon with Charles Bronson, and Escape from Alcatraz.

I know this is the birthday lists for the day's celebration....but I just thought I would add that this is the 131rst anniversary of the dat that the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday murdered three cowboys (Billy Clanton, Tom & Frank McLaury) on that fateful day that has become known as the Gunfight at the OK Corral.....guess that sounds better than the murder outside Fly's Photography Shop.

Howdy Tom!!

Just watched an excellent investigation and reenactment of this fight, which was done by The Discovery Channel or The History Channel a few years ago. Since the alley the fight took place in, is no longer there, they found city plans and drawings for old Tombstone and determined the exact length and width of the alley and reconstructed it in exact detail, using the exact weapons used in the fight. They determined from the autopsy report, that the Coroner/.Dr took 12, ten gauge buckshot pellets out of the McLaury fella's chest, that "Doc" Holliday shot under the arm. They used the carcass of a pig to determine the exact distance a ten gauge shotgun would leave 12 buckshot pellets in a hole that you could cover with your hand. After several tries, they figured out that "Doc" was standing approx 21 feet from McLaury in order to get that shotgun pattern. This means that"Doc" was not standing in the alley, but was actually in the street, to the right and father back than the Earps. It also means that McLaury had his arm extended up and over the horse, in order to reach the rifle in it's scabbard on the other side of the horse. THIS ALSO MEANS THAT"Doc" SHOT AN UNARMED MAN!! Either Morgan or Virgil, later testified at the trial, he heard 2 clicks and this is the reason that he shouted out,"No, I don't want that". When the actor portraying "Doc" cocked the twin hammers of the old ten gauge in the walled alleyway, it became very obvious to everyone there and anyone watching, exacty who started this gunfight!! There is no mistaking the sound of those twin hammers. They are VERY LOUD. Also, using black powder cartridges in the firearms, it was easily understandable, how over 30 shots were fired, but only 8 bullets found their mark. In that small space, it became difficult to see VERY quickly, because of the huge amount of gunsmoke produced!! The bottom line, is that "Doc" Holliday started that gunfight when he cocked the hammers on that shotgun and when McLaury reached over the horse for his rifle, "Doc" shot him under the arm!!

Ed

I beg to differ with that, Ed. In an article in Wild West, Oct. 2012, the two clicks, according to the testimony of Virgil Earp, were when Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury drew their guns and cocked them, and then he threw up his hands, and yelled "I don't want that!" He then said Billy Clanton threw down full cocked, and then two shots were fired at the same time, the one shot being Billy Clanton's and the other being Wyatt's, who shot Frank McLaury in the stomach.

Howdy Tinhorn!!

Pard, you are obviously not familiar with the sound of a hammer being drawn back on a Colt .45. There are FOUR DISTINCT CLICKS, when you cock a Colt single action. Court testimony shows that he said he heard TWO CLICKS, NOT FOUR, OR EIGHT!! There was only ONE GUN on the premises that makes TWO CLICKS when the hammers are cocked one at a time and that was the 10 gauge double barreled shotgun that "Doc" Holliday was carrying. The investigators/reenactors used an actual 19th century double barreled 10 gauge shotgun and the hammers only made ONE click per hammer, when it was cocked. We know Johnny Behan lied, when he said that the Earps fired first and we know why. I'm sure that the Earps wanted to blame the 'Cowboys" for shooting first, but they gave it away with the testimony concerning the TWO CLICKS. Once again, there was only ONE GUN involved that makes that sound and it is MUCH louder that the sound of a Colt being cocked. When 'Doc' cocked those twin hammers, everybody there heard them and that's when the "cowboys" pulled their firearms. It is for this reason, that I say "Doc" started this fight and MAY have even fired the first shot. Let me be very clear here. What I'm saying is that not only did Johnny Behan lie, but also Virgil Earp lied in an attempt to shift the blame for this gunfight away from the low life gambler/drunk friend of Wyatt's. Legend has tried to make a hero of 'Doc" Holliday, but the cold hard facts say that he had given up his dental practice, because his patients couldn't stand his continual bloody coughing. He had become a drunken gambler, with a bad reputation, who hung out in saloons and was in fact a stone cold killer. It wouldn't have gone over well with the townfolk of Tombstone, to be told that this gunfight that resulted in the death of 3 men, was started by the drunk/gambler/killer companion of their Deputy Town Marshal, Wyatt Earp.

