Bonnie Hammer is the Chairman of NBCU Cable Entertainment and Cable Studios. In January 2011, Hammer added executive responsibility for E! Entertainment, E! Studios and G4 to her existing oversight of USA, Syfy, Chiller, Cloo, Universal HD and Universal Cable Productions. An industry leader in network programming and branding, Hammer was previously President, NBCU Cable Entertainment and Cable Studios. She assumed responsibility for USA Network in May 2004, adding to her role as president of Syfy. In March 2008, she took the reins of the newly created Universal Cable Productions, which generates quality content across multiple media platforms for USA, Syfy and other networks. At the same time, she assumed leadership of Sleuth (now Cloo), Chiller and Universal HD, which are among cable's most successful digital networks.

Hammer first established herself professionally in New York as a programming executive at Lifetime Television, where she oversaw production of an award-winning series of documentaries.

She is a 1971 graduate of Boston University College of Communication; she also earned a master's degree in Media Technology from the University's School of Education in 1975. She launched her career in television at WGBH, the public television station in Boston, where she produced the critically acclaimed series ''This Old House'' and ''ZOOM''. She later executive-produced ''Good Day!'' for Boston's ABC affiliate, WCVB.

References

''New York Times'' interview, 2005

CNN Interview, 2001

NATPE Speaker Bio, 2006.

Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:Boston University alumni Category:American television executives Category:Syfy

name	Kendall Nicole Jenner
birth name	Kendall Nicole Jenner
birth date	November 03, 1995
birth place	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
known for	Reality show ''Keeping Up with the Kardashians''
relatives	Bruce Jenner (father)Kris Jenner (mother)Kylie Jenner (sister)Kourtney Kardashian (half-sister)Kim Kardashian (half-sister)Khloé Kardashian (half-sister)Rob Kardashian (half-brother)Brody Jenner (half-brother) Burt Jenner (half-brother) Brandon Jenner (half-brother) Casey Jenner (half-sister)}}

Kendall Nicole Jenner (born November 3, 1995) is a commercial model and TV personality who is featured on the E! reality TV show ''Keeping Up with the Kardashians''.

Modeling career

In 2010 she appeared in ''One Call's'' music video, ''Blacklight''. As of 2011, she has modeled for the ''Sherri Hill'' dress line, which specializes in dresses for proms and pageants.

Personal life

Jenner is the eldest daughter of Bruce Jenner and Kris Jenner. She has a younger sister, Kylie Jenner. Through her mother, she has three older half-sisters, Kourtney Kardashian, Kim Kardashian, and Khloé Kardashian, and one older half-brother, Rob Kardashian. Through her father, she has three older step-brothers, Burton Jenner, Brandon Jenner, and Brody Jenner, and a step-sister, Casey Jenner.

Filmography

2007–present: ''Keeping Up With The Kardashians'' as Herself

2008: ''E! True Hollywood Story'' as Herself

2010: ''Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami'' as Herself

2011: ''Khloe & Lamar'' as Herself

References

External links

Category:1995 births Category:Living people Category:American child models Category:American female models Category:American socialites Category:American television personalities Category:Kardashian family Category:Participants in American reality television series Category:People from Los Angeles, California

fr:Kendall Jenner is:Kendall Jenner ja:ケンダル・ジェンナー pt:Kendall Jenner

Coordinates	29°57′53″N90°4′14″N
name	Bonnie Tyler
background	solo_singer
birth name	Gaynor Hopkins
born	June 08, 1951Skewen, Wales, United Kingdom
instrument	Vocals
genre
occupation	Singer
years active	1975–present
label	RCA, Columbia, Hansa,Chrysalis, Atlantic
website	Official site }}

Bonnie Tyler (born Gaynor Hopkins on 8 June 1951) is a Welsh singer, most notable for her hits in the 1970s and 1980s including "It's a Heartache", "Holding Out for a Hero" and "Total Eclipse of the Heart".

Early life

Tyler was born in Skewen, Neath, Wales to a family that included three sisters and two brothers. Her father worked in a coal mine and her mother (an opera lover) shared her love for music with her children. She grew up listening to Motown music and female artists like Janis Joplin and Tina Turner.

In 1970, at age 19, she entered a talent contest, singing the Mary Hopkin hit "Those Were the Days", and finished in second place. She then was chosen to sing in a band with front man Bobby Wayne, known as Bobby Wayne & The Dixies. Two years later, she formed her own band called Imagination (not related to the 1980s British dance band of the same name), and performed with them in pubs and clubs all over southern Wales. It was then that she decided to adopt the stage name of 'Sherene Davies', taking the names from her niece and favourite aunt.

In 1973, she married Robert Sullivan, a real estate agent and Olympic judoka. In 1975, she was discovered by Roger Bell who arranged a recording contract for her with RCA Records. Before signing, she was asked to choose a different stage name, settling on Bonnie Tyler.

Career

The 1970s

In 1976, Tyler was spotted in "The Townsman Club" in Swansea by the songwriting and producing team of Ronnie Scott and Steve Wolfe, who became her managers, songwriters and producers.

Following the Top 10 success of her 1976 song "Lost in France", Tyler released her first album in 1977 entitled ''The World Starts Tonight''. A further single from the album, "More Than a Lover", made the UK Top 30, and the follow-up single, "Heaven", reached the Top 30 in Germany.

In 1977, Tyler was diagnosed with nodules on her vocal cords that were so severe that she needed to undergo surgery to remove them. After the surgery, she was ordered not to speak for six weeks to aid the healing process, but she accidentally screamed out in frustration one day. This caused her voice to take on a raspy quality. At first she believed that her singing career was ruined; but to her surprise her next single, "It's a Heartache," made her an international star. The song reached #4 in the UK, #3 in the US, #2 in Germany, and topped the charts in several countries (including France and Australia). Tyler's second album, ''Natural Force'', was also retitled ''It's a Heartache'' for the U.S. market and certified Gold there.

Though further global success was elusive during this era, Tyler did have some regional hits: "Here Am I" made the German Top 20 in spring of 1978; "My Guns Are Loaded" peaked at number 3 in France in 1979; and she scored a minor UK Top 40 hit with "Married Men" in summer 1979 (the theme to the film ''The World Is Full of Married Men''). Tyler released the albums ''Diamond Cut'' in 1979 and ''Goodbye to the Island'' in 1981. The track "Sitting on the Edge of the Ocean" was the Grand Prix winner of the 1979 Yamaha World Song Festival held in Tokyo.

The 1980s

Tyler released four albums for RCA Records from 1977 to 1981, but she became increasingly dissatisfied with Scott and Wolfe's management as they were trying to market her as a pop-country music artist. When her contract with RCA expired, she signed with David Aspden Management and sought help from songwriter Jim Steinman, most familiar to audiences as Meat Loaf's primary collaborator, to give her music the rock style she wanted. She signed with Columbia Records in 1982.

Her next album, ''Faster Than the Speed of Night'', was released in Spring 1983 and included the power-ballad "Total Eclipse of the Heart", which was written by Steinman. The song was a worldwide hit, reaching No. 1 in the UK, France, Australia, and in the United States where it remained at the top for four weeks. Her presence in the US chart was at a time when almost one third of the Billboard Hot 100 was filled by songs from UK based acts - a situation not seen since the 1960s British Invasion and Beatlemania. ''Faster Than the Speed of Night'' entered the UK Albums Chart at number 1, and also became a Top Five bestseller in the US and Australia. "Total Eclipse of the Heart" also brought Tyler a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. In 1984, she performed the track at the Grammy Awards, and received another Grammy nomination as Best Rock Female Vocalist for "Here She Comes", a song that was part of the soundtrack for the 1984 restoration of the film ''Metropolis''. She also released the singles "A Rockin' Good Way", a duet with fellow Welsh artist Shakin' Stevens, which made #5 in the UK, and "Holding Out for a Hero", for the ''Footloose'' soundtrack, which made the U.S. Top 40 and later peaked at number 2 in UK in the summer of 1985. "Holding Out For A Hero" (written by Steinman and Dean Pitchford) was also used as the main theme for the 1984 US television series ''Cover Up'', though the version heard on the TV series was not Tyler's original but performed by a Tyler sound-alike.

The following albums, ''Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire'' (1986) and ''Hide Your Heart'' (1988), achieved some success in France, Switzerland, Scandinavia, South Africa, Australia, but were not successful in the UK or the US. One of the single releases, "If You Were A Woman (And I Was A Man)", became another Top 10 hit in France in 1986 and was certified Silver. In 1987, Tyler recorded the song "Sem limites pra sonhar/Reaching for the Infinite Heart" with the Brazilian singer Fábio Junior. The same year, she sang the title song for Mike Oldfield's album ''Islands''. Tyler also sang backing vocals with Cher for the song "Perfection" on Cher's self-titled 1987 album, and "Emotional Fire" on Cher's 1989 album ''Heart Of Stone''.

The 1990s

Throughout the 1990s, Tyler's success was limited to continental Europe. In the early 1990s, she switched to the German label Hansa and found a new producer in Dieter Bohlen. Her first album for the label was ''Bitterblue'', released in late 1991, which saw her leaving the rock genre of the 80s and establishing a more soft-pop sound. The album went quadruple-platinum in Norway, platinum in Austria, and gold in Germany, Switzerland and Sweden.

Tyler followed this up with the albums ''Angel Heart'' (1992) and ''Silhouette in Red'' in 1993. In light of her success in Germany, Tyler won Best International Female Vocalist at the RSH Gold Award, the "Goldene Europa" Award and the ECHO Award in 1994.

After her three albums with producer Dieter Bohlen, Tyler wanted to have a more international sound on her next record. She switched labels to Warner Music in 1995 and recorded ''Free Spirit'', an album on which she worked again with Jim Steinman as well as other prolific producers such as David Foster and Humberto Gatica. However, the album was only a minor success in continental Europe, though the single "Making Love Out of Nothing at All" (previously a hit for Air Supply in 1983) narrowly missed the UK Top 40. Tyler continued to record, releasing the folk influenced ''All in One Voice'' in 1999, though this was even less successful. Also in 1999, Tyler was part of an ensemble vocal unit for Rick Wakeman's ''Return to the Centre of the Earth'' CD. Tyler also recorded the track "Tyre Tracks And Broken Hearts" on the Jim Steinman and Andrew Lloyd Webber composed CD "Whistle Down The Wind". She also featured in Meat Loaf's track, "A Kiss Is a Terrible Thing to Waste" singing the chorus for "Tyre Tracks And Broken Hearts".

The 2000s

In 2003, Tyler released the album ''Heart Strings'', which consisted of cover versions of popular songs performed with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.

Also in 2003, French vocalist Kareen Antonn approached Tyler to duet with her on "Si demain... (Turn Around)", a French-language version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart". Released in December 2003, it went to number 1 in France, holding that chart position for ten weeks, as well as Belgium and Poland, selling a total of two million copies. The follow-up, "Si tout s'arrête (It's A Heartache)", another French language remake with Antonn, also made the French Top 20. Tyler released an album, ''Simply Believe'', in 2004, which contained both songs with Antonn.

In September 2006, Tyler made her first appearance on U.S. television in years, as she sang a duet of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" with actress Lucy Lawless on the American show ''Celebrity Duets''.

