Doc Holliday Poker Scene

2021年4月21日
Register here: http://gg.gg/p48b0
By MICHELLE FLOYD
Finally, the Tombstone script is here for all you quotes spouting fans of the Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer movie. This script is a transcript that was painstakingly transcribed using the screenplay and/or viewings of Tombstone. My name is John Henry Holliday—Doc Holliday, to you. I once was a dentist but I deal faro and poker now, right here, at Dick Shannessy’s Saloon. I’m a professional gambler. I make my living winning at cards.
Arizona Sonora News Tombstone Doc Holliday Poker Scene
In the town that billed itself as being “Too Tough to Die,” the women were even tougher. Everyone has heard of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday and John Ringo . But have you heard of Big Nose Kate, Sadie Jo, China Mary, Margarita, and Dutch Annie?
Tombstone, 30 miles from the Mexican border and 70 miles southeast of Tucson, was one of the last boom towns in the fabled old American West. The 1881 “Gunfight at O.K. Corral” put the town on the publicity map after big city newspapers, looking for colorful narratives out of the exotic Old West, widely wrote about it and edged that thirty-second shootout into the history books.Doc Holliday Poker Scene
But just up the street, the female workers in the town’s busiest business, the extensive red light district, may have an even more enticing story, and one that doesn’t get nearly as much attention as gunfights in the street or in bars. Maybe they should, some historians say.
The historic Bird Cage Theatre in Tombstone. The Bird Cage, now a museum, was a theater, poker parlor, saloon and brothel. Photo by Michelle Floyd / Arizona Sonora News)
At the far end of Allen Street from the O.K. Corral, stands the Birdcage Theater, which in its heyday during the silver-mine boom was a riotous combination of saloon, gambling hall, dancehall, theater, opera house, and brothel. But many desperate young women who couldn’t get a gig at the Birdcage stationed themselves in pitiful streetside shacks called “cribs.”
Tombstone history reenactor, James Zuvela, described these shelters as “double the size of an outhouse.”
One still stands today, located off of Allen Street.
These cribs lined a 12-block span of Allen Street. In the town’s heyday, 106 cribs were recorded (prostitution was legal and licensed). Pockets full of cash, scores of men — miners, cowboys in town for a bender — would be lined up on Allen Street to patronize the cribs.
Tombstone doesn’t hide that part of its past. In the Birdcage, there is a room that displays photos and memorabilia of the best known local prostitutes, including their town-issued licenses. But Tombstone in general does not highlight that ugly aspect of its past as it markets itself with reenacted gunfights and faux westernalia.
There are several museums in Old West towns that cogently highlight the era and its settings, while providing educational context about the exploitation of poor girls who had no other options and the role of prostitution in an Old West town. One of them is the Old Homestead House Museum in the historic gold-mine mecca of Cripple Creek, Colorado, where women in period garb conduct well-informed tours and the admission price is $5. One recent visitor raved on TripAdvisor.com: “The ladies who give the tours are superb! It feels like they knew the working girls personally. …The furnishings were so beautiful and they even gave their history!”
The Birdcage, by contrast, charges $10 admission.
The prostitution business boomed on sordid levels with prices often determined by perceptions of race, “Chinese, African American, and Native American women cost 25 cents; Mexican women were 50 cents; women billed as being “French” 75 cents, and American women went for $1.00,” according to Ben T. Traywick’s book, Behind the Red Lights (History of Prostitution in Tombstone).
Patty Feather gives an abridged tour of the entry room in the Bird Cage Theatre to visitors on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016. Feather and her husband moved from Pennsylvania to Tombstone about two and a half years ago in search of “warmer and drier” weather. (Photo by Rebecca Noble / Arizona Sonora News)
Lacking freedom and money in big cities, some women journeyed to the Wild West for the same reasons as men —money, adventure, desperation to flee an old life and start a new one. But for women, becoming a cowboy, a miner or a sheriff wasn’t an option. Instead, thousands of women were drawn, and in some cased lured, to the Old West to work as prostitutes.
Many became trapped in wretched, desperate conditions where abuse and disease were rampant, and suicide was not uncommon. But some willingly chose to stay in the profession, and became prototypes for the kinds of Old West female characters often depicted as dancing girls or saloon keepers in cowboy movies and TV shows that coyly avoided mentioning the fact that the saloon keeper Miss Kitty in the long-running radio and later television series Gunsmoke would, in real life, have been a prostitute or a madam.