Ed

Ed, I am familiar with the sound of a Colt single action revolver being cocked, and I did state that those were words from Virgil Earp's testimony. But according to just about everything writen, coming from the testimony at the Spicer hearing from the Earps and by witnesses, with the exception of those who retracted their statements due to intimidation from the "Cowboy" faction, the first shots were fired by Billy Clanton and Wyatt Earp nearly simultaniously. Another article telling of this from the Oct. 2001 issue of Wild West:

http://www.historynet.com/ok-corral-a-gunfight-shrouded-in-mystery.htm

This is my brother Jim writing here........
I just want to add a few things taken from our personal research into the gunfight that ended in the death of my second cousin and the two McLaurys.
Late the night he arrived in town, Ike Clanton went into the Eagle Brewery for lunch. Doc Holliday followed him in and began abusing him. He tried to get Ike to fight, and asked him to draw his gun. Ike told him he had no gun. Holliday said Ike was too big a coward to leave his gun off. Ike claimed he looked around and saw Morgan Earp standing on the other side of the lunch counter. He also abused Ike and dared him to fight. Clanton went out of the house and saw Virgil Earp on the sidewalk just outside the door. Morgan Earp and Holliday follwed him out and continued to abuse him. They claimed he had been talking about Hollidayand the Earp party. Ike Clanton states: "Just about this time Wyatt Earp came up where I was. Morgan Earp told me if i was not heeled, when I came back on the street to be heeled. I walked off and asked them not to shoot me in the back." A half hour later Ike went to the Occidental saloon where he joined in an all night poker game with Tom McLaury, Johnny Behan, Virgil Earp and another person whose name is not known. When the game broke up at daylight, Ike saw Virgil take a pistol off his lap and stick it in his pants. He followed Virgil outside and told him that he thought Virgil "stood in with those parties that tried to murder me the night before. I told him if that was so, that I was in town." Ike got his pistol and Winchester rifle from the corral for he felt that the Earps and Holliday intended to murder him. About 1:00 pm Virgil and Morgan Earp came up behind him, Virgil striking him on the head with a pistol. Virgil then disarmed him and they brought him to Judge Wallace's court. While waiting for Wallace to arrive Wyatt Earp came in calling Ike a cattle thieving son of a bitch and handed Ike his rifle muzzle first, telling him to take it and make a fight. Virgil had his hand on his pistol and Morgan Earp stood behind Ike on a bench in the rear of the room. Ike stated, "I told them I did not want any of it that way. Wyatt Earp asked me where I wanted to fight, and as well as I remember I told him I would fight him anywhere or any way." When Judge Wallace arrived, Ike paid his twenty-five dollar fine and left unarmed. Ike Clanton later testified that he had made no worse threats against the Earp party than they did against him. It was mid-day of October 26 when Wyatt Earp approached Tom McLaury on Fourth Street and asked him if he was armed. When McLaury replied that he wasn't, Earp slapped him across the face and hit him twice on the head with his pistol, knocking him to the ground and possibly giving him a slight concussion. Mr. Bauer, a butcher, heard Wyatt Earp say as he walked away from McLaury, "I could kill the son on a bitch." Ike and Tom met their brothers down near the OK Corral and told them what had happened, and decided to leave town. The McLaury brothers were planning on visiting family out of state and had prepared to leave town, one of them carrying a good sum of money, which was later stolen while they were lying dead. Talk had arisen between some townspeople that there was going to be trouble between the Earps and the cowboys. Someone informed Sheriff Behan of the impending trouble and he went to the corral to speak with the Clantons and McLaurys. Meanwhile the Earp brothers met Doc Holliday, and Virgil being city marshal appointed them as special police to help assist him in 'legally' taking care of the Clanton party. After all, they knew that two of them were unarmed. Martha King, a housewife, was in Bauer's butcher shop on Fremont Street and saw the Earp party pass by. She said that Doc Holliday had a rifle under his coat that she could see as the coat would fly open. She heard one of the Earps tell Holliday, "Let them have it," Holliday replying, "All right." From our research we did, I assume the Earp that said this was Morgan. Sheriff Behan found both Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury to be unarmed. Billy Clanton had his pistol as did Frank McLaury, and they told Behan that they were leaving town and wanted no trouble. Frank added that he would not be disarmed as long as the Earps, who had been threatening them, were armed. At this point the Earps and Holliday appeared coming down the sidewalk on the south side of Fremont Street. The sheriff went down to stop them, saying not to go any further, that he was down there for the purpose of disarming the cowboys. They paid him no attention and walked on by. Behan caught up to them and told them, "Gentlemen, I am Sheriff of this county and I am not going to allow any trouble." They brushed him aside and walked on, Behan trying to reason with them as they approached the Clantons and McLaurys. Virgil called out, "Throw up your hands," as the Earp party leveled their weapons at them. Billy Clanton said, "Don't shoot me. I don't want to fight." Tom McLaury threw open his coat saying, "I'm not armed." While the cowboys stood with their hands raised above their heads, Wyatt Earp said, "You sons of bitches have been looking for a fight, and now you can have it!" Whenever Virgil said, "I don't want that," and whatever he meant by that, it was at the time the cowboys raised their hands in the air that the Earp crowd opened fired, Holliday blasting Tom McLaury and Morgan Earp shooting Billy Clanton. Ike Clanton, being unarmed, ran for safety through the side door of Fly's photography gallery. Nine bullets were lodged in the side of the building which were fired at him as he fled for safety. Billy Clanton being shot several times, once in the right wrist when his hands were raised, shifted his pistol to his left hand and fired, wounding both Virgil and Morgan Earp. Doc Holliday received a flesh wound from Frank McLaury and succeeded in killing McLaury on Fremont Street. In less than thirty seconds the fight was over. Billy Clanton lied in agony for a half hour before dying. After his death, Billy's sweetheart was invited to spend time on the California ranch of my great-great-great uncle Drury Clanton. Mining engineer Robert Lewis stated: "The McLaury boys and Clantons put their hands above their heads and the Earp crowd fired into them. My father was wild over what he saw and cried out, 'Thats cold blooded murder!' He wanted to take my shotgun and go into the scrap. I said, "This is nothing but a bunch of stage robbers splitting and killing one another to keep any evidence from getting out.' As a matter of fact, a few days after this killing of the McLaurys and Billy Clanton, I was one of three men appointed by a Citizens Committee to inform Wyatt Earp and his bunch that no more of this killing stuff must be pulled off inside the town limits, and if the Earp gang, or the cowboy gang either, killed innocent decent men in their warfare, the Committee would take a hand and they would have no trial either." R. F. Coleman, a miner, testified that Virgil Earp told him, referring to the Clantons and McLaurys, that he did not intend to disarm them. Coleman further testified that when the shooting started, "I don't know who fired the first two shots, but I had the impression it was from the road, and the Earp party were in the road." Laundry operator P. H. Fallehy testified that he overheard Virgil Earp say, "I will not arrest them, but I will kill them on sight." Texas John Slaughter, former Texas Ranger and later sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, stated that "if the Clantons and Mclaurys were looking for and expecting a fight like the Earps claimed, they could have used the rifles in the scabbards on the horses and picked them off before the Earps and Holliday were in pistol range." The Tucson newspaper sided against the Earps. The whole feud originated in the Benson Stage holdup when driver Bud Philpot was shot and killed. The driver had changed places with the shotgun guard, who was Bob Paul, an undercover investigator sent by Wells Fargo to investigate a shady Wells Fargo employee, Marshall Williams. Morgan Earp insisted that he was to ride shotgun that night, and Bob Paul would not let him. Holliday was one of the stage robbers. Bud Philpot was shot, thinking he was Bob Paul. The funeral for the Clantons and McLaurys was the largest attended funeral in Tombstone, and the original headstones inscription read "Murdered on the streets of Tombstone." Bob Paul, who later became sheriff of Pima county, Arizona, and was a well respected lawman, stated, "The so-called Earp gang, or faction if you please, was composed entirely of gamblers who preyed upon the cowboys." Even the 1940 Arizona State Guide stated: "The Earp clan sought to shield their dealings with shady characters behind their official positions of city marshal, deputy sheriff, United States Marshal." Ike had the Earp gang brought to trial, and from a letter he wrote to Billy Byers in February 1882, he states: "Dear Billy --- was truly pleased to hear from you. Every thing is running satisfactory this way. I have got the Earps all in jail and am not going to unhitch. I have got them on the hip and am going to throw them good. Fin sends his kind regards. Excuse this short note. I will write to you soon. Compliment and all these kind of things. Ike Clanton." Of course, Judge Wils Spicer was a friend of the Earps and he found the Earp party to be acting in the line of duty. Ike tried a second attempt to bring justice to the Earp group but failed. At this time the bloody feud errupted with the shooting and wounding of Virgil and the Killing of Morgan. Then Earp went on his murderous rampage and Bob Paul chased him out of the territory. Jim. P.S. Wyatt Earp, at the hearing held by Judge Spicer, Wyatt Earp wasn't allowed to be cross-examined and was allowed to read his testimony from a carefully prepared statement that he wrote prior to coming to court. In contrast to that, Ike Clanton was questioned by both the defense and the prosecutor. No evidence exists of (if any) testimonies at the hearing by Virgil Earp, Morgan Earp, or the dentist.