In 2007, a new Greatest Hits collection, ''From the Heart'', was released. Also in 2007, Tyler contributed a track, "I Don’t Know How to Love Him", to the charity record ''Over the Rainbow''. Tyler mentioned in an interview that she is working on a new studio album and would be working with Jim Steinman again.

In 2009, Tyler made a guest appearance in ''Hollyoaks Later'' (the late night edition of the British Channel 4 teen soap ''Hollyoaks'') in which she sang her hit "Holding Out For a Hero" with one of the characters. The episode was broadcast on Friday 2 October 2009. She also recorded a new version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" with the Welsh male voice choir Only Men Aloud! for their second album ''Band of Brothers'' which was released in October 2009.

The 2010s

In 2010, Tyler appeared in a television advertisement for MasterCard singing a parody of "Total Eclipse of the Heart". She later joined Robin Gibb briefly on his Australian tour before performing in her own Australian concerts.

In 2011, Tyler made a guest appearance in the music video "Newport State of Mind", a parody of the Jay Z and Alicia Keys song Empire State of Mind for the BBC's Comic Relief charity.

A new version of The Bangles single Eternal Flame went to French radio stations on Monday 29th August 2011. It has been considered a repeat of her 2004 singles with Kareen Antonn. The song has been released as a duet in French and English, naming the song "Eternal Flame (Amour éternel)".

Discography

Awards and nominations

Music Retailer Magazine 1978 (USA)

*Most Promising Newcomer

Daily Express 1978 (UK)

*Best New Artist

Bravo Otto 1978 (Germany)

*Golden Otto Best Singer

Goldene Europa 1978 (Germany)

*Best Singer

Yamaha Prize 1979 (Japan)

*Grand Prix International "Sitting On The Edge Of The Ocean"

Academy Country Music 1979 (USA)

*Best New Artist "It's A Heartache" (nomination)

Brit Awards 1984 (UK)

*Best singer (nomination)

American Music Awards 1984 (USA)

*Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist (nomination)

*Favorite Pop/Rock Single "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (nomination)

Goldene Europa 1983 (Germany)

*Comeback Of The Year

Grammy Award 1984 (USA)

*Best Pop Vocal Female "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (nomination)

*Best Rock Vocal Female "Faster Than The Speed of Night" (nomination)

Variety Club of Great Britain Award 1984 (UK)

*Best Recording Artist Of The Year "Total Eclipse Of The Heart"

Grammy Award 1985 (USA)

*Best Rock Vocal Female "Here She Comes" (nomination)

Brit Awards 1986 (UK)

*Best Singer (nomination)

RSH-Gold Award 1992 (Germany)

*Erfolgreichste deutschproduzierte Interpretin bzw. Ohrwurm des Jahres

Bravo Otto

*Best Singer of 1992, 6th place

Echo Award 1993 (Germany)

*Best International Singer "Angel Heart" (nomination)

Bravo 10 Best Singers of 1993

*6th place

Bravo 10 Best Shows of 1993

*8th place

Bravo 10 Good Looking Singer of 1993

*8th place

Bravo 10 Best CDs of 1993

*"Very Best of Bonnie Tyler Vol. 1", 8th place

Bravo 10 Best CDs of 1993

*"Silhouette In Red", 9th place

Goldene Europa 1993 (Germany)

*Best International Singer

Echo Award 1994 (Germany)

*Best International Singer, ''The Very Best Of/Silhouette In Red''

Radio Regenbogen Award 1999 (Germany)

*Lifetime Award

Writs Welsh Music Awards 2001 (Wales)

*Best Singer "Greatest Hits" (nomination)

Royal Welsh College Of Music & Drama 2002 (Wales)

*Honorary Fellow in recognition of outstanding achievements within the fields of music.

Les Hits de Diamant 2004 (France)

*It's A Heartache & Total Eclipse Of The Heart

Steiger Award 2005 (Germany)

*Lifetime Award

Angel Award 2009 (Germany)

*Special corporate social responsibility

Neath Port Talbot - Freedom of the county 2010 (Wales)

*Honorary recognition from the town of Port Talbot

See also

List of artists who reached number one on the UK Singles Chart

List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (United States)

References

Category:1951 births Category:Female rock singers Category:Living people Category:People from Neath Port Talbot Category:Welsh female singers Category:Welsh pop singers Category:Welsh rock singers Category:Winners of Yamaha Music Festival

az:Bonnie Tyler bg:Бони Тайлър ca:Bonnie Tyler cs:Bonnie Tyler cy:Bonnie Tyler da:Bonnie Tyler de:Bonnie Tyler el:Μπόνι Τάιλερ es:Bonnie Tyler eu:Bonnie Tyler fr:Bonnie Tyler is:Bonnie Tyler it:Bonnie Tyler he:בוני טיילר lt:Bonnie Tyler hu:Bonnie Tyler nl:Bonnie Tyler ja:ボニー・タイラー no:Bonnie Tyler pl:Bonnie Tyler pt:Bonnie Tyler ro:Bonnie Tyler ru:Бонни Тайлер sk:Bonnie Tyler fi:Bonnie Tyler sv:Bonnie Tyler

Coordinates	29°57′53″N90°4′14″N
name	Travis Tritt
background	solo_singer
birth name	James Travis Tritt
born	February 09, 1963
origin	Marietta, Georgia, U.S.
instrument	Vocals, guitar, banjo
genre	Country
occupation	Singer-songwriterActor
years active	1989present
label	Warner Bros.ColumbiaCategory 5
associated acts	Gregg BrownDana McVickerMarty StuartBilly Joe Walker, Jr.
website	http://www.travistritt.com/ }}

James Travis Tritt (born February 9, 1963) is an American country music singer from Marietta, Georgia. He signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1989, releasing seven studio albums and a greatest hits package for the label between then and 1999. In the 2000s, he released two albums on Columbia Records and one for the defunct Category 5 Records. Seven of his albums (counting the Greatest Hits) are certified platinum or higher by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA); the highest-certified is 1991's ''It's All About to Change'', which is certified triple-platinum. Tritt has also charted more than forty times on the Hot Country Songs charts, including five number ones — "Help Me Hold On," "Anymore," "Can I Trust You with My Heart," "Foolish Pride" and "Best of Intentions" — and fifteen additional top ten singles. Tritt's musical style is defined by mainstream country and Southern rock influences.

He has received two Grammy Awards, both for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals: in 1992 for "The Whiskey Ain't Workin'," a duet with Marty Stuart, and again in 1998 for "Same Old Train", a collaboration with Stuart and nine other artists. In addition, he has received four awards from the Country Music Association, and has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1992.

Early life

James Travis Tritt was born in Marietta, Georgia on February 9, 1963 to James and Gwen Tritt. He first took interest in singing after his church's Sunday school choir performed "Everything Is Beautiful." He received his first guitar at age eight and taught himself how to play it; in the fourth grade, he performed "Annie's Song" and "King of the Road" for his class, and later got invited to play for other classrooms in his school. At age fourteen, his parents bought him another guitar, and he learned more songs from his uncle, Sam Lockhart. Later on, Tritt joined his church band, which occasionally performed at other churches nearby.

Tritt began writing music while he was attending Sprayberry High School; his first song composition, entitled "Spend a Little Time", was written about a girlfriend whom he had broken up with. He performed this song for his friends, one of whom complimented him on his songwriting skills. He also founded a bluegrass music with some of his friends, and won second place in a local tournament for playing "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys".

During his teenage years, Tritt worked at a furniture store, and later as a supermarket clerk. He lived with his mother after she and his father divorced; they re-married each other when he was eighteen. He worked at an air conditioning company while playing in clubs, but gave up the air conditioning job at the suggestion of one of his bandmates. Tritt's father thought that Tritt would not find success as a musician, while his mother thought that he should perform Christian music instead of country.

Through the assistance of Warner Bros. Records executive Danny Davenport, Tritt began recording demos. The two worked together for the next several years, eventually putting together a demo album called ''Proud of the Country''. Davenport sent the demo to Warner Bros. representatives in Los Angeles, who in turn sent the demo to Warner Bros.' Nashville division, which signed Tritt in 1987. Davenport also helped Tritt find a talent manager, Ken Kragen. At first, Kragen was "not interested in taking an entry-level act," but he decided to sign on as Tritt's manager after Kragen's wife convinced him.

Musical career

1989–1991: ''Country Club''

Tritt's contract with Warner Bros. was a singles contract, meaning that he was signed to record six songs, and three of them would be released as singles. According to the contract, he would not be signed on for a full album unless one of the three singles became a hit. His first single was "Country Club." Recorded in late 1988 and released in September 1989, the song spent 26 weeks on the Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts, peaking at number nine. It was the title track to his 1990 debut album ''Country Club'', produced by Gregg Brown. The month of its release, Tritt burst a blood vessel on his vocal cords, and had to take vocal rest for a month. Second single "Help Me Hold On" became his first number one single in 1990. The album's third and fifth singles, "I'm Gonna Be Somebody" and "Drift Off to Dream," respectively peaked at numbers two and three on the Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts, and number one on the Canadian ''RPM'' country charts; "I'm Gonna Be Somebody" also went to number one on the U.S. country singles charts published by ''Radio & Records''. "Put Some Drive in Your Country," which was released fourth, peaked at 28 on Hot Country Songs. ''Country Club'' was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in July 1991 for shipments of one million copies, and double-platinum in 1996. In 1990, he won the Top New Male Artist award from ''Billboard''. The Country Music Association (CMA) also nominated him for the Horizon Award (now known as the New Artist Award), which is given to new artists who show have shown the most significant artistic and commercial development from a first or second album.

Brian Mansfield of Allmusic gave the album a positive review, saying that "Put Some Drive in Your Country" paid homage to Tritt's influences, but that the other singles were more radio-friendly. Giving the album a B-minus, Alanna Nash of ''Entertainment Weekly'' compared Tritt's music to that of Hank Williams, Jr. and Joe Stampley.

1991–1992: ''It's All About to Change''

In 1991, Tritt received a second Horizon Award nomination, which he won that year. He also released his second album, ''It's All About to Change''. The album went on to become his best-selling, with a triple-platinum certification from the RIAA for shipments of three million copies. All four of its singles reached the top five on the country music charts. "Here's a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares)" and the Marty Stuart duet "The Whiskey Ain't Workin'," respectively the first and third singles, both reached number two, with the number-one "Anymore" in between. "Nothing Short of Dying" was the fourth single, with a peak at number four on ''Billboard''; both it and "The Whiskey Ain't Working" went to Number One on ''Radio & Records''. "Bible Belt," another cut from the album (recorded in collaboration with Little Feat), appeared in the 1992 film ''My Cousin Vinny''. Although not released as a single, it peaked at number 72 country based on unsolicited airplay and was the b-side to "Nothing Short of Dying." "Bible Belt" was inspired by a youth pastor whom Tritt knew in his childhood.

Stuart offered "The Whiskey Ain't Workin' Anymore" to Tritt backstage at the CMA awards show, and they recorded it as a duet through the suggestion of Tritt's record producer, Gregg Brown. The duet won both artists the next year's Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Tritt and Stuart charted a second duet, "This One's Gonna Hurt You (For a Long, Long Time)," which went to number seven in mid-1992 and appeared on Stuart's album ''This One's Gonna Hurt You''. This song won the 1992 CMA award for Vocal Event of the Year.

