After the moment of the Gunfight at the OK Corral in late 1881, Wyatt Earp became famous in his own time. He was already known within the western territories as a tough lawman. The gunfight represented the epitome of what the wild west stood for: good guys against bad guys in a thrilling duel. The real event was 30 seconds long. The motivations behind it have complicated details. But Wyatt wanted us to forget all that. He was never shot in a gunfight and lived into old age. By chance, at a championship boxing match at the turn of the century – which became the first feature-length movie – Earp saw the power of cinema in action. He decided he could rewrite history through the magic of movies, hanging out in Hollywood in the 1920s to try to get a movie made about his life. And it actually worked.
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