Doc Holliday and Hollywood 1914

Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone
Excerpt: During the Spicer Hearings.
Following the November 3rd court session:
Doc walked with Wyatt to the Cosmopolitan Hotel to visit with Morgan and Virgil in order to fill them on their day in court. Wyatt stopped by Virgil's room and Doc simply poked his head in the door and called a greeting to Virg. Then he went down the hall to Morg's room and found his friend sitting in the middle of his bed, cross-legged, rolling a cigarette. He was in pain, but managed a grin. "How did you fellows make out in court today?"
"Could have been better, I guess."
"What happened?"
“Johnny Behan was at it again.” Doc took out his notes and quoted large portions of Behan's testimony and pointed out several discrepancies. Then he said, “Here’s one you might remember. The district attorney was questioning Behan about a conversation Behan had with Wyatt, shortly after the shooting was over. It was when Wyatt said to me, 'Behan, you have deceived me. You said you had disarmed them. Then Behan said, 'I did not say anything of the kind. I had said. 'Earp, I told you that I was there for the purpose of arresting them and disarming them. He said he thought I said that I had disarmed them.’”
“Bullshit!” Morg roared. “That’s exactly what the son-of-a-bitch said, ‘I have disarmed them.’”
“You got that right, Morg.” Then Doc leaned back in his chair, took a long drag from his cigarette. "But that son-of-a-gun finally stumbled into the truth. He said the nickel-plated pistol got off the first round.”
Morg grinned and looked knowingly at Doc.
“Something else, this afternoon, a Mrs. King took the stand and told of a remark you supposedly made to me, in front of Bauer's Butcher Shop, just before the fight.”
"What was it?" Morg asked.
"I don't remember you saying it, but here's the way she put it. ”Doc referred to his notes and then did a pretty good imitation of the lady. 'I heard the gentleman on the outside say to Mr. Holliday, 'Let them have it.' And Mr. Holliday said, 'All right."'
Morg hooted, "Quit that, Doc, it hurts too much to laugh."
Doc chuckled. "Do you remember that?"
Morg shook his head. "Don't remember nothin' like that. But I do remember when we got to Bauer's place we were all jawin' with the sheriff. Seems to me, you had dropped back a ways by then."
"I don't figure Mrs. King to be a liar,” Doc said, “but she could be mistaken. Another thing, she's probably been coached by the prosecution."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Lawyer's sometimes tell witnesses how to say things. Now this might sound picky, but at the inquest she gave two different versions of what you were supposed to have said. I read that inquest transcript. In one place she said, 'Let them have it,' and in another she changed it to, 'Give it to them.' Nobody questioned her about it."
"Comes down to pretty near the same thing don't it, " Morg remarked.
"Maybe, but she never said the second version in Spicer's court.” Doc twirled the end of his mustache. "I think the prosecution made sure the lady used the phrase that pictured us in the worst possible light. Yep, 'Let ’em have it,' sure makes it sound like we were spoiling for a fight.”
"Think the judge saw it that way?"
"Don't know." Then Doc shook his head and grinned, "I'll tell you something, Morg -- of all the poker faces I've read in my life -- that old man's got one of the best. I swear I never know what he's thinking."
Spicer Hearing Excerpts: (To be continued)