Howdy Tom and Jim!! Thanks for the research, pards. I suppose we'll never get the precise truth of what actually took place in those 18-20 seconds, on that October day in Tombstone, but one thing I'm convinced of. After watching the investigators build walls to recreate the alleyway and do pattern tests to determine exactly how far "Doc" Holliday was from McLaury, when he fired, I'm pretty confident in my mind, that "Doc" realized that a shotgun with the hammers down was worthless in a gunfight and he cocked that ole 10 gauge, one hammer at a time. The sound of those double clicks was very audible in that small space. Not so, with the cocking of the single action revolvers!! I never heard one of them being cocked, even though they reenacted the entire gunfight. We now know how far "Doc" was from McLaury!! The shotgun patterning test told us that. We also know that McLaury was reaching over the horse for the rifle in the scabbard on the opposite side of the horse. That's the only position, in which a man's armpit is uncovered from the side. The pellets might have penetrated his body and exited, if it was a frontal shot, but the autopsy report clearly states that the Coroner found all 12 pellets still in his body. Trying to figure out who shot who, is a waste of time!! Over 30 shots were fired in this gunfight and one of the reasons for so many misses at such close range, is because of the space being obscured by the gunsmoke produced by the black powder cartridges and reproduced in the reenactment. If the combatants couldn't even see each other through the smoke, then EYE WITNESSES testimony to this gunfight are unreliable!! After all is said and done, I remain convinced that "Doc" Holliday's actions are responsible for this gunfight.

Ed