In June 1992, Tritt received media attention when he criticized Billy Ray Cyrus' "Achy Breaky Heart" at a Fan Fair interview, saying that he did not think that Cyrus' song made a "statement". The following January, Cyrus responded at the American Music Awards by making reference to Tritt's "Here's a Quarter". Tritt later apologized to Cyrus, but said that he defended his opinion on the song.

1992–1993: ''T-R-O-U-B-L-E'' and ''A Travis Tritt Christmas''

Tritt and Stuart began a "No Hats Tour" in 1992. In August of that same year, Tritt released the album ''T-R-O-U-B-L-E''. Its first single was "Lord Have Mercy on the Working Man," a song written by Kostas. This song, which featured backing vocals from Brooks & Dunn, T. Graham Brown, George Jones, Little Texas, Dana McVicker (who also sang backup on Tritt's first two albums), Tanya Tucker and Porter Wagoner, peaked at number four. Its follow-up, "Can I Trust You with My Heart," became Tritt's third ''Billboard'' number one in early 1993. The album's next three singles did not perform as well on the charts: the title track (a cover of an Elvis Presley song), peaked at 13, followed by "Looking Out for Number One" at number 11 and "Worth Every Mile" at number 30. ''T-R-O-U-B-L-E'' became the second album of his career to achieve double-platinum certification. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic thought that ''T-R-O-U-B-L-E'' followed too closely the formula of ''It's All About to Change,'' but said that the songs showed Tritt's personality. Nash gave the album a similar criticism, but praised the rock influences of "Looking Out for Number One" and the vocals on "Can I Trust You with My Heart."

One month after the release of ''T-R-O-U-B-L-E'', Tritt issued a Christmas album titled ''A Travis Tritt Christmas: Loving Time of the Year'', for which he wrote the title track. He also joined the Grand Ole Opry, a weekly stage show and radio broadcast specializing in country music performances, and filled in for Garth Brooks at a performance on the American Music Awards. By year's end, Tritt and several other artists appeared on George Jones's "I Don't Need Your Rocking Chair," which won all artists involved the next year's CMA Vocal Event of the Year award.

1994–1995: ''Ten Feet Tall and Bulletproof'' and ''Greatest Hits''

In early 1994, after "Worth Every Mile" fell from the charts, Tritt charted at number 21 with a cover of the Eagles' "Take It Easy". He recorded this song for the tribute album ''Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles'' (released through Warner Bros.' Giant Records division), which featured country music artists' renditions of Eagles songs. When filming the music video for this song, Tritt requested that the band, which was on hiatus at the time, appear in it. This reunion inspired the Eagles' Hell Freezes Over Tour, which began that year.

His fourth album, ''Ten Feet Tall and Bulletproof'', was released that May. Its lead-off single, "Foolish Pride", went to number one, and the fourth single, "Tell Me I Was Dreaming", reached number two. In between these songs were the title track at number 22 and "Between an Old Memory and Me" (originally recorded by Keith Whitley) at number 11. The album included two co-writes with Gary Rossington of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and guest vocals from Waylon Jennings and Hank Williams, Jr. on the cut "Outlaws Like Us". The album achieved platinum certification in December of that year, and later became his third double-platinum album. Allmusic reviewer Brian Mansfield said that Tritt was "most comfortable with his Southern rock/outlaw mantle" on it, comparing "Foolish Pride" favorably to "Anymore" and the work of Bob Seger. Alanna Nash praised the title track and "Tell Me I Was Dreaming" in her review for ''Entertainment Weekly'', but thought that the other songs were still too similar in sound to his previous works.

1995's ''Greatest Hits: From the Beginning'' included most of his singles to that point, as well as two new cuts: the Steve Earle composition "Sometimes She Forgets" and a cover of the pop standard "Only You (And You Alone)". The former was a top ten hit at number seven, while the latter spent only eight weeks on the country charts and peaked at number 51. ''Greatest Hits'' was certified platinum.

1996–1997: ''The Restless Kind''

In April 1996, Tritt and Stuart charted a third duet, "Honky Tonkin's What I Do Best," which appeared on Stuart's album of the same name and peaked at 23 on the country charts. The song won both artists that year's Country Music Association award for Vocal Event, Tritt's third win in this category. The two began a second tour, the Double Trouble Tour, that year.

Tritt charted at number three in mid-1996 with "More Than You'll Ever Know," the first single from his fifth album, ''The Restless Kind''. The album accounted for one more top ten hit, a cover of Waylon Jennings's "Where Corn Don't Grow," which Tritt took to number six in late 1996. This song's chart run overlapped with that of "Here's Your Sign (Get the Picture)," a novelty release combining snippets of comedian Bill Engvall's "Here's Your Sign" routines with a chorus sung by Tritt. "Here's Your Sign (Get the Picture)" peaked at 29 on the country charts and 43 on the Billboard Hot 100, accounting for Tritt's first entry on the latter chart. The other singles from ''The Restless Kind'' all failed to make Top Ten upon their 1997 release. "She's Going Home with Me" and "Still in Love with You" (previously the respective b-sides to "Where Corn Don't Grow" and "More Than You'll Ever Know") were the third and fifth releases, peaking at 24 and 23 on Hot Country Singles & Tracks. In between was the number eighteen "Helping Me Get Over You," a duet with Lari White.

Unlike his previous albums, all of which were produced by Gregg Brown, Tritt produced ''The Restless Kind'' with Don Was. It received positive reviews from Thom Owens of Allmusic, who said that it was the most country-sounding album of his career. Don Yates of ''Country Standard Time'' also praised it for having a more "organic" sound than Tritt's other albums.

1998–1999: ''No More Looking over My Shoulder''

In 1998, he and several other artists contributed to Stuart's "Same Old Train," a cut from the collaborative album ''Tribute to Tradition''; this song charted at number 59 on Hot Country Songs and won Tritt his second Grammy for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. He also performed on Frank Wildhorn's concept album of the musical ''The Civil War'', singing the song "The Day the Sun Stood Still". By year's end, Tritt also released his final Warner Bros. album, ''No More Looking over My Shoulder''. It was led off by the ballad "If I Lost You," which peaked at number 29 on the country charts and number 86 on the Hot 100. Michael Peterson (who recorded for Warner Bros.' Reprise label at the time) co-wrote and sang backing vocals on the title track, which went to number 38 country in early 1999. The album's third and final single was a cover of Jude Cole's "Start the Car" (previously the b-side to "If I Lost You"), which peaked at number 52.

Late in 1999, Tritt recorded a cover of Hank Williams's "Move It On Over" with George Thorogood for the soundtrack to the cartoon ''King of the Hill''. This cut peaked at number 66 country.

2000–2002: ''Down the Road I Go''

Soon after leaving Warner Bros. Records, Tritt signed to Columbia Records and released the album ''Down the Road I Go'' in 2000. He produced the album with Billy Joe Walker, Jr. The album's first release was "Best of Intentions," his fifth and final number one hit on ''Billboard''. It was also his most successful entry on the Hot 100, where it reached number 27. The next two singles, "It's a Great Day to Be Alive" and "Love of a Woman," both peaked at number two on the country charts in 2001, followed by "Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde" at number eight. All three songs also crossed over to the Hot 100, respectively reaching peaks of 33, 39 and 55. Tritt wrote or co-wrote seven of the album's songs, including "Best of Intentions," and collaborated with Charlie Daniels on two of them. "It's a Great Day to Be Alive" was originally recorded by Jon Randall, whose version was to have been included on an unreleased album for BNA Records in the late 1990s.

Maria Konicki Dinoia gave the album a positive review on Allmusic, saying that Tritt "hasn't lost his touch." ''Country Standard Time'' also gave a positive review, saying that it showed Tritt's balance of country and rock influences. An uncredited review in ''Billboard'' magazine called "Best of Intentions" a "gorgeous ballad," comparing it favorably to his early Warner Bros. releases.

2002–2005: ''Strong Enough'' and ''My Honky Tonk History''

In September 2002, Tritt released his second album on Columbia Records, ''Strong Enough''. Its first single was "Strong Enough to Be Your Man" (an answer song to Sheryl Crow's 1993 single "Strong Enough") which reached number 13. The only other release was "Country Ain't Country," which peaked at 26 on the country charts. William Ruhlmann gave the album a generally positive review on Allmusic, saying that he considered its sound closer to mainstream country than Tritt's previous albums.

Also in 2002, Tritt performed on an episode of ''Crossroads'', a program on Country Music Television which pairs country acts with musicians from other genres for collaborative performances. He performed with Ray Charles. Tritt contributed guest vocals to Charlie Daniels' 2003 single "Southern Boy", and recorded a cover of Waylon Jennings' "Lonesome, On'ry and Mean" to the RCA Records tribute album ''I've Always Been Crazy''. Respectively, these songs reached 51 and 50 on the country charts.

Tritt's tenth studio album, ''My Honky Tonk History'', was released in 2004. This album included three charting singles: "The Girl's Gone Wild" at 28, followed by the John Mellencamp duet "What Say You" at number 21 and "I See Me" at number 32. Other songs on the album included a cover of Philip Claypool's "Circus Leaving Town" and songs written by Gretchen Wilson, Benmont Tench and Delbert McClinton. Thom Jurek rated this album favorably, saying that it was a "solid, sure-voiced outing"; he also thought that "What Say You" was the best song on it.

2007–2010: ''The Storm'' and beyond

Tritt exited Columbia in July 2005, citing creative differences over ''My Honky Tonk History''. signed to the independent Category 5 Records in February 2006, and served as the label's flagship artist. In March 2007, a concert promoter in the Pittsburgh area sued Tritt, claiming he had committed to play a show, but then backed out and signed to play a competing venue. Tritt's manager denied he had ever signed a contract with the promoter. Tritt released his first single for Category 5 in May 2007: a cover of the Richard Marx song "You Never Take Me Dancing." It was included on his only album for Category 5, ''The Storm'', which ''American Idol'' judge Randy Jackson produced. The album featured a more rhythm and blues influence than Tritt's previous works. "You Never Take Me Dancing" peaked at number 27 on the country charts; a second single, "Something Stronger Than Me," was released in October, but it did not chart.

Category 5 closed in November 2007 after allegations that the label's chief executive officer, Raymond Termini, had illegally used Medicaid funds to finance it. A month later, Tritt filed a $10 million lawsuit against Category 5, because the label had failed to pay royalties on the album, and failed to give him creative control on ''The Storm''.

In October 2008, Tritt began an 11-date tour with Marty Stuart. On this tour, they performed acoustic renditions of their duets; Tritt also performed five solo shows. Tritt signed a management deal with Parallel Entertainment in December 2010.

Acting career

Tritt's first acting roles that would lead to feature-film work was a role in the 1993 made-for-television movie, ''Rio Diablo''. In 1994 Travis made a special appearance as a bull rider in the movie ''The Cowboy Way'', which starred Woody Harrelson and Kiefer Sutherland. Two years later, Tritt appeared as himself in ''Sgt. Bilko'', which starred Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd and Phil Hartman; Tritt's cover of "Only You (And You Alone)" appeared in the film's soundtrack. He also made an appearance in the 1997 film ''Fire Down Below'', starring Steven Seagal and Kris Kristofferson. In September 2010, filming began on a movie called ''Fishers of Men'', a Christian film in which Tritt will star.

