Val Kilmer
Kilmer at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival
Born	Val Edward Kilmer (1959-12-31) December 31, 1959 (age 52) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Education	Juilliard School (1981)
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1981–Present
Spouse	Joanne Whalley (1988–1996)

Val Edward Kilmer^[1] (born December 31, 1959) is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer is best known for his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman in Batman Forever, Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's The Doors, he became popular in the mid-1980s after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! (1984), then the cult classic Real Genius (1985), as well as blockbuster action films, including a supporting role in Top Gun and a lead role in Willow.

Early life and education[link]

Kilmer was born in in Los Angeles, California,^[2][3] the son of Gladys (née Ekstadt) and Eugene Kilmer, an aerospace equipment distributor and real estate developer.^[3][4] Kilmer's grandfather was a gold miner in New Mexico;^[5] the poet Joyce Kilmer is a distant cousin of Kilmer's.^[6] Kilmer is of German, Swedish, Irish, and Cherokee descent.^[7][8] He grew up in the San Fernando Valley with his two siblings, older brother Mark and younger brother Wesley (who died at 15 due to an epileptic seizure in a swimming pool).^[9]

Kilmer was raised a Christian Scientist^[10] and attended Berkeley Hall School, a Christian Science school in Los Angeles, from nursery school until graduation from the 9th grade. He then attended Chatsworth High School—where his classmates included Kevin Spacey and Mare Winningham—as well as the Hollywood Professional School.^[3] At the age of 17, he became the youngest person at the time to be accepted into the Juilliard School's Drama Division, where he was a member of Group 10 (1977–1981).^[11]

Career[link]

1980s[link]

In 1981, Kilmer co-authored and starred in the play How It All Began,^[12] which was performed at the Public Theatre at the New York Shakespeare Festival. Kilmer turned down a role in Francis Ford Coppola's 1983 film, The Outsiders, as he had prior theatre commitments.^[13] That same year, his first off-stage acting role (excluding television commercials) came in the form of a television short titled One Too Many, which was an educational drama on drinking and driving;^[14] it also starred a young Michelle Pfeiffer. His big break came when he received top billing in the spoof comedy Top Secret!, where he played an American rock and roll star. Kilmer sang all the songs in the film and released an album under the film character's name, "Nick Rivers".^[15]

During a brief hiatus, he backpacked throughout Europe before going on to play the lead character in the 1985 comedy Real Genius. He turned down roles in Dune and Blue Velvet^[16] before being cast as naval aviator "Iceman" in the action film Top Gun alongside Tom Cruise. Top Gun grossed a total of $344,700,000 worldwide.^[17] Following roles in the television films The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains, Kilmer played Madmartigan in the fantasy Willow; he met his future wife, co-star Joanne Whalley, on the film's set. Kilmer published a book of his poems, My Edens After Burns, in 1987, and starred in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival production of Hamlet in 1988. In 1989, Kilmer played the lead in both Kill Me Again, again opposite Whalley, and in TNT's Billy the Kid.

1990s[link]

After several delays, director Oliver Stone finally started production on the film The Doors, based on the band of the same name. Kilmer memorized the lyrics to all of lead singer Jim Morrison's songs prior to his audition, and sent a video of himself performing some Doors songs to director Stone. Stone was not impressed with the tape, but Paul Rothchild (the original producer of The Doors) said "I was shaken by it" and suggested they record Kilmer in the studio. After Kilmer was cast as Morrison, he prepared for the role by attending Doors tribute concerts and reading Morrison's poetry.^[18] He spent close to a year before production dressing in Morrison-like clothes, and spent time at Morrison's old hangouts along the Sunset Strip. His portrayal of Morrison was praised and members of The Doors noted that Kilmer did such a convincing job that they had trouble distinguishing his voice from Morrison's. Paul Rothchild played Val's version of 'The End' for Robby Krieger, and he told him "I'm really glad they got 'The End'. We never got a recording of that live with Jim and now we've got it." However, Doors keyboardist, Ray Manzarek, was less than enthusiastic with how Morrison was portrayed by director Oliver Stone's interpretation.^[19] In the early 1990s, Kilmer starred in the mystery thriller Thunderheart, action comedy The Real McCoy and again teamed with Top Gun director Tony Scott to play Elvis in True Romance, which was written by Quentin Tarantino.

In 1993, Kilmer played Doc Holliday in the western Tombstone alongside Kurt Russell, in what is credited as one of Kilmer's finest performances. 1995 saw Kilmer star in Wings of Courage, a 3D IMAX film, and that same year, he starred opposite Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in Heat, which is now considered one of the best crime/drama films of the 1990s.^[20] In 1996, he appeared in a largely unknown film, Dead Girl, and starred alongside Marlon Brando in the poorly received^[21] The Island of Dr Moreau. That year, Kilmer starred alongside Michael Douglas in the thriller The Ghost and the Darkness. The next year he played Simon Templar in the popular action film, The Saint. In 1998, he lent his voice to the animated film The Prince of Egypt as Moses, before starring in the independent film Joe the King (1999) and playing a blind man in the drama/romance At First Sight, which he described as of then, the hardest role he had ever had.^[22]

During the 1990s, Kilmer developed the reputation of being very difficult on sets. John Frankenheimer, director of The Island of Dr Moreau, is quoted as saying, There are two things I would never do again in my life. I will never climb Mount Everest, and I will never work with Val Kilmer again. There isn't enough money in the world.^[23] While promoting The Ghost and the Darkness in France, Michael Douglas bitterly complained about Kilmer's attitude in an interview to daily newspaper Le Parisien.^[24] Kevin Jarre, the original director of Tombstone, said that Kilmer once told him, "I have a reputation for being difficult. But only with stupid people."^[25] Val Kilmer also had extensive conflicts on the set of Batman Forever. Schumacher had problems filming with Kilmer, whom he described as "childish and impossible", reporting that he fought with various crewmen, and refused to speak to Schumacher during two weeks after the director told him to stop behaving in a rude way.^[26]

Batman[link]

In December 1993, Batman Forever director Joel Schumacher had seen Tombstone and was most impressed with Kilmer's performance as Doc Holliday. Schumacher felt him to be perfect for the role of the Caped Crusader, though at the time, the role was still Michael Keaton's.^[27]

In July 1994, Michael Keaton decided not to return for a third Batman film after 1992's Batman Returns,^[28] due to "creative differences."^[27] William Baldwin (who previously worked with Schumacher on Flatliners) was reported to be a top contender, though just days after Keaton dropped out, Kilmer was cast.^[28] Kilmer took the role without even knowing who the new director was and without reading the script.^[27]

Released in June 1995, Batman Forever was a success at the box office,^[29] despite receiving mixed reviews from critics.^[30] There was debate about the performance of Val Kilmer; some critics charged that Kilmer, while physically fit to play Batman, more so than his predecessor Michael Keaton had been, gave a wooden performance as Bruce Wayne. Other critics though, such as Roger Ebert, had kind words for Kilmer. Batman creator Bob Kane said in a Cinescape interview that of all the actors to have played Batman up to that point (before the series was rebooted in 2005 with Christian Bale in the lead role), he felt Kilmer had given the best interpretation. Film critic Leonard Maltin (who heavily criticized the dark tone contained in Batman Returns) complimented Kilmer's portrayal when he reviewed the film for his expanding collection of film reviews, as well as being very favorable of the film as a whole. Defenders of Batman Forever praised the film for portraying Batman as a more heroic, less ruthless, and more human character than in the Tim Burton films. The film also brought the film interpretation of Bruce Wayne more into line with his comic book counterpart, showing him as a seasoned celebrity of the media and a very public figure rather than the neurotic recluse of the previous films.

In February 1996, Kilmer decided not to return for another Batman feature film, feeling that Batman was being marginalized in favor of the villains.^[31] Kilmer went on to do The Saint with a salary of $6 million.^[31] George Clooney replaced Kilmer as Batman in 1997's Batman & Robin.

2000s[link]

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Kilmer's first role in 2000 was in the big budget Warner Bros. box office disaster^[32] Red Planet. That same year, he had a supporting role in the film Pollock and hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time. In 2002, he starred in the thriller The Salton Sea, which was generally well-reviewed,^[33] but received only a limited release.^[34] The same year, he teamed with his True Romance co-star, Christian Slater, and the two starred in the low budget film, Hard Cash, also known as Run for the Money.

In 2003, Kilmer starred alongside Kate Bosworth in the drama/thriller Wonderland, as well as appearing in The Missing, where he again worked with Willow director Ron Howard. The next year, he starred in Spartan, where he played a United States government secret agent who is assigned the task of rescuing the kidnapped daughter of the President. He received Delta Force-like training in preparation for the role.^[35] Subsequently, he had a role in the drama, Stateside, and starred (again with Slater) in the thriller Mindhunters, which was filmed in 2003 but not released until 2005. Kilmer next appeared in the big budget Oliver Stone production, Alexander, which received poor reviews.^[36] Also in 2004, Kilmer returned to the theatre to play Moses in a Los Angeles musical production of The Ten Commandments: The Musical, produced by BCBG founder Max Azria.^[37] The production played at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood and also featured Adam Lambert. Kilmer had previously played Moses in the animated film The Prince of Egypt. Finally in 2004, Kilmer appeared in an episode of Entourage, where he played a Sherpa whose primary source of income was the growing, harvesting and distributing high-quality marijuana, all under a guise of metaphysical insights.