Many also took up residence in the Birdcage and several other venues, performing as both actresses in the limelight, and whores in the dim crIbs and tiny rooms downstairs or, as in the case of Tombstone’s venerable Birdcage theater, in balcony stalls in the theater itself.
The Birdcage was a gambling hall, a saloon, a whorehouse, a theater, and even a regional performing arts center that drew nationally touring acts, including opera singers and vaudeville hoofers. While culture was served, so were the demands of the male patrons, many of them cowboys or miners with pockets full of money on a night in town. There were 14 cribs or “bird cages” where the women would entertain men at all hours of the day, some downstairs by the poker tables and others in curtained off boxes above the theater itself.
Given that Tombstone has a well-documented problem drawing new tourists, especially young visitors who may not be especially enthralled by reenactments of gunfights, has the town neglected emphasizing one of its more compelling, and even colorful, historical legacies, though a sordid one — Old West prostitution and the ugly business it fostered? Julian hart poker. Why keep that aspect of its history from exploration at a time when few people under the age of 50 even know who Wyatt Earp was?
Susan Hawksworth, an employee of the Birdcage Theater, said the building’s racy past isn’t a secret to locals.
“Some people are shocked, but most people know about the prostitution,” she said.Meet some of the ladies
Big Nose Kate, or Mary Katherine Harony, was one of the first madams to arrive in Tombstone, where the men admired her for her curves and her moxie. She caught the public’s eye as the on-again, off-again girlfriend of Dr. John Henry Holliday, A.K.A Doc Holliday.
Here is the grave of Dutch Annie, where she rests in Row 7 of the Boothill Graveyard on Sunday, Sept. 11, 2016. She was also nicknamed the “Queen of the Red Light District” and her death was mourned by both the rich and poor in Tombstone. (Photo by Michelle Floyd / Arizona Sonora News)
Kate stayed in Tombstone for a time until a fight with Holliday had her packing her bags and bloomers. She later went to work at a brothel out of town, but still came back to Tombstone to visit Holliday. The last time she visited Tombstone was the day of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, which she actually watched from Holliday’s bedroom while Holliday himself was shooting it out on the street.
Another woman who was involved with one of the men in the gunfight was Josephine “Sadie Jo” Sara Marcus. When she came to Tombstone, she became smitten with Wyatt Earp, the deputy marshal. Despite later movie and television depictions of Earp as a noble, steadfast lawman, Earp was a heavy drinker and a gambler who enjoyed the company of prostitutes.
Sadie Jo worked out of the Birdcage Theater as a prostitute between acting jobs. Before her and Earp’s love affair, Earp actually wrote her prostitution license, which had to be displayed above her bed for customers to see. These permits, issued by the city of Tombstone at the cost of $7.50, allowed women to run a “House of Ill Fame,” which was the actual wording on the document. They eventually fell in love and later on, Earp worked hard to hide her shady history.
Earp may have run the law in Tombstone, in the boomtown days, Mrs. Ah Lum, who was known as China Mary, was also a major figure. Her house still stands in Tombstone today. Many Asian prostitutes were known as “China Marys” at the time, but she was the China Mary of Tombstone.
She did not necessarily live a virtuous life. After all, she commanded prostitutes and even sold Asian slaves. But China Mary was well liked. Her funeral was attended by a big crowd. Her grave is in what is known as the Chinese section of the Boothill Graveyard, in the corner of Row 10.
One of the prostitutes whose life was marked by violence was called Margarita. As a Birdcage theater performer, she favored the poker-playing men, particularly Billy Milgreen. But Milgreen was the prostitute Gold Dollar’s man. When Margarita kissed Billy during a poker game, Gold Dollar stabbed her. She died that evening: Row 2 at Boothill graveyard.
Dutch Annie was a prostitute who earned the title of “Queen of the Red Light District.” She ran a house of “ill-fortune” in Tombstone, which was the designation for a prostitution house without a license. There is also evidence that she may have purchased one of her prostitution houses from Wyatt Earp.