Musical styles

Although he had been singing since childhood, Tritt said that he began to put "a little more soul" in his voice after his church band performed at an African-American church. He said that he took interest in how African-American singers put "all these bends and sweeps and curls" in their voices, and began emulating that sound. While performing at these churches, he also took interest in gospel singers such as Andraé Crouch. Later on, he began listening to Southern rock acts such as the The Allman Brothers Band through the recommendation of a friend, as well as the bluegrass music that his uncle exposed him to. Tritt said that he found his songwriting began to develop during the creation of his demo tape, when he had written a song called "Gambler's Blues" that "felt a lot more connected to Southern rock" than his previous writings. He cites country, rock and folk as his influences. Stephen Thomas Erlewine contrasts him with contemporaries Clint Black and Garth Brooks, saying that Tritt was "the only one not to wear a [cowboy] hat and the only one to dip into bluesy Southern rock. Consequently, he developed a gutsy, outlaw image that distinguished him from the pack." Zell Miller, in the book ''They Heard Georgia Singing'', said that Tritt has an "unerring ability to walk the narrow path between his country heritage and his rock leanings to the acclaim of the devotees of both."

Regarding his songwriting style and single choices, Tritt said that he writes "strictly from personal experiences" and does not follow a particular formula. He described "Here's a Quarter" as "one of the simplest three-chord waltzes I've ever written," and said that label executives were reluctant to release it because they thought that it was a novelty song. Also, he was told that "I'm Gonna Be Somebody" would not be a hit because it did not contain any rhymes, and fought the release of the song "Country Club" because he did not think that it fit his style. He also said that, despite their low peaks, the more rock-influenced "Put Some Drive in Your Country" and "T-R-O-U-B-L-E" helped generate sales for their respective albums moreso than the top ten hits from those albums.

Personal life

Tritt married his high school sweetheart, Karen Ryon, in September 1983, and moved into an apartment with her. They stayed together for six months, while Tritt worked at an air conditioning company and Karen at a Burger King, and divorced six months later. After going to court, Tritt was ordered to pay alimony to Karen for six months. When he was 21, he married a woman named Jodi Barnett, who was thirty-three at the time. He divorced her shortly after signing with Warner Bros. in 1989; the divorce finalized one month before "Country Club" was released. Tritt wrote the song "Here's a Quarter" the night he received his divorce papers.

He married Theresa Nelson on April 12, 1997. They have two sons: Tristan James (born June 16, 1999) and Tarian Nathaniel (born November 25, 2003), and one daughter, Tyler Reese (born February 18, 1998).

Political views and advocacy

Tritt is a member of the Republican Party and supported George W. Bush for President in 2000. The two met in 1996 at the Republican National Convention in San Diego, California, where Tritt sang the national anthem. Tritt told Insight on the News, that he is a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights and believes the answer to crime is not gun control but criminal control. "I'm a pro-gun guy. I'm an NRA National Rifle Association member, a life member as a matter of fact. I'm more for the belief of making the punishment tougher for the criminals to start with. I think that sends much more of an incentive for people to not commit crimes of any type than taking away guns. Because you take away guns, and the next thing you know, stabbing murders are going to increase." He adds that he is "definitely pro-death penalty."

Discography

;Studio albums

''Country Club'' (1990)

''It's All About to Change'' (1991)

''T-R-O-U-B-L-E'' (1992)

''A Travis Tritt Christmas: Loving Time of the Year'' (1992)

''Ten Feet Tall and Bulletproof'' (1994)

''The Restless Kind (1996)

''No More Looking over My Shoulder'' (1998)

''Down the Road I Go'' (2000)

''Strong Enough'' (2002)

''My Honky Tonk History'' (2004)

''The Storm'' (2007)

;''Billboard'' number-one singles

"Help Me Hold On" (1990)

"Anymore" (1991)

"Can I Trust You with My Heart" (19921993)

"Foolish Pride" (1994)

"Best of Intentions" (2000)

Awards

! Year	! Association	! Category	! Result
		Top New Male Artist
1991
	Vocal Event of the Year "This One's Gonna Hurt You" (with Marty Stuart)
Grammy Awards	Best Country Collaboration with Vocals"The Whiskey Ain't Workin'" (with Marty Stuart)
1993		Vocal Event of the Year"I Don't Need Your Rockin' Chair" (with George Jones et al.)
1996	Vocal Event of the Year"Honky Tonkin's What I Do Best" (with Marty Stuart)
1999	Grammy Awards	Best Country Collaboration with Vocals"Same Old Train" (with Marty Stuart et al.)

Filmography

! Year	! Title	! Role	! Notes
1990	''Hee Haw''	Himself	One episode: "Episode #22.12"
1993	''Rio Diablo''	Benjamin Taber	TV movie
1994		Himself
1994	''Following Her Heart''	Himself	TV movie
1995		Charlie	One episode: "Doctor of Horror"
1995	''The Jeff Foxworthy Show''	Himself	One episode: "He's Making a List, Checking It Twice"
1996	''Sgt. Bilko''	Himself
1996	''Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman''	Zachary Brett	One episode: "Tin Star"
1996	''A Holiday for Love''	Sheriff Tom Uhll	TV movie
1999	''The Long Kill''	Sheriff Dalton	TV movie
1999	''Diagnosis Murder''	Kurt Fallon	One episode: "Down Among the Dead Men"
1999	''Touched by an Angel''	Dan McConnell	One episode: "Hearts"
1999	''Arliss''	Cooter McCoy	One episode: "The Cult of Celebrity"
2002	''CMT Crossroads''	Himself	Performed with Ray Charles
2003	''King of the Hill''	Walt (voice)	One episode: "Livin' on Reds, Vitamin C and Propane"
2004	''Yes, Dear''	Hank	One episode: "Greg and Jimmy's Criminals"
2004	''Higglytown Heroes''	Farmer Hero	One episode: "Halloween Heroes"
2004	''Celebrity Poker Showdown''	Himself	Two episodes; 2004-2005"Tournament 2, Game 1""Tournament 5, Game 5"
2005	''Blue Collar TV''	Himself	One episode: "Dating"
2008	''Battleground Earth''	Himself	One episode: "Fast Fuel"
2008	''The Girls Next Door''	Himself	One episode: "Kentucky Fried"
2011	''Fishers of Men''	Eddie Waters''	''post-production''

Notes

References

External links

The Official Travis Tritt Website

Category:1963 births Category:American country singers Category:American male singers Category:American country singer-songwriters Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grand Ole Opry members Category:Living people Category:People from Marietta, Georgia Category:Musicians from Georgia (U.S. state) Category:Warner Bros. Records artists Category:Georgia Republicans

de:Travis Tritt sv:Travis Tritt

Coordinates	29°57′53″N90°4′14″N
name	Bonnie and Clyde

name	Clyde Barrow
birth name	Clyde Chestnut Barrow
birth date	March 24, 1909
birth place	Ellis County, Texas
death date	May 23, 1934
death place	Bienville Parish, Louisiana
nationality	American
death cause	Gunshot}}

name	Bonnie Parker
birth name	Bonnie Elizabeth Parker
birth date	October 01, 1910
birth place	Rowena, Texas
death date	May 23, 1934
death place	Bienville Parish, Louisiana
nationality	American
death cause	Gunshot }}

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910 – May 23, 1934) and Clyde Chestnut Barrow (March 24, 1909 – May 23, 1934) were well-known outlaws, robbers, and criminals who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression. Their exploits captured the attention of the American public during the "public enemy era" between 1931 and 1934. Though known today for his dozen-or-so bank robberies, Barrow in fact preferred to rob small stores or rural gas stations. The gang is believed to have killed at least nine police officers and committed several civilian murders. The couple themselves were eventually ambushed and killed in Louisiana by law officers. Their reputation was cemented in American pop folklore by Arthur Penn's 1967 film ''Bonnie and Clyde''.

Even during their lifetimes, the couple's depiction in the press was at considerable odds with the hardscrabble reality of their life on the road—particularly in the case of Parker. Though she was present at a hundred or more felonies during her two years as Barrow's companion, she was not the machine gun-wielding cartoon killer portrayed in the newspapers, newsreels, and pulp detective magazines of the day. Gang member W. D. Jones was unsure whether he had ever seen her fire at officers. Parker's reputation as a cigar-smoking gun moll grew out of a playful snapshot found by police at an abandoned hideout, released to the press, and published nationwide; while she did chain-smoke Camel cigarettes, she was not a cigar smoker.

Author-historian Jeff Guinn explains that it was the release of these very photos that put the outlaws on the media map and launched their legend: "John Dillinger had matinee-idol good looks and Pretty Boy Floyd had the best possible nickname, but the Joplin photos introduced new criminal superstars with the most titillating trademark of all—illicit sex. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were young and unmarried. They undoubtedly slept together—after all, the girl smoked cigars... Without Bonnie, the media outside Texas might have dismissed Clyde as a gun-toting punk, if it ever considered him at all. With her sassy photographs, Bonnie supplied the sex-appeal, the oomph, that allowed the two of them to transcend the small-scale thefts and needless killings that actually comprised their criminal careers."

Beginnings

Bonnie Parker

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born in Rowena, Texas, the second of three children. Her father, Charles Parker, a bricklayer, died when Bonnie was four. Her mother, Emma Krause, moved with the children to her parents' home in Cement City, an industrial suburb of Dallas, where she found work as a garment sewer. Parker was one of the best students in her high school, winning top prizes in spelling, writing and public speaking. As an adult, her fondness for writing found expression in poems such as "The Story of Suicide Sal" and "The Trail's End" (known since as "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde").

Parker did not date until she was in her second year of high school, but in that year she fell in love with a classmate, Roy Thornton, whose good looks and smart clothes caught her schoolgirl's eye. The two quit school and were married on September 25, 1926, six days before Parker's sixteenth birthday. Their marriage, marked by his frequent absences and brushes with the law, was short-lived, and after January 1929 their paths never crossed again. But they were never divorced, and Parker was wearing Thornton's wedding ring when she died. Thornton was in prison in 1934 when he learned of his wife's ambush; his reaction was, "I'm glad they went out like they did. It's much better than being caught."

In 1929, between the breakdown of her marriage and her first meeting with Clyde Barrow in January 1930, Parker lived with her mother and worked as a waitress in Dallas; one of her regular customers in the café was postal worker Ted Hinton, who would join the Dallas Sheriff's Department in 1932, and as a posse member would participate in her ambush in 1934. In the diary she kept briefly early in 1929, she wrote of her desperate loneliness, her impatience with life in provincial Dallas, and her love of a newfangled technology — talking pictures.

Clyde Barrow

Clyde Chestnut Barrow was born in Ellis County, Texas, near Telico, a town just south of Dallas. He was the fifth of seven children of Henry Basil Barrow (1874-1957) and Cumie T. Walker (1874-1943), a desperately poor farming family that emigrated, piecemeal, to Dallas in the early 1920s as part of a wave of resettlement from the impoverished nearby farms to the impoverished urban slum known as West Dallas. It was a place of flimsy shanties and tent cities, piles of garbage and teeming open sewers, swarming insects and rampaging epidemics. The Barrows had neither shanty nor tent: they spent their first months living under their wagon. When father Henry had earned enough money to buy a tent, it was a major step up for the family.