Kilmer with 50 Cent at the AMAs 2009

Kilmer was in negotiations with Richard Dutcher (a leading director of Mormon-related films) to play the lead role in a film entitled Prophet: The Story of Joseph Smith, although the project never materialized.^[38] Kilmer performed in The Postman Always Rings Twice on the London stage from June to September 2005.^[39] In 2005, he co-starred with Robert Downey, Jr. in the action-comedy film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. His performance was praised and the film was well reviewed,^[40] but the film received only a limited release.^[41] It later won the award as "Overlooked Film of the Year" from the Phoenix Film Critics Society.

In 2006, he reunited with director Tony Scott a third time for a supporting role opposite Denzel Washington in the box-office hit Déjà Vu. The song "Val Kilmer" was named after him on Bowling for Soup's 2006 album The Great Burrito Extortion Case,. The song was later used for one of the Ford commercials on season 10 of American Idol in 2011. In 2007, he guest-starred in hit TV series Numb3rs episode "Trust Metric" as torture expert Mason Lancer.

In 2008, Kilmer starred alongside Stephen Dorff in the Sony and Stage 6 film Felon. The film was given only a limited theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles in 2008, but it developed into a success secondary to positive word of mouth.

Kilmer was the voice of the car KITT for the 2008 Knight Rider TV pilot film and the following television series. He replaced Will Arnett, who had to step down from the role due to contractual conflict with General Motors. In keeping with tradition established by the original Knight Rider series and original KITT actor William Daniels, Kilmer was uncredited for the role on-screen.

He next starred alongside Nicolas Cage in the Werner Herzog film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and alongside Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson in Streets of Blood. Both were released in 2009. He appeared as the main antagonist "Mongoose" in a live TV series adaptation of the comic/video game of XIII on NBC in 2009.

2010s[link]

In 2010, Kilmer starred in the horror film from Michael Oblowitz, The Traveler, where he played the vengeful spirit of a man who had been tortured and murdered while in police custody.

In November 2010, Kilmer was filming in Kelseyville, California; he is the lead role in the Francis Ford Coppola film Twixt. The film is being filmed mostly on Coppola's estate in Napa County. The filming is expected to take five weeks and is being independently funded by Coppola.

In 2010, Val Kilmer appeared as the villain Dieter Von Cunth in MacGruber.

In 2012, Val Kilmer appeared in Tenacious D's music video "To Be The Best" as a small cameo role.

In 2012, Val Kilmer will speak at the May 5 commencement ceremonies of William Woods University in Fulton, MO.

Mark Twain/Mary Baker Eddy project[link]

Since 2010, Kilmer has been working on a film about the life of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Christian Science church,^[42] and Mark Twain, one of her most famous critics. Kilmer wrote the screenplay, describing the film about the lives and relationship of Mary Baker Eddy and Mark Twain as "a quirky, tender, tragicomic portrait of two contrasting lives, set against the backdrop of Gilded Age America."^[43]

Personal life[link]

Kilmer reigning as King of the Bacchus Parade in New Orleans during Mardi Gras in 2009

Kilmer was married to actress Joanne Whalley from March 1988 to February 1996. The two met while working together on the film Willow. The couple had two children: a daughter, Mercedes (b. October 29, 1991), and a son, Jack (b. June 6, 1995).

He has a reputation of being difficult to work with; director John Frankenheimer was quoted as saying "Will Rogers never met Val Kilmer" after working with him on The Island of Dr. Moreau, on the last day of shooting, Frankenheimer said "now get that bastard off my set!"^[44] Warwick Davis, Kilmer's co-star from the 1988 fantasy Willow, in his audio commentary for the film said that the question he's most asked is what it was like working with Kilmer, Davis describes him as a very funny man and a hard working, dedicated actor. Kilmer is also an avid musician, and released a CD in the fall of 2007, proceeds of which went to his charity interests.

Other actors have noted that he prepares for his roles extensively and meticulously. Irwin Winkler (director of At First Sight) talked about his decision to hire Kilmer. "I'd heard the stories, so I checked him out. I called Bob DeNiro and Michael Mann, who'd worked with him on Heat, and they both gave him raves... I had a wonderful experience in spite of all the naysayers."^{[citation needed]} Jeffrey Katzenberg (producer of Prince of Egypt) talks about the actor. "Val was one of the first people cast in The Prince of Egypt. He was there every step of the way; patient, understanding, and phenomenally generous with his time."^{[citation needed]}

Following their appearance together in Top Gun, Kilmer and co-star Tom Cruise reportedly had taken their onscreen conflict offscreen. Reports classified the two as holding a vitriolic hatred of one another.^[45] Kilmer even refused to participate in a charity beach volleyball game with Cruise on the grounds that he was "dangerous", although Kilmer is rumored to have knocked Cruise out in a fistfight during the filming of Top Gun.^[45]

Kilmer owns a ranch in New Mexico, where he hunts, tracks, hikes, fishes, and raises bison.^[42] Kilmer is also involved with The Wildlife Center of New Mexico and assists in rescuing animals and releasing them on his ranch.

In 2009, Kilmer listed Pecos River Ranch for sale for $33,000,000 with conservation real estate firm [1].^[46] The price was subsequently dropped to $23 million in October 2010 and dropped again to $18.5 million two months later.^[47]

He briefly flirted with running for Governor of New Mexico in 2010, but in the end declined to run.^[48] He made a donation to Ralph Nader's 2008 presidential campaign.^[49] On January 30, 2009, Kilmer was chosen to be the King of Bacchus, a parading Krewe in New Orleans, that in 1969 began the tradition of having celebrities ride in their parade as King.^[50]

In November 2010, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) filed a $498,165 lien against Kilmer's New Mexico ranch for unpaid 2008 income taxes.^[47] In April 2010, Kilmer paid $538,000 to settle another dispute with the IRS.^[51]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Val Kilmer

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Val Kilmer

General

• Official website
• Val Kilmer at the Internet Movie Database
• Val Kilmer at the Internet Broadway Database
• Val Kilmer at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Official website of Kilmer's Eddy-Twain movie project

Interviews

• Maxim interview (January 2007)
• Tom Green Live (November 6, 2006)
• UGO interview (March 2004)
• Deal Memo interview (April 23, 2002)

John Henry "Doc" Holliday (August 14, 1851 – November 8, 1887) was an American gambler, gunfighter and dentist of the American Old West, who is usually remembered for his friendship with Wyatt Earp and his involvement in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

As a young man, Holliday earned a D.D.S. degree in dentistry and set up a practice in Atlanta, Georgia. However, in 1873 he was diagnosed with consumption (tuberculosis), the same disease that had claimed his mother when he was 15. He moved to the American southwest in hopes that the climate would prolong his life. Taking up gambling as a profession, he acquired a reputation as a deadly gunman.

During his travels, he met and became good friends with Wyatt Earp and Earp's brothers. In 1880, he moved to Tombstone, Arizona, and participated alongside the Earps in the famous gunfight. This did not settle matters between the two sides, and Holliday was embroiled in ensuing shootouts and killings. He successfully fought being extradited for murder, and died in bed at a Colorado hotel/sanatorium at the age of 36.

The legend and mystique of his life is so great that he has been mentioned in countless books, and portrayed by various actors in numerous movies and television series. For the 100-plus years since his death, debate has continued about the exact crimes he may have committed during his life.

Early life and education[link]

Holliday was born in Griffin, Georgia, to Henry Burroughs Holliday and Alice Jane Holliday (née McKey).^[1] His father served in the Mexican–American War and the Civil War.^[2] His family baptized him at the First Presbyterian Church in 1852.^[3]

In 1864 his family moved to Valdosta, Georgia.^[3] Holliday's mother died of tuberculosis on September 16, 1866, when he was 15 years old.^[1] Three months later his father married Rachel Martin. While in Valdosta, he attended the Valdosta Institute,^[3] where he received a strong classical secondary education in rhetoric, grammar, mathematics, history, and languages – principally Latin, but also French and some Ancient Greek.^[3]

In 1870, the 19-year-old Holliday left home to begin dental school in Philadelphia. On March 1, 1872, at the age of 20, he met the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery (which later merged with the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine).^[1] He graduated 5 months before his 21st birthday, which would have been problematic since this age was needed both to hold a D.D.S. degree or to practice dentistry as other than a student under a preceptor, in Georgia.^[4].

