AS SEEN ON TV: PHILIP DEIDESHEIMER

PHILIP DEIDESHEIMER

AS SEEN IN:
'Bonanza'

AS PLAYED BY:
John Beal

From Wikipedia:
Philip Deidesheimer (1832 in Darmstadt, Germany - 21 July 1916 in San Francisco, California) was a German mining engineer who invented a system of supports for mines, using heavy timber "cubes" now known as square set timbering, that enabled skilled miners to open three-dimensional cavities of any size underground. Deidesheimer created the system for the Ophir Mine in Virginia City, Nevada in 1860. The system, which was inspired by the structure of honeycombs, enabled mining of the large silver orebodies of the Comstock Lode. Deidesheimer refused to patent the innovation.

The development of his square-set timbering method was fictionalized in "The Diedesheimer Story" in season one of Bonanza.

BCnU!

ALIAS DOC MAVERICK

Whenever I talk about "Famous Impostor Syndrome" (probably better known as "Famous Individual Syndrome", but I like my acronym better), I usually cite Doc Holliday as the prime example. He had such a reputation with the gun that there were plenty of gunslingers out there who usurped his name in order to get a quick reputation for themselves as well. This provides a great splainin for all the recastaways of Doc Holliday to be found in various TV shows - so long as they're not from recreations of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. For that, we're sticking with its depiction in "The Life And Legend Of Wyatt Earp".

The name of Earp was also "usearped" during that time. In fact, the townsfolk of Bonita, California, thought Bart Maverick was Wyatt Earp - thanks to his brother Bret. But Bret just wanted to make sure Baby Brother was able to enjoy the town's offer of a hot meal of roast Eastern turkey. (The citizens of Bonita first offered the feast to Bret because they believed he was Doc Holliday, and they wanted him to take care of a "civic matter" for them.)

And not only did Bret employ the Famous Impostor Syndrome to become Doc Holliday (but for a repast, not a reputation), but another Doc Holliday impersonator showed up in Bonita by the end of that episode of 'Maverick', "Seed Of Deception"!

Several years later, around 1877 or so, Bart Maverick found reason to impersonate Doc Holliday down in the Apache territory in Arizona. And he did so with impunity because he was carrying a beaded belt that was supposedly from Cochise himself which he used as the token to pass through the Apache lands. (It was probably a knock-off.) Whatever his reason for doing so, Bart probably didn't figure on keeping up the ruse so long that he became entangled with the Cannon family at their 'High Chaparral' ranch. But he ended up pulling the tooth for ranch hand Pedro, even though he really wasn't a dentist. (Probably wasn't hard to do - the tooth was more than likely highly decayed and so noticeable from the others.

As for the "anasthesia", Bart just clobbered Pedro with a "sap".

And he also helped rescue Blue from a couple of kidnappers - one of whom was the real Kid Curry. Bart was able to get out of the area fast after that, but not fast enough. Just as he rode some distance from the Cannons, Uncle Buck rode up and shouted out a hello to "Doc Holliday". Apparently he had met the famous gunslinger/dentist once before in the past.

If that's so, why didn't he recognize that Bart was a fraud? I think the answer lies in the eyes. Maybe Buck had his dental needs attended, but he now needed the services of a frontier optometrist.

SHOWS CITED:

'Maverick' - "Seed Of Deception"

'High Chaparral' - "Doctor From Dodge"

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: BILLY THOMPSON

BILLY THOMPSON

AS SEEN IN:
'Bat Masterson'

AS PLAYED BY:
Gary Vinson

From Wikipedia:
Billy Thompson, sometimes known as Texas Billy Thompson (1845 - September 6, 1897) was an Old West gunman and gambler, and the younger brother of the famous gunman and lawman Ben Thompson. The younger Thompson brother never achieved the fame that his brother achieved, and in his own lifetime was mainly referred to as the unpredictable and troubled younger brother of Ben Thompson. Factually, however, while a dangerous man, he also was a formidable opponent in a gunfight.

Born William Thompson in Knottingley, Yorkshire, England, immigrating with his family and older brother to the United States as a child. His family settled in Texas, and during the American Civil War both he and his brother volunteered for the Confederate Army. His older brother would go on to fame as a gunman and later as a lawmen and Chief of Police for Austin, Texas.

