Wyatt Earp

Biography

Wyatt Earp was a lawman, gambler, businessman, saloon owner and gunfighter of great repute in the American West. He had been a police officer in Wichita, KS, and later in Dodge City, KS, during the mid-1870s, after which he became a shotgun rider with Wells Fargo. In Tombstone, AZ, in the wake of a stagecoach robbery, Earp (who had been running for sheriff) became involved in the notorious gunfight at the OK Corral of October 26, 1881, which resulted in the death of suspects Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton and the wounding of Earp's brothers Morgan and Virgil and his friend "Doc" Holliday. The gunfight only caused more trouble, setting into motion a series of events that included the assassination of town marshal Morgan Earp and murder charges being filed against Wyatt and others for the shooting deaths of two suspects in that crime. Wyatt left for Colorado and points west, eventually retiring to San Francisco and later Los Angeles, CA, where he occasionally worked as a consultant on various early silent-era westerns (in the days before accurate credits were maintained, so it's not known exactly what films he worked on). He was close friends with another western icon, William Barclay 'Bat' Masterson, and later with cowboy actors William S. Hart and Tom Mix and, according to some accounts, he met and befriended a young John Wayne on the set of a silent western on which Wayne was an unbilled extra. Wyatt Earp died in Los Angeles on January 13, 1929, at age 80. Hart and Mix were pallbearers at his funeral.