Let's Go to the The Movies
Hollywood Silents 1914-1929 Part 3
During 1914 Los Angeles looked like a boom town – film companies forming and location filming was going on all over the city. Local citizens decried the invasion of the movie makers and Frances Marion describes the situation in her autobiography, 'Off With Their Heads.'
'How could anyone resent the lively fun they had brought into this dull environment? You encounter the gypsy-like caravans where ever you went. Indians in full war paint rode hell bent for leather across the dusty river beds. Mack Sennett's Cops leaped aboard the cable car that climbed a midget hill known as Angels Flight. Even the little parks became outdoor stages. During the noon hour you were apt to see Bluebeard and all his wives cozily eating ham sandwiches and hard boiled eggs, while the Apostle John sat under a pepper tree with his arm around a bathing beauty...'
Many in the legitimate theater thought little of the movie people either. Ms. Marion continues, ...'At the theater during rest periods the stock company often discussed the rising influence of the movies. Our star, Laurette Taylor, said, 'I shall never be lured into it, though they have trapped Madame Bernhardt, Lillie Langtry, and Minnie Maddern Fiske.'
'Those totting tintypes!' Shouted Jimmie Gleason, 'I wouldn't be caught dead in 'em.'
Gleason apparently had a conversion later on because he became one of the movies best known character actors and was a member of the group that founded the Screen Actors Guild.
Sunshine and fair weather drew those would be film makers from the east to the Los Angeles area like a giant magnet. Dozens of independent film makers would put a company together in order to make one film. For example 'Fatty's Wine Party,' Production Company.
'The Patchwork Girl of Oz,' The Oz Film Manufacturing Company.
Then there was the Apollo Film Company that made 'The Great Pasadena Rose Tournament of 1914.'
Those with a bit more staying power included The William Selig Company.
New York Motion Picture Company – Bison Division.
Biograph films.
Mutual Film Corporation.
Mack Sennett's Keystone Film Company.
Lasky Feature Play Company, which included Sam Goldwyn, Cecil B. DeMille, Jesse L. Lasky and Arthur Friend produced "The Squaw Man' the first feature film made in Hollywood. Their production headquarters was an old yellow barn located at Selma and Vine. (That barn was moved and turned into a museum, which is now located in Griffith Park, across the street from the Hollywood Bowl.)
Sam Goldwyn's given name was Sam Goldfish, a name without destinction. And since he was in a business known for hyperbole he wanted a name that sounded more sophisticated, something that had a ring of success to it. As Sam went over his options he thought of a past associate named Selwyn and it occured to him that by splitting their names in half, and moving the parts around you had two different names. Selfish and Goldwyn. Sam picked the winner and chose a name that eventually made Sammy Goldfish famous.
There is another name in the movie business that means little to people outside the industry, but a man of vision that rose to the top of the film industry and stayed there. That name is Adolph Zukor.
Zukor's life in show business started out in New York's penny arcades and later Nickelodeons. He got into the movie business when he and a partner, Broadway producer, Charles Frohman bought the American rights to a French made film 'Queen Elizabeth' starring Sarah Bernhardt.They rented the Lyceum Theater, papered the city with advertising and opened the film July 12, 1912. Theater goers and society figures would have probably shunned the film except for one fact, the star was Sarah Bernhardt.
The 40 minute film was of poor quality, however it became a big hit for them. And from that success Zukor and Frohman founded the Famous Players In Famous Plays Film Company. The name was later changed to Famous Players. Their company produced 'The Prisoner of Zenda' and 'The Count of Monte Cristo' in 1913. Both films were successful and by the end of 1913 Zukor realized what was going on in the west and moved his part of the operation to Los Angeles.
It took Adolph Zukor only six months to set up shop in Hollywood, and by the middle of May 1914 Mr. Zukor managed to gather several small companies including Jesse Lasky's Feature Players Company the into one operation. And once they were all under one umbrella the group formed Paramount Pictures, which became the dominant motion picture company in Hollywood.
In 1914 motion picture companies began to promote their stars along with their films. Mary Pickford was the first Paramount star and Mack Sennett's Keystone Films countered with Fatty Arbuckle and Charlie Chaplin.
(To be continued)
Writers Notebook:
Words and phrases – the search goes on.
Ever get hung up on a word that’s almost but not quite right?
Peg Bracken has and she gives us some thoughts on the subject. ‘I do a great deal of rewriting. Almost never is a paragraph right the first time or the sixth or seventh time either for that matter. You are always looking for that right word. There’s a grave difference between a B and a B flat. And it matters too where it falls in the measure. I believe there’s only one best word. Of course one doesn’t always find that best word, but it is the thing to aim for.’

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com
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