On June 21, 1880, Billy Thompson was in Ogallala, Nebraska. He and a saloon owner named Bill Tucker had developed strong resentment for one another, supposedly over the affections of a prostitute named "Big Alice". Billy Thompson, drunk, stood in front of the saloon and fired two shots inside. The second of the shots hit Tucker in the hand, taking off one finger and mutilating others. Enraged, Tucker grabbed a shotgun and ran after the now fleeing Billy. Tucker fired two shots, missing, reloaded and fired two more, this time riddling Billy Thompson in the back, from his heels to his neck. Billy Thompson was arrested, but allowed to remain under guard at the Ogallala House Hotel to heal. Knowing his brother Ben's reputation, the local sheriff ordered a heavy guard. Ben Thompson, hearing of his brothers arrest, felt his intervening would result in bloodshed. Instead, he asked his friend Bat Masterson to travel to Ogllala and see if he could assist. Masterson did so, first meeting with Billy, then meeting with the ailing Tucker, who was bitter but willing to drop charges, for a price. Unfortunately, Ben Thompson did not have access to the amount Tucker wanted, therefore Bat Masterson eluded the guards and helped Billy escape, with them taking a train south. After the escape, a Keith County, Nebraska grand jury indicted Billy for assault with intent to kill. Those charges were eventually dropped, and the matter forgotten.

He died of a stomach ailment in Houston, on September 6th, 1897. At the time of his death, Billy Thompson had killed four men, and wounded a fifth, with one killing being the shooting of the unarmed Remus Smith, another the accidental shooting of Sheriff Chauncey Whitney, and the other two killings and one wounding being during gunfights.

The story of Billy Thompson was highly fictionalized in an episode of 'Bat Masterson'

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REESES PIECE

Judge Reese may have been a scoundrel in the 'Maverick' episode "Red Dog"; but had he been really a black-hearted villain, the Judge would have ordered Wolf MacManus to gun down Beau "Red Dog" Maverick when he refused the opportunity to join their bank robbery plan. And although his ultimate goal was to line his pockets with reward money, at least he was trying to get three bad guys out of circulation.

Two out of three ain't bad.

Earlier in his career, Judge Reese may have built up quite a reputation on the bench as a force for good in the Old West. To the point that perhaps the people looked up to him and and saw him as an inspiration for their own lives. They may have even carried out this hero worship to the point where they named their children after him.

One such family might have been the Bennetts down in Texas.

Of course, this must have been early in the career of Judge Reese, for even though he was an old man by the time we met him in that episode of 'Maverick', Reese Bennett was fully into adulthood by then - as seen in 'Laredo'....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: BILLY THE TOON

BILLY THE KID

AS SEEN IN:
"The World Of Colonel McBragg"

AS PLAYED BY:
Nobody (The role had no lines.)

According to Colonel McBragg, infamous for his tall tales, he cleaned up the town of Dodge single-handedly. He did this by flooding the city and washing the outlaws like Bill "clean" out of town....

Quite.

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: BUFFALO BILL CODY, MAN & BOY

Here's a little something different for "Two For Tuesday":

The same character, but at two different stages in his life; from the same show, but two different episodes....

BUFFALO BILL CODY

AS SEEN IN:
'Voyagers!'

AS PLAYED BY:
Robert Donner

Phineas and Jeffrey first met Buffalo Bill in England, where his traveling Wild West show had gone to entertain Queen Victoria in the episode "Buffalo Bill And Annie Play The Palace".

BILL CODY

AS SEEN IN:
'Voyagers!'

AS PLAYED BY:
Ike Eisenmann

Several episodes later, Mr. Bogg and young Master Jones found themselves zapped from Pearl Harbor just before the surprise attack to Utah in 1860. Here they met young Bill Cody as he worked for the Pony Express.

BCnU!

RED DOGS

'Maverick'
"Red Dog"

'Have Gun Will Travel'
"Charley Red Dog"

When Beau Maverick found himself thrown in with a bunch of outlaws, he told them he was known as "Red Dog" from Texas, since they didn't seem to recognize his real name. And in keeping with his family nature, he chose the name of a card game as his alias.

But it was also the name of a young Indian who wanted to become the marshal for a small town out West - Charley Red Dog. With the help of Paladin, whose business card read 'Have Gun Will Travel', Charley Red Dog achieved that goal in Santa Maria, New Mexico.

When Judge Reese acted as though he had heard of Red Dog, he may very well have been thinking of that Navajo marshal.....

BCnU!

MUNDY, MUNDY

Whether or not Jim Mundy was related to Doc Holliday, Toobworld Central thinks he was definitely related to two others who bore the Mundy surname: Alexander and his father, Alistair. And like Jim Mundy, both of them operated on the wrong side of the law for many years, as seen on 'It Takes A Thief'.