After graduation, Holliday did not go home, but worked as an assistant with a classmate, A. Jameson Fuches, Jr., in St. Louis, Missouri.^[5]. By the end of July he had moved to Atlanta, where he lived with his uncle and his family while beginning his career as a dentist.^[6]. A few weeks before his birthday the Atlanta papers carried an announcement by noted dentist Arthur C. Ford in Atlanta that Holliday would fill his place in the office while he was attending dental meetings. This was the beginning of Holliday's career in private practice as a dentist, but it lasted only a short time, until December.^[7]

Holliday's cousin by marriage was Margaret Mitchell, who wrote Gone With the Wind.^[8]

Health[link]

Author Karen Tanner reported that Holliday was born with a cleft palate and partly cleft lip which was repaired by his uncle, Dr. J. S. Holliday, and a family cousin, the famous physician Crawford Long. She wrote that Holliday needed many hours of speech therapy conducted by his mother.^[6]:24 Another Holliday biographer, Gary L. Roberts, argues that it is unlikely that an infant as young as two months would have undergone cleft palate surgery in that era, as most operations of this type were postponed until the child was around two years old. Roberts asserts that such an early procedure would have been sufficiently noteworthy as to merit mention in local and national media and medical journals. Thus, he considers it doubtful that Holliday had a cleft palate at all, and dismisses the claim that a surgical scar is visible in the graduation photograph. This portrait, taken at the age of 20, supports accounts that Holliday had ash-blond hair. In early adulthood, he stood about 5 feet 10 inches (178 cm) and weighed about 160 pounds (73 kg).

Shortly after beginning his dental practice, Holliday was diagnosed with tuberculosis (generally then called "consumption"). He may have contracted the disease from his mother, although he may also have caught it from a coughing or sneezing patient. Little or no precaution was taken against this during dental procedures as tuberculosis was not known to be contagious until 1885. He was given only a few months to live, but he considered that moving to the drier and warmer southwestern United States might slow the deterioration of his health.^[1][9]

Gambler and gunman[link]

Autographed photo of Holliday taken in 1879 in Prescott, Arizona

Big Nose Kate

In September 1873, Holliday moved to Dallas, Texas, where he opened a dental office with fellow dentist and Georgian John A. Seegar. Their office was located between Market and Austin Streets along Elm Street, about three blocks east of the site of today's Dealey Plaza.^[10] He soon began gambling and realized this was a more profitable source of income, since patients feared going to his office because of his ongoing cough. On May 12, 1874, Holliday and 12 others were indicted in Dallas for illegal gambling.^[10] He was arrested in Dallas in January 1875 after trading gunfire with a saloon-keeper, but no one was injured and he was found not guilty.^[1] He moved his offices to Denison, Texas, and after being found guilty of, and fined for, "gaming" in Dallas, he decided to leave the state.

Holliday made his way to Denver, traveling the stage routes and staying at Army outposts along the way practicing his trade as a gambler. In the summer of 1875 he settled in Denver under the alias "Tom Mackey", working as a Faro dealer for John A. Babb's Theatre Comique at 357 Blake street. Here he heard about gold being discovered in Wyoming and on February 5, 1876 he relocated to Cheyenne, working as a dealer for Babb's partner, Thomas Miller, who owned a saloon called the Bella Union. In the fall of 1876, Miller moved the Bella Union to Deadwood (site of the gold rush in the Dakota Territory) and Holliday moved with him.^[11]

In 1877, Holliday returned to Cheyenne and Denver, eventually making his way to Kansas to visit an aunt. He left Kansas and returned to Texas setting up as a gambler in the town of Breckenridge, Texas. On July 4, 1877 he got involved in an altercation with another gambler named Henry Kahn, whom Holliday beat with his walking stick repeatedly. Both men were arrested and fined, but later in the day, Kahn shot Holliday, wounding him seriously.^[12]

The Dallas Weekly Herald incorrectly reported Holliday as dead in its July 7 edition. His cousin, George Henry Holliday moved west to take care of him during his recovery. Fully recovered, Holliday relocated to Fort Griffin, Texas, where he met "Big Nose Kate" (Mary Katharine Horony) and began his long-time involvement with her.^[12] In Fort Griffin, Holliday was initially introduced to Wyatt Earp through mutual friend John Shanssey.^[13] Earp had stopped at Fort Griffin, Texas, before returning to Dodge City in 1878 to become the assistant city marshal, serving under Charlie Bassett.^[14]:31 The two began to form an unlikely friendship; Earp more even-tempered and controlled, Holliday more hot-headed and impulsive. This friendship was cemented in 1878 in Dodge City, Kansas, when Holliday defended Earp in a saloon against a handful of cowboys out to kill Earp, and where both Earp and Holliday had traveled to make money gambling with the cowboys who drove cattle from Texas.

Holliday was still practicing dentistry on the side from his rooms in Fort Griffin and in Dodge City, as indicated in an 1878 Dodge newspaper advertisement (he promised money back for less than complete customer satisfaction), but this is the last known time he attempted to practice.^[13] Holliday was primarily a gambler although he had a reputation as a deadly gunman. Modern research has only identified three instances in which he shot someone. In the summer of 1878, Holliday assisted Earp during a bar room confrontation when Earp "was surrounded by desperadoes". Earp credited Holliday with saving his life that day and the two became friends as a result..^[15]

One documented instance happened when Holliday was employed during a railroad dispute. On July 19, 1879, Holliday and noted gunman John Joshua Webb were seated in a saloon in Las Vegas, New Mexico when a former U.S. Army scout named Mike Gordon tried to persuade one of the saloon girls to leave her job and come away with him. When she refused, Gordon stormed outside and began firing into the building. Holliday followed him and killed him before he could get off a second shot. Holliday was placed on trial for the shooting but was acquitted, mostly based on the testimony of Webb.^[16][17]

Tombstone[link]

Dodge City was not a frontier town for long; by 1879, it had become too respectable for the sort of people who had seen it through its early days. For many, it was time to move on to places not yet reached by the civilizing railroad—places where money was to be made. Holliday, by this time, was as well known for his prowess as a gunfighter as for his gambling, although the latter was his trade and the former simply a reputation. Through his friendship with Wyatt and the other Earp brothers, especially Morgan and Virgil, Holliday made his way to the silver-mining boom town of Tombstone, Arizona Territory, in September 1880. The Earps had been there since December 1879. Some accounts state that the Earps sent for Holliday when they realized the problems they faced in their feud with the Cowboy faction. In Tombstone, Holliday quickly became embroiled in the local politics and violence that led up to the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in October 1881.

The gunfight happened in front of, and next to, Fly's boarding house and picture studio, where Holliday had a room, the day after a late night of hard drinking and poker by Ike Clanton. The Clantons and McLaurys collected in the space between the boarding house and the house west of it, before being confronted by the Earps. Holliday likely thought they were there specifically to assassinate him.^[18]

It is known Holliday carried a coach gun from the local stage office into the fight; he was given the weapon just before the fight by Virgil Earp, as Holliday was wearing a long coat which could conceal it. Virgil Earp in turn took Holliday's walking stick: by not going conspicuously armed, Virgil was seeking to avoid panic in the citizenry of Tombstone, and in the Clantons and McLaurys.^[19]

An inquest and arraignment hearing determined the gunfight was not a criminal act on the part of Holliday and the Earps. The situation in Tombstone soon grew worse when Virgil Earp was ambushed and permanently injured in December 1881. Then Morgan Earp was ambushed and killed in March 1882. After Morgan's murder, Virgil Earp and many remaining members of the Earp families fled town. Holliday and Wyatt Earp stayed in Tombstone to exact retribution on Ike Clanton and the corrupt members known as the Cowboys. In Tucson, while Wyatt, Warren Earp, and Holliday were escorting the wounded Virgil Earp and his wife Allie on the first stage of their trip to California, they prevented another ambush in Tucson, and this may have been the start of the vendetta against Morgan's killers.

Earp Vendetta Ride[link]

Several Cowboys were identified by witnesses as suspects in the shooting of Virgil Earp on December 27, 1881, and the assassination of Morgan Earp on March 19, 1882. Some circumstantial evidence also pointed to their involvement.

Wyatt Earp had been appointed Deputy U.S. Marshall after Virgil was maimed. He deputized Holliday, Warren Earp, Sherman McMasters, and "Turkey Creek" Jack Johnson, and they guarded Virgil Earp and his wife Allie on their way to the train for California. In Tucson, the group spotted Frank Stilwell and Ike Clanton lying in wait to kill Virgil. On Monday, March 20, 1882, Frank Stilwell's body was found at dawn alongside the rail road tracks, riddled with buckshot and gunshot wounds.^[20]

Tucson Justice of the Peace Charles Meyer issued arrest warrants for five of the Earp party, including Holliday. They returned briefly to Tombstone on March 21, where they were joined by Texas Jack Vermillion and possibly others. Wyatt deputized the men who rode with him. After leaving Tombstone, the posse made its way to Spence's wood-cutting camp in the South Pass of the Dragoon Mountains. There they found and killed Florentino "Indian Charlie" Cruz. Over the next few days they also located and killed "Curly Bill" Brocius and wounded at least two other men thought to be responsible for Morgan's death. Holliday and four other members of the posse were still faced with warrants for Stilwell's death. The group elected to leave the Arizona Territory for New Mexico and then Colorado. While in Trinidad, Colorado, Wyatt Earp and Holliday parted ways, going separately to different parts of Colorado. Holliday arrived in Colorado in mid-April 1882.^[21]

Extradition fails[link]

On May 15, 1882, Holliday was arrested in Denver on the Arizona warrant for murdering Frank Stilwell. Wyatt Earp, fearing that Holliday could not receive a fair trial in Arizona, asked his friend Bat Masterson, Sheriff of Trinidad, Colorado, to help get Holliday released. The extradition hearing was set for May 30.^[22]:230 Late in the evening of May 29, Masterson needed help getting an appointment with Colorado Governor Frederick Walker Pitkin. He contacted E. D. Cowen, capital reporter for the Denver Tribune, who held political sway in town. Cowen later wrote, "He submitted proof of the criminal design upon Holliday's life. Late as the hour was, I called on Pitkin." After meeting with Masterson, Pitkin was persuaded by whatever evidence he presented and refused to honor Arizona's extradition request.^[22] His legal reasoning was that the extradition papers for Holliday contained faulty legal language, and that there was already a Colorado warrant out for Holliday—one on bunco charges that Masterson had fabricated in Pueblo, Colorado.^[22]

Masterson took Holliday to Pueblo, where he was released on bond two weeks after his arrest.^[23] Holliday and Wyatt met briefly after Holliday's release during June 1882 in Gunnison.

