Violence Has Its Own Momentum

By Gary Ledoux – Western History Author

Tombstone Epitaph  October 2006

“Violence has its own momentum.” penned playwright Terry Earp, referring to the OK Corral gunfight and the ensuing “vendetta ride” - words to be uttered onstage by her husband Wyatt Earp (yes, that is his real name) as he performs his one-man show, “Wyatt Earp – A Life On The Frontier”.

Terry Earp did not start out her adult life thinking that she was going to be some sort of authority on the “Tombstone Earps”.  She focused her energy and writing talents on producing comedic theatrical performances with a few dramas and even a dramedy thrown in for good measure.

And then along came Hugh O’ Brian. Mr. O’ Brian is of course, best known for his portrayal of Wyatt Earp in the television series “The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp” which ran from September 6, 1955 to September 26, 1961.  Mr. O’ Brian was looking for some material from which to do a one-man show to promote his HOBY charity.  With her play-writing skill, Terry was commissioned to do the work.  Some time later, the play was complete.  Mr. O’ Brian liked the material, but administration and promotion work with his HOBY organization took precedence and he would not be able to do the show.

Desiring to see her work on stage, Terry then took the situation into her own hands and commissioned her husband, Wyatt to play – well – Wyatt.  “The first time I performed that play, ‘Wyatt Earp – A Life On The Frontier’ was April 16, 1996!” Wyatt says with pride.  The audience loved it. 

In fact, the public cannot seem to get it’s fill of Wyatt Earp – even now – 125 years after the 30 seconds that made him famous.  When I interviewed Wyatt and Terry for this article, they had just returned from Florida where he had performed the show for the 508^th time!  The show has proven so popular, that Wyatt has performed it all over the United States and in various countries in Europe, Central America, and as far north as Alaska!  The first time he performed it in Tombstone’s own Schieffelin Hall just a few years ago was a most unique experience for Wyatt, and for those of us fortunate enough to be sitting in the audience. 

Applying her talents to another Tombstone luminary, “Doc” Holliday, Terry wrote another one-man play where her husband Wyatt plays the consumptive dentist-turned-gambler.  They call it, “Gentleman Doc Holliday”.  At this writing (April 4, 2006) Wyatt has performed that play 138 times – perhaps a few more by the time this is published.

Not to be outdone by her husband’s acting talents; Terry made herself the centerpiece of a play where she depicts the life of “Doc’s” paramour, Big Nose Kate, and again as Josephine Earp, Wyatt’s wife. 

Terry’s latest creation places Josephine Earp near the end of her days, whiling away the hours at the couple’s mining cottage near Vidal, California.  The play revolves around Josephine having a one-way conversation with a cat, unburdening herself of her life’s woes, trials and tribulations.  She talks about Wyatt’s death and how she tried to control what people wrote about him – trying to control his burgeoning legend and keep the whole thing in perspective. 

Based on the research she conducted on Josephine Earp, Terry noted, “Josephine was not the easiest person to live with and must have caused Wyatt some grief at times.  She was what one today might call an ‘action gambler’ and loved to play cards or go to the race track.  She would not be happy at a Las Vegas-style slot machine.  She liked the action – and plenty of it.  She is probably the reason both she and Wyatt died broke.  She even hawked her jewelry for gambling money.”

To do these plays, and do them as well as they do, with conviction and verve, both Terry and Wyatt had to do a lot of reading, research, and background work to make their productions come alive.  Terry got to interview people who had known Josephine Earp when she was alive and in the twilight of her life in the 1930’s.  One former acquaintance of Josephine’s noted, “Nobody could convince me that Wyatt Earp was a killer because he lived with her for 47 years!”

When asked to give comment on the OK Corral gunfight, now 125 years after the fact, and its place in history Wyatt noted, “People enjoy controversy – and the OK Corral incident certainly has plenty of that!  The incident is also rather unique in the annals of the old west because it is one of the few times that two opposing factions actually did face each either down face-to-face in a ‘dusty street’.  Hollywood has played this basic scenario over hundreds of times but it actually happened very few times – and this was one of them.”

Wyatt also noted that it made a hero, for better or for worse, of his name sake.  “People like heroes – our society wants to have heroes.  And if it wasn’t Wyatt, it would have been somebody else.  Somebody would have emerged from that whole affair as a hero.”

Today, thanks to the tireless efforts of many researchers and biographers, we know that neither the Earps nor the opposing cow-boy factions were all good or all bad.  However, Hollywood, and many writers, fictional and otherwise, has turned the OK Corral incident as a good versus evil – a controversy of black and white.  Wyatt noted that this also plays into the continued popularity of the OK Corral incident and the whole Tombstone legend.  “People like to read about how sometimes we take the law into our own hands, as the Earp brothers did in 1881 and especially during the Vendetta Ride in 1882.  Becoming ‘the law’ appeals to the ‘rebel’ in all of us – hence the appeal of the whole Tombstone myth and legend.”

I asked Wyatt to comment specifically about the so-called “Vendetta Ride”.  He replied, “The law at that time was clearly not working.  The Earp brothers were trying to bring law and order to a place that seemingly, at times, would have neither.  The ‘tipping point’ for Wyatt was the death in March, 1882 of his brother Morgan.  Wyatt held his restraint for a long time; longer than many of us would today.  From that point, all bets were off as Wyatt and his posse tore across the Territory.  It would appear from reading news accounts at the time that Arizona Territory was in a state of anarchy.  The President even threatened to impose martial law if the local constabulary could not get things under control.  It was a wild time!”

There were a few questions I simply had to ask this wonderful and most gracious Phoenix-based couple – I just couldn’t resist. 

Growing up with the name “Wyatt Earp” had to have some good and bad points and so I asked Wyatt to elaborate on that theme.  He confessed that it wasn’t really an issue until the Hugh O’ Brian TV show was introduced.  Then he got ribbed – a lot – and I had to defend his name with “two left jabs and a right cross”!

Wyatt finally got over the school-yard antics and got on with his life, not really thinking much about his name or heritage (he notes that he is a distant cousin of his namesake) until one day he saw cowboy poet Baxter Black on the Johnny Carson show; again piquing his interest in the old west..  Wyatt started to do some reading and research and was in the throes of discovery when he ran across the gun-twirling historian Jim Dunham talking about Wyatt Earp and Tombstone.  One thing led to another and before he knew what had happened, Wyatt became embodiment of Tombstone’s most famous resident.”

I just had to ask Terry what it was like being married to an icon.  She laughed, “Neither of us really thinks about it much – until we have to make a hotel reservation and give our name.  Sometimes they have a field day with Wyatt.”

When asked for any parting thoughts on the events of 1881 Wyatt noted, “Both Wyatt and Josephine were flawed people – just like everyone else.  But their love for each other saw them through some tough times.  I would like people to think of Wyatt Earp not just as a hero, or a lawman, or a gunslinger, but to think of him as a human being.  One of the last things Wyatt ever did on this earth, was to pet his cat as he lie dying in his little bungalow in Los Angeles.  He uttered the words, “Suppose…suppose…’ and then he was gone – dying peacefully.”

Terry Earp, referring to the Wyatt Earp of 1881, but could just as easily have been referring to her own husband, offered a most poignant parting phrase, “Wyatt was a man of his time.”