Although she made a disreputable living, she was also admired kindness and charity, including taking care of miners when disease broke out through the camp. When she died, people from high social standing to those of red light world. mourned her death at Boothill, where she still rests today: Row 7.
This history of Tombstone is still visible in town today, for those willing to dig a little deeper beneath the gunfights and simulated bar brawls. But to many tourists, and even some in town who depend on tourism as a livelihood, Tombstone “is all about a 30 second gunfight to most people — and the history here is far richer than that,” said Tim Fattig, the manager at the O.K. Corral. manager.
Download high resolution images here.
Michelle Floyd is a senior Journalism Major at the University of Arizona, where she also plays softball. In her free time, she likes to be out hiking, hanging out with friends, and creating new media projects.
Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were as different as night and day—or were they? Certainly they were exceptional friends in reality as well as in legend.
The story of the friendship of Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday is the stuff of legend. Neither man’s story can be told without the other. Together, they fired the imaginations of storytellers in their own lifetimes and created a legend that eventually made the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral as resonant as the Battle of Gettysburg in the popular mind. Their devotion to one another is all the more dramatic because they seem so different. In the legend Wyatt Earp is portrayed as a cleareyed, stalwart lawman, tall, lean and calm—“the Lion of Tombstone”—who sees qualities in Doc others don’t. John Henry “Doc” Holliday, by contrast, is portrayed as a profligate, cold-blooded yet charming killer dying of tuberculosis who, nonetheless, is devoted to Wyatt. The contrast energizes the legend but leaves unanswered how two such different men could become friends in the first place.
They met in Fort Griffin, Texas, in the winter of 1877–78. There was nothing particularly memorable about it. Both were gamblers, one with a growing reputation as a hardnosed cow-town lawman, the other still honing the skills needed to survive in the backwater hellholes he had chosen for his trade. One looked the part of a frontiersman, tall and sure of himself; the other looked out of place, though he already had a reputation as a man who would not back away from trouble. Thin, almost frail, with a persistent cough and a soft Southern drawl, Doc was a mystery. The two of them only had time for an introduction before Wyatt moved on.
Holliday and his paramour, Mary Katherine Horony (aka “Big Nose Kate Elder”), left Texas for Dodge City, Kan., in the spring of 1878 to take advantage of the upcoming cattle season. Doc found something there he had not known since leaving behind his native Georgia and his family. He found a place in a circle of acquaintances whose lives would be linked to his through the years that followed. Bat Masterson, one of them, recalled, “During his year’s stay in Dodge at that time he did not have a quarrel with anyone, and although regarded as a sort of grouch, he was not disliked by those with whom he had become acquainted.” Holliday’s absence from police dockets and newspaper reports underscored his good behavior.
“It was during this time that he also made the acquaintance of Wyatt Earp,” Masterson added, “and they were always fast friends ever afterwards.” Wyatt himself explained why in a Tombstone, Arizona Territory, courtroom in the fall of 1881: “I am a friend of Doc Holliday because when I was city marshal of Dodge City, Kansas, he came to my rescue and saved my life when I was surrounded by desperadoes.”
In August and September 1878 several dramatic incidents occurred on the streets of Dodge between the Texas cowboys and the local police. In one of them Earp found himself facing a group of rowdy drovers alone. His pistol was holstered, and his life was in real danger. He recalled that Holliday was playing monte in the Long Branch Saloon when he looked out of the window and saw Wyatt alone and outnumbered. Quickly, Doc asked Frank Loving, the dealer, if he had a pistol. Loving gave Holliday a six-shooter from a drawer. Drawing his own revolver as well, Doc stepped onto the sidewalk and ordered the cowboys to throw up their hands. The move distracted their attention long enough for Wyatt to act. “In an instant I had drawn my guns,” he recalled, “and the arrest of the crowd followed.”
Earp never forgot that moment. Within weeks, though, Doc and Kate left Dodge for New Mexico Territory, in search of a healthier climate for Doc. They found relief in Las Vegas, a well-established community in that territory. However, Holliday returned to Dodge City in March and again in May 1879 to assist Masterson in the organization of a group of fighting men for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad during its dispute with the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad over the Royal Gorge in Colorado. In September 1879 Wyatt resigned as assistant marshal in Dodge to join his brothers in a move to Tombstone.