Death of Johnny Ringo[link]

On July 14, 1882, Johnny Ringo was found dead in the crotch of a large tree in West Turkey Creek Valley, near Chiricahua Peak, Arizona Territory, with a bullet hole in his right temple and a revolver hanging from a finger of his hand. The book, I Married Wyatt Earp, supposedly written by Josephine Marcus Earp, reported that Wyatt Earp and Holliday returned to Arizona to find and kill Ringo. Actually written by Glen Boyer, the book states that Holliday killed Ringo with a rifle shot at a distance, contradicting the coroner's ruling that Ringo's death was a suicide. However, Boyer's book has been discredited as a fraud and a hoax^[24] that cannot be relied upon.^[25]:489 In response to criticism about the book's authenticity, Boyer said the book was not really a first-person account, that he had interpreted Wyatt Earp in Josephine's voice, and admitted that he could not produce any documents to vindicate his methods.^[26]

Official records of the Pueblo County, Colorado District Court indicate that both Holliday and his attorney appeared in court there on July 11, 14 and 18, 1882. Author Karen Holliday Tanner, in Doc Holliday, A Family Portrait, speculated that Holliday may not have been in Pueblo at the time of the court date, citing a writ of habeas corpus issued for him in court on July 11.^[6] She believes that only his attorney may have appeared on his behalf that day, in spite of the wording of a court record that indicated he may have appeared in person—in propria persona or "in his own person". She cites this as standard legal filler text that does not necessarily prove the person was present. There is no doubt that Holliday arrived in Salida, Colorado on July 7 as reported in a town newspaper. This is 500 miles (800 km) from the site of Ringo's death, six days before the shooting.^[6]:295–5

Final illness, death and burial[link]

Holliday spent the rest of his life in Colorado. After a stay in Leadville, he suffered from the high altitude. He increasingly depended on alcohol and laudanum to ease the symptoms of tuberculosis, and his health and his ability to gamble began to deteriorate.^[6]:218

In 1887, prematurely gray and badly ailing, Holliday made his way to the Hotel Glenwood, a sanatorium near the hot springs of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. He hoped to take advantage of the reputed curative power of the waters, but the sulfurous fumes from the spring may have done his lungs more harm than good.^[6]:217 As he lay dying, Holliday is reported to have asked the nurse attending him at the Hotel Glenwood for a shot of whiskey. When she told him no, he looked at his bootless feet, amused. The nurses said that his last words were, "Damn, this is funny." Holliday died at 10 am, November 8, 1887. He was 36.^[3] It was reported that no one ever thought that Holliday would die in bed with his boots off.^[27]

Recent Holliday biographer Gary L. Roberts, however, considers it unlikely that Holliday, who had scarcely left his bed for two months, would have been able to speak coherently, if at all, on the day he died.^[27] Although the legend persists that Wyatt Earp was present when Holliday died, Earp did not learn of Holliday's death until two months afterward. Big Nose Kate later said she attended to him in his final days, but it is also doubtful that she was present.^[28]

The Glenwood Springs Ute Chief of November 12, 1887 wrote in his obituary that Holliday had been baptized in the Catholic Church. This assertion in his obituary was based on correspondence written between Holliday and his cousin, Sister Mary Melanie, a Catholic nun. However, no baptismal record exists in St. Stephen's Catholic Church in Glenwood Springs or the Annunciation Catholic Church in nearby Leadville, Colorado.^[29] Holliday's mother had been raised a Methodist and later joined a Presbyterian church (her husband's faith), but objected to the Presbyterian doctrine of predestination and reconverted to Methodism publically before she died, saying she wanted her son John to know what she believed.^[30] Holliday himself was later to say that he had joined a Methodist church in Dallas.^[31] At the end of his life, Holliday had struck up friendships with both a Catholic priest, Father E.T. Downey, and a Presbyterian minister, Rev. W.S. Randolph, in Glenwood Springs. When he died, Father Downey was out of town, and so Rev. Randolph presided over the burial at 4 pm on the same day Holliday died. The services were said to be in the presence of "many friends."^[32]

He is buried in Linwood Cemetery overlooking Glenwood Springs. Because it was November and the ground may have been frozen, some authors like Bob Boze Bell^[33] have speculated that Holliday could not have been buried in his marked grave in the Linwood Cemetery which was only accessible via a difficult mountain road. However, Holliday biographer Gary Roberts has located evidence that other bodies were transported to the Linwood Cemetery at the same time of the month that year, and the papers reported at the time explicitly that the burial was in the Linwood Cemetery. No exhumation has been attempted.^[34]

Character[link]

In an 1896 article, Wyatt Earp said that "Doc was a dentist, not a lawman or an assassin, whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a frontier vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long lean ash-blond fellow nearly dead with consumption, and at the same time the most skillful gambler and the nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun that I ever knew."^[35]:207

In a newspaper interview, Holliday was once asked if his conscience ever troubled him. He is reported to have said, "I coughed that up with my lungs, years ago."^[36]:189

Big Nose Kate, his long-time companion, remembered Holliday's reaction after his role in the O.K. Corral gunfight. She reported that Holliday came back to his room, sat on the bed, wept and said, "that was awful—awful".^[37]

Public reputation[link]

Publicly, Holliday could be as fierce as was needed for a gambling man to earn respect.^[38] In Tombstone in January 1882, he told Johnny Ringo (as recorded by diarist Parsons), "All I want of you is ten paces out in the street." He and Ringo were prevented from a gunfight only by the Tombstone police (which did not include the Earps at the time), who arrested them both. During the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Holliday likely killed Tom McLaury and probably fired the second bullet that killed Frank McLaury. Although Frank McLaury is sometimes erroneously stated to have been hit by three bullets (based on the next-day news accounts in Tombstone papers), the coroner's inquest found Frank was hit only in the stomach and through the back of the head under his ear; therefore either Holliday or Wyatt missed Frank. Holliday was also present at the death of Frank Stilwell in Tucson, Arizona and the other three men killed during the Earp Vendetta Ride.

Stabbings and shootings[link]

In three of his four known pistol fights, he shot one opponent (Billy Allen) in the arm, one (Charles White) across the scalp, and missed one man (saloon keeper Charles Austin) entirely. In an early incident in Tombstone in 1880, shortly after he arrived in town, a drunken Holliday managed to shoot Oriental Saloon owner Milt Joyce in the hand, and his bartender Parker in the toe (neither was the man Holliday originally quarreled with). For this, Holliday was fined for assault and battery. With the exception of Mike Gordon in 1879, there are no contemporaneous newspaper or legal records to match the many unnamed men whom Holliday is credited with killing in popular folklore; the same is true for the several tales of knifings credited to Holliday by early biographers.^[39]

In a March 1882 interview with the Arizona Daily Star, Virgil Earp told the reporter, "There was something very peculiar about Doc. He was gentlemanly, a good dentist, a friendly man, and yet outside of us boys I don't think he had a friend in the Territory. Tales were told that he had murdered men in differ­ent parts of the country; that he had robbed and committed all manner of crimes, and yet when persons were asked how they knew it, they could only admit that it was hearsay, and that nothing of the kind could really be traced up to Doc's account."^[40]

Arrests and convictions[link]

Biographer Karen Holliday Tanner found that Holliday had been arrested 17 times before his 1881 shootout in Tombstone. Only one arrest, an 1879 shootout with Mike Gordon in New Mexico, was for murder. Holliday was not successfully charged in either case. The preliminary hearing after the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral exonerated Holliday's actions as a lawman. In Denver, the charges for Stilwell's murder went unanswered when Governor was persuaded by Trinidad Sheriff Bat Masterson to release Holliday to his custody for bunco charges.

Out of all his other arrests, Holliday pleaded guilty to two gambling charges, one charge of carrying a deadly weapon in the city (in connection with the argument with Ringo), and one misdemeanor assault and battery charge (his shooting of Joyce and Parker). The others were all dismissed or returned as "not guilty".