Clyde was first arrested in late 1926, after running when police confronted him over a rental car he had failed to return on time. His second arrest, with brother Marvin "Buck" Barrow, came soon after, this time for possession of stolen goods (turkeys). Despite having legitimate jobs during the period 1927 through 1929, he also cracked safes, robbed stores, and stole cars. After sequential arrests in 1928 and 1929, his luck ran out and he was sent to Eastham Prison Farm in April 1930. While in prison, he was sexually assaulted repeatedly for over a year by a dominant inmate, whose skull he eventually fractured with a length of pipe. It was Clyde Barrow's first killing.

Paroled in February 1932, Barrow emerged from Eastham a hardened and bitter criminal. His sister Nell remembered a conversation with sister Marie about the new parolee: "There's a new air about him—a funny sort of something I can't put my finger on.... I'm afraid he's not going to go straight." Marie was blunter: "Something awful sure must have happened to him in prison, because he wasn't the same person when he got out." Associate Ralph Fults was there, inside "The Walls" with Barrow, and said he watched him "change from a schoolboy to a rattlesnake."

In his post-Eastham career, he focused on smaller jobs, robbing grocery stores and gas stations, at a rate far outpacing the mere ten to fifteen bank robberies attributed to him and the Barrow Gang. Barrow's favored weapon was the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (called a BAR). According to John Neal Phillips, Barrow's goal in life was not to gain fame or fortune from robbing banks, but to seek revenge against the Texas prison system for the abuses he suffered while serving time.

First meeting

There are several versions of the story describing Bonnie's and Clyde's first meeting, but the most credible version indicates that Bonnie Parker met Clyde Barrow in January 1930 at a friend's house. Parker was out of work and was staying in West Dallas to assist a girl friend with a broken arm. Barrow dropped by the girl's house while Parker was supposedly in the kitchen making hot chocolate.

When they met, both were smitten immediately; most historians believe Parker joined Barrow because she was in love. She remained a loyal companion to him as they carried out their crime spree and awaited the violent deaths they viewed as inevitable.

The spree

1932: Early jobs, early murders

After Barrow was released from prison in February 1932, he and Ralph Fults assembled a rotating core group of associates and began a series of small robberies, primarily of stores and gas stations; their goal was to collect enough money and firepower to launch a raid of liberation against Eastham prison. On April 19, Bonnie Parker and Fults were captured in a failed hardware store burglary in Kaufman, Texas, and subsequently jailed. On April 30, Barrow was the wheelman in a robbery in Austin, Texas, during which the store's owner, J.N. Bucher, was shot and killed. When shown mugshots, the victim's wife identified Barrow as one of the shooters, even though he had stayed outside in the car; it was his first murder accusation. Meanwhile, Parker remained in jail until June 17, writing poetry to while away the time. When the Kaufman County grand jury convened, it declined to indict her, and she was released. Within a few weeks, she reunited with Barrow.

On August 5, while Parker was visiting her mother in Dallas, Barrow, Raymond Hamilton and Ross Dyer were drinking alcohol at a country dance in Stringtown, Oklahoma, when Sheriff C.G. Maxwell and his deputy, Eugene C. Moore, approached them in the parking lot. Barrow and Hamilton opened fire, killing the deputy and gravely wounding the sheriff; it was the first killing of a lawman by Barrow and his gang, a total eventually amounting to nine officers killed. Another civilian was added to the list on October 11, when storekeeper Howard Hall was killed during a robbery of his store in Sherman, Texas. The take: twenty-eight dollars and some groceries.

W. D. Jones had been a friend of the Barrow family since childhood, and though he was only 16 years old on Christmas Eve 1932, he persuaded Barrow to let him join up with the pair and ride out of Dallas with them that night. The very next day, Jones was initiated into homicide when he and Barrow killed Doyle Johnson, a young family man, in the process of stealing his car in Temple, Texas. Less than two weeks later, on January 6, 1933, Barrow killed Tarrant County Deputy Sheriff Malcolm Davis when he, Parker and Jones wandered into a police trap set for another criminal. The total murdered by the gang since April was now five.

1933: Buck joins the gang

On March 22, 1933, Buck Barrow was granted a full pardon and released from prison. Within days, he and his wife, Blanche, had set up housekeeping with Clyde Barrow, Parker and Jones in a temporary hideout at 3347 1/2 Oakridge Drive in Joplin, Missouri. According to family sources, Buck and Blanche were there merely to visit, in an attempt to persuade Clyde to surrender to law enforcement. As was common with Bonnie and Clyde, their next brush with the law arose from their generally suspicious—and conspicuous—behavior, not because their identities had been discovered. Beer had just been legalized after Prohibition, and the group ran loud, alcohol-fueled card games late into the night in the quiet neighborhood. "We bought a case of beer a day," Blanche would later recall. The menfolk came and went noisily at all hours, and once, a BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) discharged in the apartment while Clyde was cleaning it; the short burst didn't bring any neighbors directly to the house, but at least one registered suspicions with the Joplin Police Department.

Unaware of what awaited them, the lawmen assembled only a two-car, five-man force on April 13 to confront the suspected bootleggers living in the rented apartment over a garage. Though taken by surprise, Clyde, noted for remaining cool under fire, was gaining far more experience in gun battles than most lawmen. He, Jones and Buck quickly killed Detective McGinnis and fatally wounded Constable Harryman. During the escape from the apartment, Parker laid down covering fire with her own BAR, forcing Highway Patrol sergeant G. B. Kahler to duck behind a large oak tree while .30-06 slugs slammed into the other side, forcing wood splinters into the sergeant's face. Parker then got into the car with the others. The car slowed long enough to pull in Blanche Barrow from the street, where she was pursuing her fleeing dog, Snow Ball. The surviving officers later testified that their side had fired only fourteen rounds in the conflict, although one of these hit Jones in the side, one struck Clyde and was deflected by his suitcoat button, and one grazed Buck after ricocheting off a wall.

The group escaped the police at Joplin, but left most of their possessions at the rented apartment: Buck and Blanche's marriage license, Buck's parole papers (only three weeks old), a large arsenal—and a handwritten poem and camera with several rolls of exposed film. The film was developed at ''The Joplin Globe'' and yielded many now-famous photos of Barrow, Parker and Jones clowning and pointing ordnance at one another. When the poem and the photos, including one featuring the poetess clenching a cigar in her teeth and a pistol in her fist, went out on the newly installed newswire, the obscure fivesome from Dallas became front page news across America as The Barrow Gang, fully illustrated and with the rhyming-couplet "Story of 'Suicide Sal'" as a seeming instant backstory.

For the next three months, they ranged from Texas as far north as Minnesota. In May, they attempted to rob the bank in Lucerne, Indiana and robbed the bank in Okabena, Minnesota. Previously they had kidnapped Dillard Darby and Sophia Stone at Ruston, Louisiana, in the course of stealing Darby's car; this was one of several incidents between 1932 and 1934 in which they kidnapped lawmen or robbery victims, usually releasing them far from home, sometimes with money to help them return. Stories of these encounters made headlines, but so too did the darker encounters. The Barrow Gang would not hesitate to shoot anyone, lawman or civilian, who got in their way. Other members of the Barrow Gang known or thought to have committed murders included Raymond Hamilton, W.D. Jones, Buck Barrow and Henry Methvin. Eventually, the cold-bloodedness of the killings would not only sour the public perception of the outlaws, but lead directly to their undoing.

While the photos in the papers might have suggested a glamorous lifestyle for the Barrow Gang, in reality they were desperate and discontented, as noted in the account of their life written by Blanche Barrow while she was in jail through the latter 1930s. With their new fame—some would say notoriety—came difficulty in the smallest tasks of everyday living. Restaurants and tourist courts became less and less of an option; cooking and bathing became campfire and cold-stream propositions. The unrelieved, round-the-clock proximity of life among two couples, plus a fifth-wheel, in one car gave rise to vicious bickering. So unpleasant did it become that W.D. Jones, who was the actual wheelman in the theft of Dillard Darby's car in late April, used that car to get himself separated from the others—and managed to stay separated throughout May and up until June 8.

On June 10, while driving with Jones and Parker near Wellington, Texas, Barrow missed warning signs at a bridge under construction and flipped their car into a ravine. Sources disagree on whether there was an actual gasoline fire or that Parker was doused with acid from the car's battery under the floorboards. What is certain is that she sustained horrific third degree burns to her right leg. The burn was so severe, the muscles contracted and caused the leg to "draw up"; near the end of her life, Parker could hardly walk and would either hop on her good leg or be carried by Clyde. After getting help from a nearby farm family and kidnapping two local lawmen, the three outlaws rendezvoused with Blanche and Buck Barrow again and they hid out in a tourist court near Ft. Smith, Arkansas, nursing Parker's grievous burns. Then Buck and Jones bungled a local robbery and killed Town Marshal Henry D. Humphrey in Alma, Arkansas. With the renewed pursuit from the law, they had to flee again, despite the grave condition of Bonnie Parker.

1933: Platte City and Dexfield Park

On July 18, 1933, the gang checked into the Red Crown Tourist Court south of Platte City, Missouri (now within the city limits of Kansas City, Missouri across I-29 from Kansas City International Airport). The Red Crown Court was just two brick cabins joined by garages and the gang rented both. To the south stood the Red Crown Tavern, a popular restaurant and a favorite watering hole for Missouri Highway Patrolmen. Once again, the gang seemed to go out of their way to draw attention to themselves: owner Neal Houser became interested in the group immediately when Blanche Barrow registered the party as three guests, and Houser, out his rear window, could see ''five'' people exiting their car—which the driver backed into the garage, "gangster style," for a quick getaway. Blanche paid the lodging tab with coins rather than paper money, and did the same thing again later when she purchased five dinners and five beers for, presumably, three guests. The next day, Houser noticed that his guests had taped newspapers over the windows of their cabin, and Blanche once again paid in silver for five meals. Even Blanche's outfit—saucy, tight ''jodhpurs'' riding breeches—attracted undue attention: they were just not the kind of thing the staid women of Platte City would ever wear, and were the first thing mentioned by eyewitnesses reminiscing even forty years later. to purchase bandages, crackers, cheese, and atropine sulfate to treat Bonnie's leg, the druggist contacted Sheriff Holt Coffey, who put the cabins under watch. Coffey had been alerted by Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas to be on the lookout for strangers seeking such supplies. The sheriff contacted Captain Baxter, who called for reinforcements from Kansas City including an armored car. At 11 p.m. that night, Sheriff Coffey led a group of officers armed with Thompson submachine guns toward the cabins. But in a pitched gunfight at considerable distances, the submachine guns proved no match for Clyde Barrow's preferred Browning Automatic Rifles, stolen July 7 from the National Guard armory at Enid, Oklahoma. The Barrows laid down withering fire and made their escape when a bullet short-circuited the horn on the armored car and the lawmen mistook it for a cease-fire signal. They did not pursue the retreating Barrow automobile.

Although the gang evaded law enforcement once again, Buck Barrow had sustained a horrific wound in the side of the head and Blanche Barrow was nearly blinded from glass fragments in both her eyes. Their prospects for holding out against the ensuing manhunt dwindled.