Earp reunited with Holliday in Las Vegas. They had seen each other only in passing for little more than a year, but when the Earp family pulled out for Prescott, Arizona Territory, Doc and Kate went with them. Holliday did not immediately follow them to Tombstone, however. Kate resented the Earps’ influence on her man and went to Globe, Arizona Territory, on her own, but Doc spent the next six months in Las Vegas and Prescott. In September 1880 he apparently decided to accept Wyatt’s invitation, although it is possible he was drawn there by a gamblers’ war involving other friends from Dodge and Texas. Whatever the reason, once Holliday was in Tombstone, his friendship with Wyatt and his brothers was sealed.
They could depend on Holliday. Doc stood by his friends in the gamblers’ war. He backed the Earps when William “Curly Bill” Brocius killed Tomb- stone Marshal Fred White in October 1880. He rode with Wyatt to Charleston, Ariz., to recover his stolen horse from Billy Clanton. He was on hand to help protect the life of gambler Mike O’Rourke (aka “Johnny Behind the Deuce”). He was prepared to ride with the posse that pursued the men who attempted to rob the Benson stage in March 1881. He was with the Earps in the Fremont Street fight (popularly and inaccurately known as the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral) with the Clantons and McLaurys that October. He stood with the Earps during the troubled times that followed. When gunmen crippled Virgil Earp from ambush in December, Doc backed Wyatt. In January 1882 Holliday braced John Ringo outside the Oriental Saloon and would have fought him had the law not intervened. He rode at Wyatt’s side as a posseman, and when Morgan Earp was assassinated that March, he joined the grueling vendetta ride to track down the men Wyatt blamed for the crime.
Holliday proved his loyalty, but he remained his own man. During his time in Tombstone he moved about freely, following gambling opportunities in other towns and visiting Kate in Globe. Wyatt did learn that being Doc’s friend came with a cost. The same trait that endeared him to Earp—loyalty —proved costly when it involved another friend, Bill Leonard, one of the Benson stage robbers. It not only made Holliday a suspect in the case, but also provided an opening for rumors the Earps were complicit in the robbery attempt. Accusations Kate made against Doc, and the more direct testimony of Ike Clanton following the street fight, kept the rumors alive. Holliday was also quick to take offense and to resort to gunplay when drinking, which resulted in several embarrassing incidents. His confrontation with Ike Clanton the night before the street fight drew some of the blame for that affair.
Doc became an embarrassment. Wyatt had enjoyed a reputation as an efficient police officer and had the support of Tombstone’s successful and respectable leaders. His relationship with Holliday troubled them. John P. Clum, Tombstone’s mayor during its troubled heyday and a lifelong friend of Wyatt, said plainly in 1929, “I never approved of Holliday.” District Court Justice Wells Spicer, in his decision following the street fight, took Chief of Police Virgil Earp to task for calling on a man of Doc’s reputation for assistance in the attempted arrest of the Clantons and McLaurys. Wells, Fargo & Co. defended Doc against charges he was involved in the Benson stage holdup yet described him as “a man of dissipated habits and a gambler.” Tombstone reporter Ridgely Tilden blamed Doc “for all of the killing, etc., in connection with what is known as the Earp-Clanton imbroglio.…He kicked up the fight, and Wyatt Earp and his brothers ‘stood in’ with him on the score of gratitude.”
Doc was now Wyatt’s Achilles’ heel. The vendetta prompted Earp’s critics to craft a major rewrite of the history of the Tombstone troubles, hinged upon Holliday’s reputation and alleged misdeeds. Doc’s lapses were “proof” the Earps themselves were criminals. The tactic put Earp’s associates on the defensive. Clum later reflected that without Holliday’s presence at the street fight, “the affair would have been relieved of much of its bitterness.” In Holliday’s absence, the Earps would have been easier to defend. Wyatt stood by Doc, nevertheless, and Clum knew why: “There is no doubt in my mind that Doc Holliday was loyal to his friends and a ‘dead game sport’ —whether he was playing poker or pu

https://diarynote-jp.indered.space

コメント

最新の日記 一覧

<<  2025年7月  >>
293012345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
272829303112

お気に入り日記の更新

テーマ別日記一覧

まだテーマがありません

この日記について

日記内を検索