Alleged murder of Ed Bailey[link]

Wyatt Earp recounted one event during which Holliday killed a fellow gambler named Ed Bailey. Wyatt and his common-law wife Mattie Blaylock were in Fort Griffin, Texas, during the winter of 1887, looking for gambling opportunities. Earp visited the saloon of his old friend from Cheyenne, John Shannsey. He met Holliday at the Cattle Exchange.^[41]

According to Earp, Holliday was playing poker with a well-liked local man named Ed Bailey. Holliday caught Bailey "monkeying with the dead wood," or the discard pile, which was against the rules. Holliday reminded Bailey to "play poker", which was a polite way to caution him to stop cheating. When Bailey made the same move again, Holliday took the pot without showing his hand, which was his right under the rules. Bailey immediately went for his pistol, but Holliday whipped out a knife from his breast pocket and "caught Bailey just below the brisket" or upper chest. Bailey died and Holliday, new to town, was detained in his room at the Planter's Hotel.^[41][42]:115

Earp reported that Holliday's girlfriend, Big Nose Kate, devised a diversion. She procured a second pistol from a friend in town, and then, removing a horse from its shed behind the hotel, she set fire to the shed. When everyone but Holliday and the lawmen guarding him ran to put out the fire, she calmly walked in and tossed Holliday the second pistol.^[41]

However, no record of any such killing or of Bailey, the man supposedly killed, exists in news or legal accounts of the day. Additionally, Big Nose Kate, at the end of her life in 1940 (after the Lake biography of Earp had appeared in 1931), denied that the story was true and laughed at the idea of "a 116-pound woman holding a gun on a sheriff".^[43]

Photo issues[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

There are many supposed photos of Holliday, most of which do not quite match each other. The one clearly visible adult portrait known to be authentic is the March 1872 Pennsylvania School of Dental Surgery graduation photo taken when Holliday was 20. This photo shows a light-haired man with light and slightly asymmetrical eyes, a thin mustache and fine features. It matches the other known authentic photo, a poor-quality (but signed) photo of a standing Holliday taken in Prescott, Arizona Territory, in 1879, the year before he went to Tombstone.^{[original research?]}

The 1879 photo, of known provenance, is of very poor quality and barely distinguishable. It shows Holliday has not changed a great deal in seven years, though he sports a larger mustache and perhaps also an imperial beard (triangular bit of hair below the lower lip, combined with a mustache). In the 1879 photo, Holliday is also wearing a tie with a diamond stickpin, which he was known to have worn habitually and which was among his few possessions (minus the diamond) when he died. This stickpin is similar to one Wyatt Earp wears in his own most well-known photo.^{[original research?]}

There are three photos most often printed (but of unknown provenance) of Holliday, supposedly taken by C.S. Fly in Tombstone (but sometimes said to be taken in Dallas). Holliday lived in a rooming house in front of Fly's photography studio. Many individuals share similar facial features and faces on people who look radically different can look similar when viewed from certain angles. Because of this, most museum staff, knowledgeable researchers and collectors require provenance or a documented history for an image to support physical similarities that might exist. Experts will rarely offer even a tentative identification of new or unique images of famous people based solely on similarities shared with other known images.^[44]

The photos allegedly from the Tombstone era clearly show the same man in three different poses and slightly different dress. This man shows some slight differences from the Holliday in the two authentic photos. The man in these later photos has darker hair, possibly because the photo has more contrast than the previous ones, or was pomaded (a typical fashion at the times) or unwashed, both cases yielding an "oilier", darker hue.^{[original research?]}

None of the three photos of the darker-haired man match each other exactly in certain clothing details, so they are not exactly the same image (though they may be poses from the same session, since this man is dressed in the same suit). For example, a cowlick and differently-folded collar is present only in the oval inscribed photo, several different cravats are seen, and the shirt collar and vest change orientation between photos. Although perhaps described by Earp as "squared jawed," his graduation photo shows arched eyebrows and a pointed chin, which are matched by the second authentic 1879 photo, but not in the rest.^{[original research?]}

• DocHollidayCloseUp.jpg

  March 1872 age 20. Pennsylvania School of Dental Surgery graduation photo. Authenticated as Holliday.

• 

  Prescott, Arizona, 1879 age 27. Known provenance.

• 

  Uncreased print of supposed 1882 Tombstone photo of "Doc Holliday", age 30. Left side of upturned detachable shirt collar toward camera, no cowlick.

• HollidayLcollar.jpg

  Creased and darker-toned version of left Tombstone, Arizona photo.

• Doc Holliday.jpg

  Most often reproduced "Doc Holliday" photo. Heavily retouched oval-inscribed portrait, with cowlick, folded down collar.

• HollidayandBowler.jpg

  Photo of "Doc Holliday" with bowler (derby) hat and more open vest and coat. This is not a retouch or expanded field version of any of the photos at left.

The last of the three later supposed photos of Holliday—in which the subject has a more open overcoat, a more open vest (allowing the bowtie cords to be seen), an upturned shirt collar, and is holding a bowler hat (derby hat)—exists as a print in the Cochise County Courthouse Museum in Tombstone. It is evidently the same dark-haired man shown in the other two photos, but is yet another image (perhaps from the same photo session in which the upturned detachable shirt collar is worn, rather than the folded-down collar of the oval portrait). Other, even more questionable photos exist as well.^{[original research?]}

Honors[link]

Grave of Doc Holliday in Glenwood Springs, Colorado

This is the current headstone for Doc Holliday. As the records of exactly where his body is located within the cemetery were lost, the City of Glenwood Springs erected a headstone that turned out to have the wrong date on it. It was replaced with this more accurate monument.

On March 20, 2005, the 122nd anniversary of the killing of Frank Stilwell by Wyatt Earp, a life-sized statue of Holliday and Earp by the sculptor Dan Bates was dedicated by the Southern Arizona Transportation Museum at the restored Historic Railroad Depot in Tucson, Arizona, at the approximate site of the shooting on the train platform.^[45][46] The facial features on this statue are based on the set of supposed portrait photos and not on the two known authentic photos of him.

For a time in the 1970s and 1980s, in Valdosta, Georgia, where he formerly resided, the Holliday Skate Palace, a since defunct roller skating rink, was named in his honor.

In January 2010, to coincide with its sesquicentennial celebration, Valdosta, Georgia held a Doc Holliday look-alike contest.^[47] It was won by local resident Jason Norton.^[48]

Popular culture[link]

Holliday was nationally known during his life as a gunman, and the O.K. Corral fight has become one of the most famous moments in the American West. Numerous Westerns have been made of it, and the Holliday character has been prominent in all of them. Not all films however, that feature Holliday, or a character based on him, are biographical in nature.

Actors who have played Holliday in name include:^[49]

• Cesar Romero in Frontier Marshal, 1939, plays Doc Halliday, a surgeon, not a dentist, who is ambushed coming out of the Belle Union tavern after performing surgery on the bartender's son. Wyatt Earp single-handedly fights and wins a gunfight against Doc's killers at OK Corral. Doc's tombstone in Boot Hill, the last shot in the film, reads John Halliday 1848–1880.
• Walter Huston in The Outlaw, in 1943, a Howard Hughes film.
• Victor Mature in My Darling Clementine, in 1946, directed by John Ford, with Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp. Holliday is portrayed as an Eastern-born surgeon fleeing his fiancee because of his tuberculosis and dissolute lifestyle. Writer Alan Barra's comment on this movie is that it shows Holliday as he might have been, if he had been a tough-guy from Boston: "Victor Mature looks about as tubercular as a Kodiak bear." Also, Holliday is killed at the Corral, when in fact he survived it. And Ringo was not even there.
• Harry Bartell in the 13th episode of the CBS radio program "Gunsmoke," which aired on July 19, 1952.
• Kim Spalding in the syndicated television series Stories of the Century (1954), starring and hosted by Jim Davis.
• Kirk Douglas in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, in 1957, with Burt Lancaster as Earp. Again, Holliday's feud with Ringo is a large part of the story, and Ringo dies at the Corral. In fact, he was not involved and committed suicide.
• Douglas Fowley in "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp" television series 1955–1961. As with many popular portrayals Fowley played Holliday as considerably older than the historical figure. Taking his cue from the popular Kirk Douglas portrayal, Fowley played Holliday as courtly, temperamental and dangerous. Unlike the Kirk Douglas Holliday, whose anger is often volcanic, Fowley's Holliday maintained a cool, gentlemanly Southern calm.
• Gerald Mohr and Peter Breck each played Holliday more than once in the 1957 television series Maverick.
• Arthur Kennedy played Holliday opposite James Stewart as Earp in director John Ford's Cheyenne Autumn.
• Adam West played Holliday on an episode of the TV series Lawman.
• Christopher Dark in an 1963 episode of the TV series Bonanza.
• Anthony Jacobs in the 1966 Doctor Who story The Gunfighters.
• Jason Robards in Hour of the Gun, a 1967 sequel to the 1957 movie, with James Garner as Earp. This is the first movie to fully delve into the vendetta that followed the gunfight; both films were directed by John Sturges.
• Sam Gilman in the 1968 Star Trek episode "Spectre of the Gun". Gilman, who refers to the character as 'Dil Holliday', was 53 years old at the time he played this role. The real Holliday was 30 years old at the time of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
• Stacy Keach in Doc, in 1971, in which the Tombstone events are told from his perspective.
• Bill Fletcher in two episodes of the TV series, Alias Smith and Jones: "Which Way to the OK Corral?" in 1971 and "The Ten Days That Shook Kid Curry" in 1972.
• Dennis Hopper in Wild Times, a 1980 television mini-series based on Brian Garfield's novel.
• John McLiam played Holliday in the pilot episode of the short-lived 1981 television series Bret Maverick.
• Jeffrey DeMunn played Holliday in the 1983 made-for-television movie "I Married Wyatt Earp."
• Willie Nelson in the 1986 all-singer/actor TV-remake of Stagecoach. In addition to the alcoholic Doc Boone character of the original film, the remake adds a new "Doc Holliday", also a medical doctor, and a consumptive. Since Doc Boone in the original film is loosely based on Holliday, the remake now contains two characters based on Holliday. If the character of the Southern-gentleman-gambler Hatfield is partly based on Holliday (being played by the thin John Carradine, for emphasis, in the original film), then the 1986 remake actually contains three characters in whole or partly based on Holliday.
• Val Kilmer in Tombstone, in 1993. Sylvia D. Lynch in Aristocracy's Outlaw believes Kilmer caught Holliday's cheerful mix of despair and courage. But his last fight with Ringo is disputed.
• Dennis Quaid in Wyatt Earp, in 1994, a detailed bio-epic of Wyatt Earp's life where Quaid plays an often drunk Holliday with a relationship with Big Nose Kate. Quaid's performance was an insightful one.
• Randy Quaid in Purgatory, a 1999 TV film about dead outlaws in a town between Heaven and Hell.

