Academy Award winning actor, John Wayne, was known worldwide for his stellar portrayal of cowboys and others in the Wild West. Wayne pulled inspiration not just from stories and books about characters in the West – he also learned straight from the source.
Wyatt Earp was one of the best-known real-life outlaws of his time, and Wayne wanted to absorb everything Earp had to say about his time living the lifestyle Wayne worked hard to portray onscreen.
Earp spent his golden years as a technical advisor on Western films. Wayne loved to sit with Earp, get his coffee, and listen to his tales of his time as an outlaw. This was long before Wayne was a household name. Back, then, he worked as a prop boy and was still known by his given name, Marion Morrison.The pair developed a close friendship. According to Hollywood legend, Wayne was one of Earp’s pallbearers when the outlaw passed away in 1929.
” Dodge City is famous for its rich and colorful western heritage. One name personifies this heritage. Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was born to Nicholas and Virginia Earp on March 19, 1848 in Monmouth, Illinois. As the family moved west, sixteen-year old Wyatt was in charge of wagons and stock as well as providing meat for the encampment until they reached California. Wyatt joined in the railroad business at the age of twenty. Here he found his true calling when he met whiskey peddlers and gamblers and was fascinated by their lifestyles.
In November 1869, Wyatt began farming in Lamar, Missouri. Wyatt became the constable of Lamar when it was incorporated in 1870. There he married Urilla Sutherland who died of typhoid fever.
Earp, devastated by this turn of events, fell into a rough crowd. Indicted in Arkansas for stealing horses in Indian Territory, he headed west and tried his hand at buffalo hunting. eventually he moved to Wichita, Kansas where they hired him as a policeman in 1875.
In April 1876 Wyatt Earp’s career in Wichita ended fight abruptly when he got into a fist with a political rival. Fortunately for Wyatt, Larry Deger offered him a position on the police force in Dodge City. Wyatt served off and on as an assistant marshal or deputy sheriff in Dodge for the next three years.
As a seasonal employee he was never a marshal or a sheriff. He came to town during the spring and summer months when the streets and bars were filled with cowboys coming up the trail from Texas with their long horn cattle. ”