We may not have seen Jim Mundy's family in the 'Maverick' episode "Seed Of Deception", but that doesn't mean they weren't back on the ranch, twenty miles south of Bonita. He may have been divorced or a widower, but even if he did still have a wife, that wasn't going to keep him from carrying on an affair with the dancer June Collins.

As Mushrat would say, it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that when Jim Mundy got out of jail about twenty or so years later (for trying to rob a bank), perhaps he became involved with a young woman who had corresponded with him while he was in prison, one who was enamored of his bad ol' boy ways. And perhaps, in a recognized union or not, she bore him a child in 1899.

Or.... If he had been married previously and had sons, then the theory of relateeveety would be that one of Jim's sons fathered a son in 1899 and named him Alistair. (His mother may have been prim and proper and the one intent on giving their son such a high-falutin' name. In fact, that son of Jim Mundy may not have inherited his dad's ranch and instead he may have gone back East, where the name of Alistair may have found a better reception for a young boy.)

Thirty-one years later, Alistair's own wife would bring Alexander into the world.

Unlike Jim Mundy, the two Als were given a second chance by the government in their career options.....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: EDWIN BOOTH

EDWIN BOOTH

AS SEEN IN:
'Branded'

AS PLAYED BY:
Martin Landau

From Wikipedia:
Edwin Thomas Booth (November 13, 1833 – June 7, 1893) was a famous 19th century American actor. He was born near Bel Air, Maryland into the English American theatrical Booth family. Booth toured throughout America and to the major capitals of Europe, performing Shakespeare; in 1869 he founded Booth's Theatre in New York, a spectacular theatre that was quite modern for its time. Some theatre historians consider him the greatest American actor and Hamlet of the 19th century.

After Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, the infamy associated with the Booth name forced Booth to abandon the stage for many months, a period dramatized in the 1955 Richard Burton movie Prince of Players, which was adapted from the biography of the same name by Eleanor Ruggles (ISBN 0-8371-6529-6). Edwin, who had been feuding with his brother for a period before Lincoln's assassination, disowned him afterward, refusing to have John's name spoken in his house.

He made his return to the stage at the Winter Garden Theatre in January 1866, playing the title role in Hamlet. Hamlet would eventually become Booth's signature role.

In 1867, a fire damaged the Winter Garden Theatre, resulting in the building's subsequent demolition.

After the fire at the Winter Garden Theatre, Booth built his own theatre, an elaborate structure called Booth's Theatre in Manhattan, which opened on February 3, 1869 with a production of Romeo and Juliet starring Booth as Romeo, and Mary McVicker as Juliet. Elaborate productions in Booth's Theatre followed, but the theatre never became a profitable or even stable financial venture. The panic of 1873 caused the final bankruptcy of Booth's Theatre in 1874. After the bankruptcy, Booth went on another worldwide tour, eventually regaining his fortune.

It was during this world tour, when he was on the American West leg of the journey, that he began his hunt of John F. Parker, as seen in 'Branded'.....

BCnU!

A THREE CURRY SAMPLE

One of the outlaws that Beau Maverick met in his last episode ("Red Dog") was Kid Curran. The Kid rode into camp with his new bride, the 19 year old Erma. The Kid couldn't have been more than 21 himself; and as the episode played out, he wasn't going to get any older (thanks to his wife.)

As mentioned in an earlier post, I've placed this episode in 1874 or 1875. There was another show, my second favorite Western, called 'Alias Smith And Jones' and that took place in the mid-1880's. One of the two main characters was Kid Curry and was about 29 years old when the Trueniverse audience first met him. So in 1875, he was about the same age as Kid Curran.

If that all works out, then I don't think either one of them adopted the nickname of "Kid" because of the notoriety of the other. And because they both were older than the televersion of the real world outlaw named Kid Curry (Harvey Logan) - as well as the man whose name was adopted by Logan, George Curry - then I don't think either Kid Curry or Kid Curran were affected by FIS (Famous Impostor Syndrome*)


I don't know if the televersion of the real world Kid Curry gave a damn about the situation once his own reputation was being established. Since the other Kid Curry usually had his name linked to that of Hannibal Heyes, and was going by the alias of "Thaddeus Jones" anyway, the real Kid Curry must have figured it didn't make sense to seek retribution if there was any slight intended.

Besides he always had his hands full dealing with such problems as Bart Maverick impersonating Doc Holliday in Arizona (as seen in the 'High Chaparral' episode "The Doctor From Dodge". More on that later.....)

BCnU!
* Better known in the Wold Newton Universe as Famous Individual Syndrome or more specifically, Great Detective Syndrome.