Roy Halladay, a Major League Baseball pitcher, is nicknamed "Doc" Halladay, a name coined by the late Toronto Blue Jays announcer Tom Cheek.

"Doc Holliday Days" are held yearly in Holliday's birthplace of Griffin, Georgia.

Fiction[link]

• Merkabah Rider: The Mensch With No Name by Edward M. Erdelac, copyright 2010, ISBN 978-1-61572-190-0)
• The Buntline Special by Mike Resnick, copyright 2010, ISBN 978-1-61614-249-0
• Territory by Emma Bull, copyright 2007 ISBN 978-0-8125-4836-5
• '[Bucking the Tiger: A Novel by Bruce Olds, copyright 2002 ISBN 978-0-312-42024-6
• Wild Times by Brian Garfield, copyright 1978 ISBN 978-0-671-24374-6
• Deadlands ' ' a tabletop role-playing game produced by Pinnacle Entertainment Group in the book titled Law Dogs, Copyright 1996, ISBD 978-1889546261
• Doc: A Novel by Mary Doria Russell, 2011 ISBN 978-1-4000-6804-3
• At Grave's End by Jeaniene Frost, 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-158307-0

Songs[link]

• "Linwood", written and performed by Jon Chandler on The Grand Dame of the Rockies – Songs of the Hotel Colorado and the Roaring Fork Valley; winner of the 2009 Western Writers of America Spur Award for Best Song^[50]

See also[link]

Biography portal

• Lottie Deno

Bibliography[link]

• Lynch, Sylvia D. (1995). Aristocracy's Outlaw: The Doc Holliday Story. Tennessee Iris Press. ISBN 0-9645781-0-7. 
• Roberts, Gary L. (2006). Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend. John Wiley and Sons, Inc.. ISBN 0-471-26291-9. 
• Tanner, Karen Holliday (1998). Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-3320-1. 

References[link]

External links[link]

• "Detail of Doc Holliday's Travels and Encounters by Date (1875–1887)". Archived from the original on April 5, 2009. http://web.archive.org/web/20090405001616/http://www.docholliday.info/timelineb.htm. 

• Skyways.org, John Henry Holliday arrives in Dodge City from Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait, by Karen Holliday Tanner, 1998
• Kansasheritage.org, John Henry Holliday family history
• Tombstonetimes.com, "Where's Doc"
• Doc Ancestry.com, Holliday Information, Photos and Genealogy from Spalding County, Georgia GenWeb

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Simon Templar is a British fictional character known as The Saint featured in a long-running series of books by Leslie Charteris published between 1928 and 1963. After that date, other authors collaborated with Charteris on books until 1983; two additional works produced without Charteris’s participation were published in 1997. The character has also been portrayed in motion pictures, radio dramas, comic strips, comic books and three television series.

Overview[link]

Simon Templar is a thief known as The Saint because of his initials (ST) and because his heroic exploits fly in the face of an otherwise nefarious reputation. Templar has aliases, often using the initials S.T. such as "Sebastian Tombs" or "Sugarman Treacle". His true name is unknown, and the name "Templar" was adopted at an early age from reading about the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, the Knights Templar. Blessed with boyish humor, he makes humorous and off-putting remarks and leaves a "calling card" at his "crimes", a stick figure of a man with a halo, the logo of the books, the movies, and the 1960s TV series.

The books allude to the possibility that Templar started his career as a criminal and suggest he developed the skills of a burglar. His origin remains a mystery, but in the books his income derives from the pockets of the "ungodly" (as he terms those who live by a less moral code than his own). There are references to a "ten percent collection fee" to cover expenses when he extracts large sums from victims, the remainder being returned to the owners, given to charity, shared among Templar's colleagues, or some combination of those possibilities.

Templar's targets include corrupt politicians, warmongers, and other low life. "He claims he's a Robin Hood", bleats one victim, "but to me he's just a robber and a hood".^[1] Robin Hood appears one inspiration for the character; Templar stories were often promoted as featuring "The Robin Hood of modern crime", and this phrase to describe Templar appears in several stories. A term used by Templar to describe his acquisitions is "boodle" (a term also applied to the short story collection).

The Saint has a dark side, as he is willing to ruin the lives of the "ungodly", and even kill them, if he feels more innocent lives can be saved. In the early books, Templar refers to this as murder, although he considers his actions justified and righteous, a view usually shared by partners and colleagues. Several adventures centre on his intention to kill (for example, "Arizona" in The Saint Goes West has Templar planning to kill a Nazi scientist).

During the 1920s and early '30s, The Saint is fighting European arms dealers, drug runners, and white slavers while based in his London home. His battles with Rayt Marius mirror the 'four rounds with Carl Petersen' of Bulldog Drummond. During the first half of the 1940s, Charteris cast Templar as a willing operative of the American government, fighting Nazi interests in the U.S. during World War II.

While the first of these novels, The Saint in Miami, has Templar stumbling upon a Nazi plot, beginning with the "Arizona" novella Templar is fighting his own war against Germany. The Saint Steps In reveals that Templar is operating on behalf of a mysterious individual known as Hamilton who appears again in the next WWII-era Saint book, The Saint on Guard. The later books move from confidence games, murder mysteries, and wartime espionage and place Templar as a global adventurer.

According to Saint historian Burl Barer, Charteris made the decision to remove Templar from his usual confidence-game trappings, not to mention his usual co-stars Holm, Uniatz, Orace and Teal, as they weren't appropriate for the post-war stories he was writing.^[2]

Although The Saint functions as an ordinary detective in some stories, others depict ingenious plots to get even with vanity publishers and other ripoff artists, greedy bosses who exploit their workers, con men, etc.

The Saint has many partners, though none last throughout the series. For the first half until the late 1940s, the most recurrent is Patricia Holm, his girlfriend, who was introduced in the first story, the 1928 novel Meet - The Tiger! in which she shows herself a capable adventurer. Holm appeared erratically throughout the series, sometimes disappearing for books at a time. Templar and Holm lived together in a time when common-law relationships were uncommon and, in some areas, illegal.

They have an easy, non-binding relationship, as Templar is shown flirting with other women from time to time. However, his heart remains true to Holm in the early books, culminating in his considering marriage in the novella The Melancholy Journey of Mr. Teal, only to have Holm say she had no interest in marrying. Holm disappeared in the late 1940s, and according to Barer's history of The Saint, Charteris refused to allow Templar a steady girlfriend, or Holm to return (although according to the Saintly Bible website, Charteris did write a film story that would have seen Templar encountering a son he had with Holm).

Another recurring character, Scotland Yard Inspector Claud Eustace Teal, could be found attempting to put The Saint behind bars, although in some books they work in partnership. In The Saint in New York, Teal's American counterpart, NYPD Inspector John Henry Fernack, was introduced, and he would become, like Teal, an Inspector Lestrade-like foil and pseudo-nemesis in a number of books, notably the American-based World War II novels of the 1940s.

The Saint had a band of compatriots, including Roger Conway, Norman Kent, Archie Sheridan, Richard "Dicky" Tremayne (a name that appeared in the 1990s TV series, Twin Peaks), Peter Quentin, Monty Hayward, and his ex-military valet, Orace.

In later stories, the dimwitted and constantly soused but reliable American thug Hoppy Uniatz was at Templar's side. Of The Saint's companions, only Norman Kent was killed during an adventure (he sacrifices himself to save Templar in the novel The Last Hero); the other males are presumed to have settled down and married (two to former female criminals: Dicky Tremayne to "Straight Audrey" Perowne and Peter Quentin to Kathleen "The Mug" Allfield; Archie Sheridan is mentioned to have married in "The Lawless Lady" in Enter the Saint, presumably to Lilla McAndrew after the events of the story "The Wonderful War" in Featuring the Saint).