Five days later, on July 24, the Barrow Gang was camped at Dexfield Park, an abandoned amusement park near Dexter, Iowa. So plainly mortal was Buck's head wound that Clyde and Jones dug a grave for him. After their bloody bandages were noticed by local citizens, it was determined that the campers were the Barrow gang. Surrounded by local lawmen and approximately one hundred spectators, the Barrows once again found themselves under fire. Clyde Barrow, Parker, and W.D. Jones escaped on foot. Buck was shot again, in the back, and he and his wife were captured by the officers. Buck died five days later, at Kings Daughters Hospital in Perry, Iowa, of pneumonia after surgery.

For the next six weeks, the remaining trio ranged far afield of their usual area of operations—west to Colorado, north to Minnesota, southeast to Mississippi—keeping a low profile and pulling only small robberies for daily-bread money. They restocked their arsenal when Barrow and Jones burglarized an armory at Plattville, Illinois on August 20 and scored three BARs, handguns and lots of ammunition.

By early September, they risked a run back in to Dallas to see their families for the first time in four months, and Jones parted company with them, continuing on to Houston, where his mother had moved. He was arrested there without incident on November 16 and returned to Dallas. Through the autumn, Barrow executed a series of small-time robberies with a series of small-time local accomplices while his family, and Parker's, attended to her considerable medical needs.

On November 22, 1933, they again narrowly evaded arrest—but not bullets—while attempting to hook up with family members near Sowers, Texas. This time, it was their hometown Sheriff, Dallas's Smoot Schmid and his squad, lying in wait nearby. As Barrow drove up, he sensed a trap and drove right past his family's car, at which point Schmid and his deputies stood up and opened fire with machine guns and a BAR. The family members in the crossfire were not hit, but not so the outlaws: a single BAR slug penetrated the car—and the legs of both Parker and Barrow. The couple made their getaway that night, but the attempted ambush would prove to be a dry run for deputies Ted Hinton and Bob Alcorn, who would get another shot at the pair six months hence in Louisiana.

Bonnie Parker crossed an ominous personal threshold the following week when on November 28, a Dallas grand jury delivered a murder indictment on her and Barrow for the January 1933 killing of Tarrant County Deputy Malcolm Davis; it was the first murder warrant issued for Parker.

1934: Final run

On January 16, 1934, Barrow finally made his long-contemplated move against the Texas Department of Corrections as he orchestrated the escape of Raymond Hamilton, Henry Methvin and several others in the infamous "Eastham Breakout" of 1934. The Texas prison system received national negative publicity from the brazen raid, and Barrow appeared to have achieved what Phillips describes as the burning passion in his life: exacting revenge on the Texas Department of Corrections.

During the jailbreak, escapee Joe Palmer shot prison officer Major Joe Crowson and this act would eventually bring the full power of the Texas and federal governments to bear on the manhunt for Barrow and Parker. As Crowson struggled for life, prison chief Lee Simmons reportedly promised him that all persons involved in the breakout would be hunted down and killed, and all were, except for Henry Methvin, whose life would eventually be exchanged for turning Barrow and Parker over to authorities. The Texas Department of Corrections then contacted former Texas Ranger Captain Frank A. Hamer, and persuaded him to accept an assignment to hunt down the Barrow Gang. Though retired, Hamer had retained his commission, which had not yet expired. He accepted the assignment as a Texas Highway Patrol officer, secondarily assigned to the prison system as a special investigator, and given the specific task of hunting down Bonnie, Clyde and the Barrow Gang.

Frank Hamer was that ''rara avis'', a true legend in his own time. Tall, burly, cryptic and taciturn, unimpressed by authority, driven by an "inflexible adherence to right, or what he thinks is right," for twenty years Hamer had been feared and admired throughout the Lone Star State as "the walking embodiment of the 'One Riot, One Ranger' ethos." In accomplishing the aims of Texas law enforcement he "had acquired a formidable reputation as a result of several spectacular captures and the shooting of a number of Texas criminals." He was officially credited with fifty-three kills (and seventeen wounds to himself). Although prison boss Simmons always said publicly that Hamer had been his first choice for the Barrow hunt, there's evidence he approached two other Rangers first, both of whom had been queasy about shooting a woman and declined; Hamer apparently had no such qualms. Starting February 10, he became the constant shadow of Barrow and Parker, living out of his car, just a town or two behind the bandits. Three of Hamer's brothers were also Texas Rangers, and while brother Harrison was the best shot of the four, Frank was considered the most tenacious.

On April 1, 1934, Easter Sunday, Barrow and Henry Methvin killed two young highway patrolmen, H. D. Murphy and Edward Bryant Wheeler, in an area near Grapevine, Texas (now the neighboring city of Southlake). A contemporary eyewitness account stated that Barrow and Parker fired the fatal shots and this story got widespread coverage in the press before it was discredited. Henry Methvin later admitted he fired the first shot, after assuming Barrow wanted the officers killed; he also admitted that Parker approached the dying officers intending to ''help'' them, not to administer the cold-blooded point-blank ''coup de grâce'' the discredited eyewitness had described. Barrow then joined in, firing at Patrolman Murphy. Most likely, Parker was asleep in the back seat when Methvin started shooting and took no part in the assault.

But in the spring of 1934, the ''reality'' of the Grapevine killings had far less impact on events than did the public's ''perception'' of them: All four Dallas daily papers seized on the story told by the eyewitness, a farmer, who claimed to have seen Parker throw her head back and laugh at the way Patrolman Murphy's head "bounced like a rubber ball" on the ground as she pumped bullets into his prone body. The stories even claimed that police found a cigar butt "with tiny teeth marks" that could only be attributed to the diminutive Parker. Things got worse several days later when Murphy's intended bride walked into his funeral wearing her wedding gown and sparked another round of photo-supported coverage in the papers. The eyewitness's ever-changing story was soon discredited, but not in time for Barrow and Parker: the massive negative publicity, against Parker in particular, accelerated the public clamor for the extermination of the remaining elements of the Barrow Gang.

It was more than just bad press, though—the outcry galvanized the authorities into taking more concrete legal actions. Highway Patrol boss L.G. Phares immediately offered a $1,000 reward for "the dead bodies of the Grapevine slayers"—not their capture, just the bodies. Texas governor Ma Ferguson was as outraged as the voting public, and she added another $500 reward for each of the two alleged killers, which "meant for the first time there was a specific price on Bonnie's head, since she was so widely believed to have shot H.D. Murphy."

Public hostility only increased when, just five days later, Barrow and Methvin killed 60 year-old Constable William "Cal" Campbell, a widower single father, near Commerce, Oklahoma. They kidnapped Commerce police chief Percy Boyd, drove around with him, crossing the state line into Kansas, and then let him out with a clean shirt, a few dollars and a request from Parker to tell the world she didn't smoke cigars. The outlaws didn't realize at their upbeat parting that Boyd would identify both Barrow and Parker to authorities—he never learned the name of the sullen youth who was with them—and when the resultant arrest warrant was issued for the Campbell murder, it specified "Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker and John Doe." Historian Knight writes: "For the first time, Bonnie was seen as a killer, actually pulling the trigger—just like Clyde. Whatever chance she had for clemency had just been reduced."

Death

Barrow and Parker were ambushed and killed on May 23, 1934 on a rural road in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. The couple appeared in daylight in an automobile and were shot by a posse of four Texas officers (Frank Hamer, B.M. "Manny" Gault, Bob Alcorn and Ted Hinton) and two Louisiana officers (Henderson Jordan and Prentiss Morel Oakley).

The posse was led by Hamer, who had begun tracking the pair on February 10, 1934. He studied the gang's movements and found they swung in a circle skirting the edges of five midwest states, exploiting the "state line" rule that prevented officers from one jurisdiction from pursuing a fugitive into another. Barrow was a master of that pre-FBI rule, but he was consistent in his movements, so an experienced manhunter like Hamer could chart his path and predict where he would go. The gang's itinerary centered on family visits, and they were due to see Henry Methvin's family in Louisiana, which explained Hamer's meeting with them over the course of the hunt. Hamer obtained a quantity of civilian Browning Automatic Rifles (manufactured by Colt as the "Monitor") and 20 round magazines with armor piercing rounds.

On May 21, 1934, the four posse members from Texas were in Shreveport, Louisiana, when they learned that Barrow and Parker were to go to Bienville Parish that evening with Methvin. Barrow had designated the residence of Methvin's parents as a rendezvous in case they were later separated and indeed Methvin did get separated from the pair in Shreveport. The full posse, consisting of Captain Hamer, Dallas County Sheriff's Deputies Bob Alcorn and Ted Hinton (both of whom knew Barrow and Parker by sight), former Texas Ranger B.M. "Manny" Gault, Bienville Parish Sheriff Henderson Jordan, and his deputy Prentiss Oakley, set up an ambush at the rendezvous point along Louisiana State Highway 154 south of Gibsland toward Sailes. Hinton's account has the group in place by 9:00 pm on the 21st and waiting through the whole next day (May 22) with no sign of the outlaw couple, but other accounts have them setting up on the evening of the 22nd.

At approximately 9:15 am on May 23, the posse, concealed in the bushes and almost ready to concede defeat, heard Barrow's stolen Ford V8 approaching at a high speed. The posse's official report had Barrow stopping to speak with Henry Methvin's father, planted there with his truck that morning to distract him and force him into the lane closer to the posse. The lawmen then opened fire, killing Barrow and Parker while shooting a combined total of approximately 130 rounds. All accounts of the ambush, including his own, agree that Oakley fired first, and probably before any order was given to do so. Barrow was killed instantly by Oakley's initial head shot, but Parker had a moment to reflect; Hinton reported hearing her scream as she realized Barrow was dead before the shooting ''at her'' began in earnest. The officers emptied the specially ordered automatic rifles, as well as other rifles, shotguns, and pistols at the car, and any one of many wounds would have been fatal to either of the fugitives. According to statements made by Ted Hinton and Bob Alcorn:

Some today say Bonnie and Clyde were shot more than 50 times, others claim closer to 25 wounds per corpse, or 50 total. Officially, the tally in Parish coroner Dr. J. L. Wade's 1934 report listed seventeen separate entrance wounds on Barrow's body and twenty-six on Parker's, including several headshots on each, and one that had snapped Barrow's spinal column. So numerous were the bullet holes that undertaker C. F. "Boots" Bailey would have difficulty embalming the bodies because they wouldn't contain the embalming fluid.

Amidst the lingering gunsmoke at the ambush site, the temporarily deafened officers inspected the vehicle and discovered an arsenal of weapons including stolen automatic rifles, sawed-off semi-automatic shotguns, assorted handguns, and several thousand rounds of ammunition, along with fifteen sets of license plates from various states. Word of the ambush quickly got around when Hamer, Jordan, Oakley, and Hinton drove into town to telephone their respective bosses. A crowd soon gathered at the spot, and Gault and Alcorn, who had been left to guard the bodies, lost control of the jostling curious; one woman cut off bloody locks of Parker's hair and pieces from her dress, which were subsequently sold as souvenirs. Hinton returned to find a man trying to cut off Barrow's trigger finger, and was sickened by what was occurring. The coroner, arriving on the scene, saw the following: ",,,nearly everyone had begun collecting souvenirs such as shell casings, slivers of glass from the shattered car windows, and bloody pieces of clothing from the garments of Bonnie and Clyde. One eager man had opened his pocket knife, and was reaching into the car to cut off Clyde's left ear." The coroner enlisted Hamer for help in controlling the "circus-like atmosphere", and only then did people move away from the car.