Charteris gave Templar interests and quirks as the series went on. Early talents as an amateur poet and songwriter were displayed, often to taunt villains, though the novella The Inland Revenue established that poetry was also a hobby. That story revealed that Templar wrote an adventure novel featuring a South American hero not far removed from The Saint himself.

Templar also on occasion would break the fourth wall in an almost metafictional sense, making references to being part of a story and mentioning in one early story how he cannot be killed so early on; the 1960s television series would also have Templar address viewers. Charteris breaks the fourth wall by making references to the "chronicler" of The Saint's adventures and in one instance (the story "The Sizzling Saboteur" in The Saint on Guard) inserts his own name.

Publishing history[link]

The origins of The Saint can be found in early works by Charteris, some of which predated the first Saint novel, 1928's Meet - The Tiger!, or were written after it but before Charteris committed to writing a Saint series. Burl Barer reveals that an obscure early work, Daredevil, not only featured a heroic lead who shared "Saintly" traits (down to driving the same brand of automobile) but also shared his adventures with Inspector Claud Eustace Teal—a character later a regular in Saint books. Barer writes that several early Saint stories were rewritten from non-Saint stories, including the novel She Was a Lady, which appeared in magazine form featuring a different lead character.

Charteris utilized three formats for delivering his stories. Besides full-length novels, he wrote novellas for the most part published in magazines and later in volumes of two or three stories. He also wrote short stories featuring the character, again mostly for magazines and later compiled into omnibus editions. In later years these short stories carried a common theme, such as the women Templar meets or exotic places he visits. With the exception of Meet - The Tiger!, chapter titles of Templar novels usually contain a descriptive phrase describing the events of the chapter; for example, Chapter Four of Knight Templar is entitled "How Simon Templar dozed in the Green Park and discovered a new use for toothpaste".

Although Charteris’s novels and novellas had more conventional thriller plots than his confidence game short stories, both novels and stories are admired. As in the past, the appeal lies in the vitality of the character, a hero who can go into a brawl and come out with his hair combed and who, faced with death, lights a cigarette and taunts his enemy with the signature phrase "As the actress said to the bishop...."

The period of the books begins in the 1920s and moves to the 1970s as the 50 books progress (the character being seemingly ageless). In early books most activities are illegal, although directed at villains. In later books, this becomes less so. In books written during World War II, The Saint was recruited by the government to help track spies and similar undercover work.^[3] Later he became a cold warrior fighting Communism. The quality of writing also changes; early books have a freshness which becomes replaced by cynicism in later works. A few Saint stories crossed into science fiction and fantasy, "The Man Who Liked Ants" and the early novel The Last Hero being examples. When early Saint books were republished in the 1960s to the 1980s, it was not uncommon to see freshly written introductions by Charteris apologizing for the out-of-date tone; according to a Charteris "apology" in a 1969 paperback of Featuring the Saint, he attempted to update some earlier stories when they were reprinted but gave up and let them sit as period pieces. The 1963 edition of the short story collection The Happy Highwayman contains examples of abandoned revisions; in one story published in the 1930s ("The Star Producers"), references to actors of the 1930s were replaced for 1963 with names of current movie stars; another 1930s-era story, "The Man Who Was Lucky", added references to atomic power.

Charteris started retiring from writing books following 1963's The Saint in the Sun. The next book to carry Charteris’s name, 1964's Vendetta for the Saint, was written by science fiction author Harry Harrison, who had worked on the Saint comic strip, after which Charteris edited and revised the manuscript. Between 1964 and 1983, another 14 Saint books would be published, credited to Charteris but written by others. In his introduction to the first, The Saint on TV, Charteris called these volumes a team effort in which he oversaw selection of stories, initially adaptations of scripts written the 1962-69 TV series The Saint, and with Fleming Lee writing the adaptations (other authors took over from Lee). Charteris and Lee collaborated on two Saint novels in the 1970s, The Saint in Pursuit (based on a story by Charteris for the Saint comic strip) and The Saint and the People Importers. The "team" writers were usually credited on the title page, if not the cover. One later volume, Catch the Saint, was an experiment in returning The Saint to his period, prior to the Second World War (as opposed to recent Saint books set in the present day).

The last Saint volume in the line of books starting with Meet - The Tiger! in 1928 was Salvage for the Saint, published in 1983. According to the Saintly Bible website, every Saint book published between 1928 and 1983 saw the first edition issued by Hodder and Stoughton in the UK (a company that originally published only religious books) and The Crime Club (an imprint of Doubleday that specialized in mystery and detective fiction) in the United States. For the first 20 years, the books were first published in Britain, with the U.S. edition following up to a year later. By the late '40s to early '50s, this situation had been reversed. In one case—The Saint to the Rescue—a British edition did not appear until nearly two years after the American one.

French language books published over 30 years included translated volumes of Charteris originals as well as novelisations of radio scripts from the English-language radio series and comic strip adaptations. Many of these books credited to Charteris were written by others, including Madeleine Michel-Tyl.^[4]

Charteris died in 1993. Two additional Saint novels appeared around the time of the 1997 film starring Val Kilmer: a novelisation of the film (which had little connection to the Charteris stories) and Capture the Saint, a more faithful work published by The Saint Club and originated by Charteris in 1936. Both books were written by Burl Barer, who in the early 1990s published a history of the character in books, radio, and television.

Charteris wrote 14 novels between 1928 and 1971 (the last two co-written), 34 novellas, and 95 short stories featuring Simon Templar. Between 1963 and 1997, an additional seven novels and fourteen novellas were written by others.

The Saint on radio[link]

Several radio drama series were produced in North America, Ireland, and Britain. The earliest was for Radio Eireann in 1940 and starred Terence De Marney. Both NBC and CBS produced Saint series during 1945, starring Edgar Barrier and Brian Aherne. Many early shows were adaptations of published stories, although Charteris wrote several storylines for the series which were novelised as short stories and novellas.

The longest-running radio incarnation was Vincent Price, who played the character in a series between 1947 and 1951 on three networks: CBS, Mutual and NBC. Like The Whistler, the program had an opening whistle theme with footsteps. Some sources say the whistling theme for The Saint was created by Leslie Charteris while others credit RKO composer Roy Webb.

Price left in May 1951, replaced by Tom Conway, who played the role for several more months. His brother, George Sanders, had played Templar on film. The next English-language radio series aired on Springbok Radio in South Africa between 1953 and 1957. These were fresh adaptations of the original stories and starred Tom Meehan. Around 1965–66 the South African version of Lux Radio Theatre produced a single dramatization of The Saint. The English service of South Africa produced another series radio adventures for six months in 1970-1971. The next English-language radio series was on BBC Radio 4 in 1995 starring Paul Rhys.

The Saint in film and on TV[link]

Not long after creating The Saint, Charteris began a long association with Hollywood as a screenwriter. He was successful in getting a major studio, RKO Radio Pictures, interested in a film based on one of his works. The first, The Saint in New York in 1938, based on the 1935 novel of the same name, starred Louis Hayward as Templar and Jonathan Hale as Inspector Henry Farnack, the American counterpart of Mr Teal.

The film was a success and eight more films followed over 15 years. The character of Farnack returned in the first five, but George Sanders took over from Hayward. Hugh Sinclair portrayed Templar in two other films. Several of the films were original stories, sometimes based upon outlines by Charteris while others were based loosely on original novels or novellas. There was one final film, The Saint's Girl Friday in 1953, for which Hayward returned to the role. This was followed by an unsuccessful French production in 1960.

In the 1960s Roger Moore revived the role in a long-running television series The Saint. According to the book Spy Television by Wesley Britton, the first actor offered the role was Patrick McGoohan of Danger Man and The Prisoner. The series ran from 1962 to 1969, and Moore remains the actor most closely identified with the character.

Since Moore, other actors played him in later series, notably Return of the Saint (1978–1979) starring Ian Ogilvy; the series ran for one season, although it was picked up by the CBS Network. In the mid 1980s, the National Enquirer and other newspapers reported that Moore was planning to produce a movie based on The Saint with Pierce Brosnan as Templar, but it was never made. A pilot for a The Saint in Manhattan series starring Australian actor Andrew Clarke was shown on CBS in 1987 as part of the CBS Summer Playhouse; the pilot was produced by Don Taffner, but it never progressed beyond the pilot stage. Inspector John Fernack of the NYPD made his first film appearance since the 1940s in that production, while Templar got about in a black Lamborghini bearing the ST1 licence plate. In 1989, six movies were made by Taffner starring Simon Dutton. These were syndicated in the United States as part of a series of films entitled Mystery Wheel of Adventure, while in the UK they were shown as a series on ITV.

In 1991, as detailed by Burl Barer in his 1992 history of The Saint, plans were announced for a series of motion pictures. Ultimately, however, no such franchise eventuated.

The Saint starring Val Kilmer was made in 1997 but diverged far from the Charteris books, although it did revive Templar's use of aliases. Kilmer's Saint is unable to defeat a Russian gangster in hand-to-hand combat and is forced to flee; this would have been unthinkable in a Charteris tale. Whereas the original Saint resorted to aliases that had the initials S.T., Kilmer's character used Christian saints, regardless of initials. This Saint refrained from killing, and even the main villains live to stand trial, whereas Charteris’s version had no qualms about taking another life. Kilmer's Saint is presented as a master of disguise, but Charteris’s version hardly used the sophisticated ones shown in this film. The film mirrored aspects of Charteris’s own life, notably his origins in the Far East, though not in an orphanage as the film portrayed. Sir Roger Moore features throughout in cameo as the BBC Newsreader heard in Simon Templar's Volvo.