The bullet-riddled Ford containing the two bodies was towed to the Conger Furniture Store & Funeral Parlor on Railroad Avenue in downtown Arcadia across from the Illinois Central train station (which is now a historical museum containing Bonnie and Clyde artifacts). Preliminary embalming was done by Bailey in the small preparation room in back of the furniture store. It was estimated that the northwest Louisiana town swelled in population from 2,000 to 12,000 within hours, the curious throngs arriving by train, horseback, buggy, and plane. Beer which normally sold for 15 cents a bottle jumped to 25 cents; ham sandwiches quickly sold out. After identifying his son's body, an emotional Henry Barrow sat in a rocking chair in the furniture part of the Conger establishment and wept.

H.D. Darby, a young undertaker who worked for the McClure Funeral Parlor in nearby Ruston, Louisiana, and Sophia Stone, a home demonstration agent also from Ruston, came to Arcadia to identify the bodies. They had been kidnapped by the Barrow gang the previous year in Ruston, on April 27, 1933, and released near Waldo, Arkansas. Parker reportedly had laughed when she asked Darby his profession and discovered he was an undertaker. She remarked that maybe someday he would be working on her. As it turned out, she could be no closer to the truth: Darby assisted Bailey in embalming the outlaws.

Funeral and burial

Bonnie and Clyde wished to be buried side by side, but the Parker family would not allow it. Mrs. Parker had wanted to grant her daughter's final wish, which was to be brought home, but the mobs surrounding the Parker house made that impossible. Over 20,000 people turned out for Bonnie Parker's funeral, making it difficult for her family to reach the grave site. then located on Forest Avenue (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard) in Dallas, to conduct her funeral. Hubert "Buster" Parker accompanied his sister’s body back to Dallas in the McKamy-Campbell ambulance. Her services were held on Saturday, May 26, 1934, at 2 pm, in the funeral home, directed by Allen D. Campbell. His son, Dr. Allen Campbell, later remembered that flowers came from everywhere, including some with cards allegedly from Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger. The largest floral tribute was sent by a group of Dallas city newsboys; the sudden end of Bonnie and Clyde sold 500,000 newspapers in Dallas alone. Soloists at the funeral included Dudley M Hughes Sr., who later was to become the prominent operator of four large Dallas funeral homes. Although initially buried in the Fishtrap Cemetery, Parker was moved, in 1945, to the new Crown Hill Cemetery in Dallas. The next year, services for Raymond Hamilton, a member of the Barrow Gang who was executed on May 10, 1935 by the State of Texas, were also held at the McKamy-Campbell Funeral Home.

Barrow's family used the Sparkman-Holtz-Brand Morticians, located in the A.H. Belo mansion in downtown Dallas. Thousands of people gathered outside both Dallas funeral homes hoping for a chance to view the bodies. Barrow’s private funeral was held at sunset on Friday, May 25, in the funeral home chapel. He was buried in Western Heights Cemetery in Dallas, next to his brother, Marvin. They share a single granite marker with their names on it and a four-word epitaph previously selected by Clyde: “Gone but not forgotten.”

The life insurance policies for both Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were paid in full by American National of Galveston. Since then, the policy of pay-outs has changed to exclude pay-outs in cases of deaths caused by any criminal act by the insured.

In addition to the memorabilia collected by the posse, the six men were each to receive a one-sixth share of the reward money. Dallas Sheriff Schmid had promised Ted Hinton this would total some $26,000, but most of the state, county, and other organizations that had pledged reward funds reneged on their pledges; by the time the six checks were issued to the possemen, each had earned just $200.23 for his efforts.

The ambush of Barrow and Parker proved to be the beginning of the end of the "public enemy era" of the 1930s. New federal statutes that made bank robbery and kidnapping federal offenses, the growing coordination of local jurisdictions by the FBI, and the installation of two-way radios in police cars combined to make the free-ranging outlaw bandit lifestyle much more difficult in the summer of 1934 than it had been just a few months before. Two months after Gibsland, John Dillinger was ambushed and killed on the street in Chicago; three months after that, Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd took 14 FBI bullets in the back in Ohio; and one month after that, Lester "Baby Face Nelson" Gillis shot it out, and lost, in Illinois. Thereafter, the Public Enemies would no longer operate on thin ribbons of gray macadam across America, but only on silver screens throughout the world.

Controversies

Questions following the ambush were helped along by the tripartite composition of the posse itself: Hamer and Gault were both former Texas Rangers now working for the Texas Department of Corrections, Hinton and Alcorn were employees of the Dallas Sheriff's office, and Jordan and Oakley were Sheriff and Deputy of Bienville Parish. The three duos distrusted each other, kept to themselves, and indeed did not even much like each other. They each carried differing agendas into the operation and brought differing narratives out of it. Historian Guinn puts it this way: Hamer's, Simmons's, Jordan's and Hinton's "various testimonies

:combine into one of the most dazzling displays of deliberate obfuscation in modern history. Such widely varied accounts can't be dismissed as different people honestly recalling the same events different ways. Motive becomes an issue, and they all had reason to lie. Hamer was fanatical about protecting sources. Simmons was interested in resurrecting his own public image.... Jordan wanted to present himself as the critical dealmaker. Nobody can account for Ted Hinton's improbable reminiscences...."

Because their self-serving accounts vary so widely, and because all six men are long deceased, the exact details of the ambush are unknown and unknowable.

As a result, the questions have lingered, including whether fair warning was given the fugitives before the firing commenced, the status of Parker as a shoot-on-sight candidate, and the 1970s-era accusations of Deputy Hinton.

Calling a "Halt!"

The efficacy of calling out a warning to Clyde Barrow before an ambush was demonstrated by Dallas Sheriff Schmid at Sowers, Texas in November 1933. At his call of "Halt!" there was a smattering of gunfire from the outlaw car, a sweeping U-turn, and then rapidly vanishing taillights: Ambush over. Hinton later called it "the most futile gesture of the week." So when the two Louisiana officers on the posse assumed that calling "Halt!" would be the prelude to the bullets, the four Texans "vetoed the idea," hurrying to inform them It is unlikely that Hamer planned to give any warning, but the matter became moot when Deputy Oakley simply stood up and opened fire; after a beat, the startled possemen joined him in the fusillade. Alcorn said Hamer called out, and Hinton claimed Alcorn did, while in another paper that same day, they ''each'' said they ''both'' did. These conflicting claims most likely were collegial attempts to divert the focus from their gun-jumping associate Oakley, who admitted in subsequent years that he fired prematurely.

Warrants on Parker

Different and disparate sources have cited five occasions when Bonnie Parker may or may not have fired shots during crises faced by the gang. The number of shots is unimportant as she never hit anyone, let alone directly murdered. She was, however, an accomplice to a hundred or more felony criminal actions during her two-year career in crime including eight murders, seven kidnappings, half-a-dozen bank robberies, scores of felony armed robberies, countless automobile thefts, one major jailbreak and an episode of assault and battery at a time when being a "habitual criminal" was a capital offense in Texas. Because of their far-flung, rural base of operations and will o' the wisp ''modus operandi'', Parker was able to stay a step ahead of the tide of legal paperwork that inevitably follows a crime spree the scope of hers and Barrow's.

This began to change for Parker after Joplin: the Joplin P.D. issued a ''Wanted for Murder'' poster in April 1933 that featured her name and photo first, before Barrow's, though the text concentrated on him. In June, another ''Wanted for Murder'' poster emerged, this one out of Crawford County, Arkansas, again with Parker's name and photo getting first billing. There was now a $250 cash bounty attached for either of the "Barrow Brothers" (Clyde and "Melvin")—and the admonition to "inquire of your doctors if they have been called to treat a woman that has been burned in a car wreck."

By November 1933, W.D. Jones was in custody and supplying details of the gang's 1933 activities—details which led to the empanelment of a grand jury in Dallas. On November 28, the grand jury indicted Parker, Barrow, and Jones for the murder of Deputy Malcolm Davis in January; Judge Nolan G. Williams of Criminal District Court No. 2 issued arrest warrants for Parker and Barrow for murder. Just five days later, Barrow and Henry Methvin killed Constable Campbell in Commerce, Oklahoma, and the murder warrant issued there named "Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker and John Doe" as his killers.

Hinton's accusations

In 1979, Ted Hinton's as-told-to account of the ambush was published posthumously as ''Ambush'', and it attempted to change the complexion of the Methvin family's involvement in the planning and execution of the ambush. According to Hinton, the posse had tied Henry Methvin's father, Ivy, to a tree the previous night, to keep him from possibly warning the outlaws off. Hamer, Hinton claimed, made Ivy Methvin a deal: keep quiet about being tied up, and his son would be pardoned for the murder of the two young highway patrolmen at Grapevine, a pardon which Henry Methvin did eventually receive. Hinton alleged that Hamer made every member of the posse swear they would never divulge this secret. Other accounts, however, place Methvin Senior at the very center of the action that morning, not tied up but right down on the road, waving for Clyde Barrow to stop—having cut Henry's pardon deal several weeks before. Hinton's odd memoir also propounds the tale that the offending stogie in the famous "cigar photo" of Bonnie had in fact been a ''rose'' in her mouth that was retouched ''into'' a cigar by darkroom personnel at the ''Joplin Globe'' while they were preparing the photo for publication. Guinn says that "some people who knew [Hinton] suspect he became delusional late in life."

Aftermath

The smoke from the fusillade had not even cleared before the posse began sifting through the items in the Barrow death car. Hamer appropriated the "considerable" arsenal of stolen guns and ammunition, plus a box of fishing tackle, under the terms of his compensation package with the Texas DOC. In July, Clyde's mother Cumie wrote to Hamer asking for the guns' return: "You don't never want to forget my boy was never tried in no court for murder and no one is guilty until proven guilty by some court so I hope you will answer this letter and also return the guns I am asking for." No record exists of any response.

Alcorn claimed Barrow's saxophone from the car, but feeling guilty, later returned it to the Barrow family. Other personal items such as Parker's clothing were also taken, and when the Parker family asked for them back, they were refused. These items were later sold as souvenirs. A rumored suitcase full of cash was said by the Barrow family to have been kept by Sheriff Jordan, "who soon after the ambush purchased an auction barn and land in Arcadia." after considerable legal sparring and a court order, Jordan relented and Mrs. Warren got her car back in August 1934, still covered with blood and tissue, and with an $85 towing and storage bill.

In February 1935, Dallas and federal authorities conducted a "harboring trial" in which twenty family members and friends of the outlaw couple were arrested and jailed for the aid and abetment of Barrow and Parker. All twenty either pleaded or were found guilty. The two mothers were jailed for 30 days; other sentences ranged from two years' imprisonment for Raymond Hamilton's brother Floyd to one hour in custody for teenager Marie Barrow, Clyde's sister. Other defendants included Blanche Barrow, W. D. Jones, Henry Methvin and Bonnie's sister Billie.

Blanche Barrow's injuries left her permanently blinded in her left eye. After the 1933 shootout at Dexfield Park, she was taken into custody on the charge of "Assault With Intent to Kill." She was sentenced to ten years in prison but was paroled in 1939 for good behavior. She returned to Dallas, leaving her life of crime in the past, and lived with her invalid father as his caregiver. She married Eddie Frasure in 1940, worked as a taxi cab dispatcher and a beautician, and completed the terms of her parole one year later. She lived in peace with her husband until he died of cancer in 1969. Warren Beatty approached her to purchase the rights to her name for use in the 1967 film ''Bonnie and Clyde''. While she agreed to the original script, she objected to her characterization in the final film, describing Estelle Parsons's Academy Award-winning portrayal of her as "a screaming horse's ass." Despite this, she maintained a firm friendship with Beatty. She died from cancer at the age of 77 on December 24, 1988, and was buried in Dallas's Grove Hill Memorial Park under the name "Blanche B. Frasure".

Barrow colleagues Raymond Hamilton and Joe Palmer, both Eastham escapees in January 1934, both recaptured, and both subsequently convicted of murder, shared one more thing in common: they were both executed in the electric chair, "Old Sparky", at Huntsville, Texas, and both on the same day: May 10, 1935. Barrow protégé W. D. Jones had split from his mentors six weeks after the three slipped the noose at Dexfield Park in July 1933. He found his way to Houston and got a job picking cotton. He was discovered and captured in short order though, and was returned to Dallas, where he dictated a "confession" in which he claimed to have been kept a prisoner by Barrow and Parker. Some of the more lurid embellishments he made concerned the gang's sex lives, and it was this testimony that gave rise to many of the stories about Barrow's ambiguous sexuality. Jones was convicted of the murder of Doyle Johnson and served a lenient sentence of fifteen years. He struggled for years with substance abuse problems, gave an interview to ''Playboy'' during the heyday of excitement surrounding the 1967 movie, and was killed on August 4, 1974 in a misunderstanding by the jealous boyfriend of a woman he was trying to help out.

Substitute protégé Henry Methvin's ambush-earned Texas pardon didn't help him in Oklahoma, where he was convicted of the 1934 murder of Constable Campbell at Commerce. He was paroled in 1942 and killed by a train in 1948; it was said he fell asleep, drunk, on the tracks, but there were rumors he had been pushed by parties seeking revenge for his betrayal of Clyde Barrow. His father Ivy had been killed in 1946 by a hit-and-run driver, and here too there was talk of foul play. Bonnie Parker's husband Roy Thornton was sentenced to five years in prison for burglary in March 1933. He was killed by guards on October 3, 1937, during an escape attempt from Eastham Farm prison.

In the years after the ambush, Prentiss Oakley, who all six possemen agree fired the first shots, was reported to have been troubled by his actions. He often admitted to his friends that he had fired prematurely because many people felt he had not given Barrow and Parker a fair chance to surrender. He made headlines again in 1948 when he and Governor Coke Stevenson unsuccessfully challenged Lyndon Johnson's vote totals during the election for the U.S. Senate. He died in 1955 at age 71 after several years of poor health. His possemate Bob Alcorn died on May 23, 1964—exactly thirty years to the day after the Gibsland ambush.

On April 1, 2011, the 77th anniversary of the Grapevine murders, Texas Rangers, troopers and DPS staff presented the Yellow Rose of Texas commendation to Ella Wheeler-McLeod, 95, the last surviving sibling of highway patrolman Edward Bryan Wheeler, killed that Easter Sunday by the Barrow Gang. They presented McLeod, of San Antonio, with a plaque and framed portrait of her brother.

In the contemporary media

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were among the first celebrity criminals of the modern era. They had little choice in the matter: after they fled the Joplin hideout in April 1933 with nothing but the clothes they were wearing, the police discovered several rolls of undeveloped film and some scrawled doggerel poetry left behind. It was instant legend: the photos showed the couple and W. D. Jones in playful, snapshot-type poses, except they were wielding pistols, rifles and BARs. In one gag shot, Parker had plucked a cigar from Barrow and popped it in her mouth, branding her as "Clyde's cigar-smoking moll." The poem "Suicide Sal," peppered with quotation marks and colorful underworld vernacular, mirrored the tone of the popular detective magazines of the time. Two days after the raid, the photos and poem went out on the wire and were running in newspapers all over the country. Before Joplin, the Barrows' notoriety had been confined strictly to the Dallas area; afterwards, they became notorious across America.

The high public profile was a mixed blessing. It certainly made life on the run more dangerous and therefore more difficult. There were more nights sleeping in the car and fewer sleeping in motor courts; picking up laundry at cleaning stores was particularly harrowing. As the noose tightened, Parker composed the fatalistic poem she titled "The Trail's End," known since as "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde." She gave the handwritten ode to her mother upon their final meeting two weeks before her death and Emma Parker gave it to the press thereafter.

Six weeks before the couple was ambushed, a letter purportedly written by Barrow arrived at the office of Henry Ford praising his "dandy car." Although the handwriting does not match known samples of Clyde's penmanship, and despite the fact the letter was signed by "Clyde ''Champion'' Barrow" while Barrow's middle name was ''Chestnut'', the unauthenticated letter is on display in the Ford Museum. It was never used in any form in Ford advertising, nor was a similar letter Ford received around the same time from someone claiming to be John Dillinger, himself ambushed just two months after Barrow.

In modern popular culture

Film

Hollywood has treated the pair's story several times, most notably: Dorothy Provine starred in the 1958 movie ''The Bonnie Parker Story'', directed by William Witney. In 1967, Arthur Penn directed the best-known version of the tale, ''Bonnie and Clyde'', which starred Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. In the 1992 TV film, ''Bonnie & Clyde: The True Story'', Tracey Needham played Bonnie while Clyde was portrayed by Dana Ashbrook.

Music

In 1955, Hermes Nye recorded the a musical rendition of Bonnie Parker's poem "The Trail's End" which he called "Bonnie and Clyde" on his ''Texas Folk Songs'' LP.

In December 1967, Serge Gainsbourg with Brigitte Bardot recorded the song "Bonnie and Clyde" which conveys a highly romanticized account of the pair. The song, one of Gainsbourg's most famous and popular ones, was released in January 1968 on the LP "Brigitte Bardot et Serge Gainsbourg, Bonnie and Clyde" (Fontana 885529). The recording, with its hypnotic, repetitive string motif and eerie vocals and sound effects, has been sampled widely.

In 1967, Georgie Fame released a single called "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde" (UK #1), whose lyrics tell of Bonnie's and Clyde's exploits.

In 1968, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs released their album, ''The Story of Bonnie and Clyde''. The album is Columbia Records catalog number CS-9649.

Musical Theatre

On November 20, 2009, La Jolla Playhouse presented the world premiere of the musical ''Bonnie & Clyde.'' The production was adapted from the book by Ivan Menchell with music written by Frank Wildhorn and lyrics by Don Black. The cast was led by Laura Osnes as Bonnie and Stark Sands as Clyde. The musical won the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle’s Award for Outstanding New Musical and director Jeff Calhoun was honored for Best Direction of a Musical. The next production ran at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida from November 12, 2010 through December 19, 2010, directed again by Jeff Calhoun. In this production Laura Osnes starred once more as Bonnie and Jeremy Jordan starred in the role of Clyde, Melissa van der Schyff as Blanche Barrow, and Claybourne Elder as Buck Barrow.

The Bonnie and Clyde Festival

Every year near the anniversary of the ambush, a "Bonnie and Clyde Festival" is hosted in the town of Gibsland, off Interstate 20 in Bienville Parish. The ambush location, still comparatively isolated on Louisiana Highway 154, south of Gibsland, is commemorated by a stone marker that has been defaced to near illegibility by souvenir hunters and gunshot. A small metal version was added to accompany the stone monument. It was stolen, as was its replacement.

Historical perspective

Through the decades, many cultural historians have analyzed Bonnie's and Clyde's enduring appeal to the public imagination. E.R. Milner, an historian, writer, and expert on Bonnie and Clyde and their era, put the duo's enduring appeal to the public, both during the Depression and continuing on through the decades, into historical and cultural perspective. To those people who, as Milner says, "consider themselves outsiders, or oppose the existing system," Bonnie and Clyde represent the ultimate outsiders, revolting against an uncaring system. "The country’s money simply declined by 38 percent", explains Milner, author of ''The Lives and Times of Bonnie and Clyde''. "Gaunt, dazed men roamed the city streets seeking jobs... Breadlines and soup kitchens became jammed. (In rural areas) foreclosures forced more than 38 percent of farmers from their lands (while simultaneously) a catastrophic drought struck the Great Plains... By the time Bonnie and Clyde became well known, many had felt the capitalistic system had been abused by big business and government officials... Now here were Bonnie and Clyde striking back."

See also

1910 US Census with Clyde Barrow in Ellis County, Texas

Hybristophilia, also known as "Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome"

List of Depression-era outlaws

References

;Notes

;Bibliography

Barrow, Blanche Caldwell and John Neal Phillips. ''My Life with Bonnie and Clyde''. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004.) ISBN 978-0-8061-3715-5.

Burrough, Bryan. ''Public Enemies.'' (New York: The Penguin Press, 2004.) ISBN 1-59420-021-1.

Guinn, Jeff. ''Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde''. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009.) ISBN 1-4165-5706-7.

Knight, James R. and Jonathan Davis. ''Bonnie and Clyde: A Twenty-First-Century Update''. (Austin, TX: Eakin Press, 2003.) ISBN 1-57168-794-7.

Milner, E.R. ''The Lives and Times of Bonnie and Clyde'' (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996.) ISBN 0-8093-2552-7.

Parker, Emma Krause, Nell Barrow Cowan and Jan I. Fortune. ''The True Story of Bonnie and Clyde''. (New York: New American Library, 1968.) ISBN 0-8488-2154-8. Originally published in 1934 as ''Fugitives''.

Phillips, John Neal. ''Running with Bonnie and Clyde, the Ten Fast Years of Ralph Fults''. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996, 2002) ISBN 0-8061-3429-1.

Ramsey, Winston G., ed. ''On The Trail of Bonnie and Clyde''. (London: After The Battle Books, 2003). ISBN 1-870067-51-7.

Steele, Phillip, and Marie Barrow Scoma. ''The Family Story of Bonnie and Clyde''. (Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company, 2000.) ISBN 1-56554-756-X.

Treherne, John. ''The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde''. (New York: Stein and Day, 1984.) ISBN 0-8154-1106-5.

Webb, Walter Prescott. ''The Texas Rangers: A Century of Frontier Defense.'' (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1935.) ISBN 0-292-78110-5.

External links

The Poems of Bonnie Parker

Henry Ford">Unauthenticated Barrow letter to Henry Ford

The Clyde Barrow Gang collection from the Dallas Police Department Archives

Barrow, Clyde Bonnie, Parker Category:1934 deaths Category:Duos Category:People from Ellis County, Texas Category:People from Bienville Parish, Louisiana Category:Depression-era gangsters Category:People from Joplin, Missouri Category:Articles containing video clips Category:American outlaws Category:Deaths by firearm in Louisiana Category:American bank robbers Category:People shot dead by law enforcement officers in the United States Category:Articles about multiple people

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