On March 13, 2007, TNT said it was developing a one-hour series. The series (for which no broadcast date has been announced) was to be executive produced by William J. MacDonald and produced by Jorge Zamacona.^[5][6] James Purefoy was announced as the new Simon Templar.^[7][8] Production of the pilot, which was to have been directed by Barry Levinson, did not go ahead.^[9] However the show has remained in development and a September 2009 start was planned for a pilot film with Scottish actor Dougray Scott starring as Simon Templar.^[10] Former Saint Roger Moore announced on his website that he will be appearing in the new production, which is being produced by his son, Geoffrey Moore, in a small role.^[11]

Films[link]

Since 1938, numerous films have been produced in the United States, France and Australia based to varying degrees upon The Saint. A few were based, usually loosely, upon Charteris’s stories, but most were original.

This is a list of the films featuring Simon Templar and of the actors who played The Saint:

• The Saint in New York (1938 – Louis Hayward)
• The Saint Strikes Back (1939 – George Sanders)
• The Saint in London (1939 – Sanders)
• The Saint's Double Trouble (1940 – Sanders)
• The Saint Takes Over (1940 – Sanders)
• The Saint in Palm Springs (1941 – Sanders)
• The Saint's Vacation (1941 – Hugh Sinclair)
• The Saint Meets the Tiger (1943 - Sinclair)
• The Saint's Girl Friday (1954 - Hayward)
• Le Saint mène la danse (1960 - Félix Marten)
• Le Saint prend l'affut (1966 - Jean Marais)
• The Fiction Makers (1968 - Roger Moore) - edited from episodes of The Saint
• Vendetta for the Saint (1969 - Moore) - edited from episodes of The Saint
• The Saint and the Brave Goose (1979 made for TV - Ian Ogilvy) - edited from episodes of Return of the Saint
• The Saint in Manhattan (1987 made for TV - Andrew Clarke)
• The Saint (1997 - Val Kilmer)

In the 1930s, RKO purchased the rights to produce a film adaptation of Saint Overboard, but no such movie was ever produced.

Television series[link]

• The Saint (1962-1969 - Roger Moore)
• Return of the Saint (1978-1979 - Ian Ogilvy)
• The made-for-TV film series that formed part of Mystery Wheel of Adventure (1989) - all starring Simon Dutton
  • Fear in Fun Park (aka The Saint in Australia)
  • The Big Bang
  • The Blue Dulac
  • The Brazilian Connection
  • The Software Murders
  • Wrong Number

Three of the surviving actors who have played Templar—Roger Moore, Ian Ogilvy, and Simon Dutton—have been appointed vice presidents of "The Saint Club" that was founded by Leslie Charteris himself in 1936.

The Saint on the stage[link]

In the late 1940s, Charteris and sometime Sherlock Holmes scriptwriter Denis Green wrote a stage play entitled The Saint Misbehaves.^[12]

It was never publicly performed, as soon after writing it Charteris decided to focus on non-Saint work. For many years it was thought to be lost; however, two copies are known to exist in private hands, and correspondence relating to the play can be found in the Leslie Charteris Collection at Boston University.

The Saint in the comics[link]

The Saint appeared in a long-running comic strip series starting as a daily strip 27 September 1948 with a Sunday added on 20 March the following year. The early strips were written by Leslie Charteris, who had previous experience writing comic strips, having replaced Dashiell Hammett as the writer of the Secret Agent X-9 strip. The original artist was Mike Roy. In 1951, when John Spranger replaced Roy as the artist, he altered The Saint's appearance by depicting him with a beard. Bob Lubbers illustrated The Saint in 1959 and 1960. The final two years of the strip were drawn by Doug Wildey before it came to an end on 16 September 1961.

Concurrent with the comic strip, Avon Comics published 12 issues of a The Saint comic book between 1947 and 1952 (some of these stories were reprinted in the 1980s). The 1960s TV series is unusual in that it is one of the few major programs of its genre that was not adapted as a comic book in the United States.

In Sweden, The Saint had a long-running comic book published from 1966 to 1985 under the title Helgonet.^[13] It originally reprinted the newspaper strip, but soon original stories were commissioned for Helgonet. These stories were also later reprinted in other European countries. Two of the main writers were Norman Worker and Donne Avenell; the latter also co-wrote the novels The Saint and the Templar Treasure and the novella collection Count on the Saint, while Worker contributed to the novella collection Catch the Saint.

The Saint in magazines[link]

Charteris also edited or oversaw several magazines that tied in with The Saint. The first of these were anthologies entitled The Saint's Choice that ran for seven issues in 1945-46. A few years later Charteris launched The Saint Detective Magazine (later titled The Saint Mystery Magazine and The Saint Magazine), which ran for 141 issues between 1953 and 1967, with a separate British edition that ran just as long but published different material. In most issues of Saint's Choice and the later magazines Charteris included at least one Saint story, usually previously published in one of his books but occasionally original. In several mid-1960s issues, however, he substituted Instead of the Saint, a series of essays on topics of interest to him. The rest of the material in the magazines consisted of novellas and short stories by other mystery writers of the day. An Australian edition was also published for a few years in the 1950s. In 1984 Charteris attempted to revive the Saint magazine, but it ran for only three issues.^[14]

Leslie Charteris himself portrayed The Saint in a photo play in Life Magazine: The Saint Goes West.

The Saint book series[link]

Most Saint books were collections of novellas or short stories, some of which were published individually either in magazines or in smaller paperback form. Many of the books have also been published under different titles over the years; the titles used here are the more common ones for each book.

From 1964 to 1983, the Saint books were collaborative works; Charteris acted in an editorial capacity and received front cover author credit, while other authors wrote these stories and were credited inside the book. These collaborative authors are noted.(Sources: Barer and the editions themselves.)

French adventures[link]

A number of Saint adventures were published in French over a 30-year period, many of which have yet to be published in English. Many of these stories were ghostwritten by Madeleine Michel-Tyl and credited to Charteris (who exercised some editorial control). The French books were generally novelisations of scripts from the radio series, or novels adapted from stories in the American Saint comic strip. One of the writers who worked on the French series, Fleming Lee, later wrote for the English-language books.^[4]

Unpublished works[link]

Burl Barer's history of The Saint identifies two manuscripts that to date have never been published. The first is a collaboration between Charteris and Fleming Lee called Bet on the Saint that was rejected by Doubleday, the American publishers of the Saint series. Charteris, Barer writes, chose not to submit it to his UK publishers, Hodder & Stoughton. The rejection of the manuscript by Doubleday meant that The Crime Club's long-standing right of first refusal on any new Saint works was now ended and the manuscript was then submitted to other U.S. publishers, without success. Barer also tells of a 1979 novel entitled The Saint's Lady by a Scottish fan, Joy Martin, which had been written as a present for and as a tribute to Charteris. Charteris was impressed by the manuscript and attempted to get it published, but it too was ultimately rejected. The manuscript, which according to Barer is in the archives of Boston University, features the return of Patricia Holm.

According to the Saintly Bible website, at one point Leslie Charteris biographer (Ian Dickerson) was working on a manuscript (based upon a film story idea by Charteris) for a new novel entitled Son of the Saint in which Templar shares an adventure with his son by Patricia Holm. The book has, to date, not been published.^[15]

References[link]

• Burl Barer, The Saint: A Complete History in Print, Radio, Film and Television 1928-1992. Jefferson, N.C.: MacFarland, 2003 (originally published in 1992).

External links[link]

• The Saintly Bible: large website about Leslie Charteris’s creation (including news blog)
• Official Website for Leslie Charteris
• The Saint Novels in French
• Listing of all English-language Saint radio programs
• [3] Public domain recordings of Saint radio episodes in MP3 format, starring Vincent Price.
• Sir Roger Moore - A Fan Site

The Saint may refer to:

Fiction[link]

• Simon Templar, also known as "The Saint", the protagonist of a book series by Leslie Charteris and subsequent adaptations:
  • The Saint (film series), starring Louis Hayward (1938), George Sanders (1939–1941) and Hugh Sinclair (1941–1943)
  • The Saint (radio show) (1944–1951), a radio program starring Vincent Price on NBC Radio
  • The Saint (comics) (1948-1961), a long-running comic strip series
  • The Saint (TV series) (1962–1969), a British television series starring Roger Moore
  • The Saint (TV Films) 1989 starring Simon Dutton
  • The Saint (film) (1997), an American film starring Val Kilmer
    • The Saint (soundtrack), a soundtrack album from the 1997 film
    • The Saint (novel), a novelization of the 1997 film, by Burl Barer
• "The Saint" (Law & Order: Criminal Intent), an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent
• Il santo (novel), a novel by Antonio Fogazzaro
• The Saint, an omnibus edition of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels, Honour Guard through Sabbat Martyr, by Dan Abnett