Gunfighter-Dentist Doc Holliday on This Day in History

 

Today in History: American gambler, gunfighter, and dentist Doc Holliday died of Tuberculosis (TB, Consumption) at age 36 on this day in 1887. He was famously played by Val Kilmer in the 1993 movie Tombstone. 

Did you know: Margaret Mitchell, the author of “Gone with the Wind,” was related to Doc Holliday. Also, Doc died on Nov. 8, 1887 and Margaret Mitchell was born 13 years later on Nov. 8, 1900. 

Doc shot many people in his life, almost all of them in self defense. His habit was to aim for his assailant’s shooting arm which both disarmed and inflicted a wound that, while painful was not fatal.

Even though Doc died penniless, in his short life he owned a dental practice, a saloon and even a silver mine.

Throughout his lifetime, Holliday was known by many of his peers as a tempered, calm, Southern gentleman. In an 1896 article, Wyatt Earp said:

"I found him a loyal friend and good company. He was a dentist whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long, lean blonde fellow nearly dead with consumption and at the same time the most skillful gambler and nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun I ever knew."

In a newspaper interview, Holliday was once asked if his conscience ever troubled him. He is reported to have said, "I coughed that up with my lungs, years ago.

Bat Masterson, who had several contacts with Holliday over his lifetime, had a different opinion of Holliday:

"While he never did anything to entitle him to a Statue in the Hall of Fame, Doc Holliday was nevertheless a most picturesque character on the western border in those days when the pistol instead of law determined issues.... Holliday had a mean disposition and an ungovernable temper, and under the influence of liquor was a most dangerous man…. Physically, Doc Holliday was a weakling who could not have whipped a healthy fifteen-year-old boy in a go-as-you-please fist fight."

Holliday was born in Griffin, Georgia, and every year that town holds a "Doc Holliday Days" event, and Valdosta, Georgia held a Doc Holliday look-alike contest in January 2010. 

Tombstone, Arizona also holds an annual Doc Holli-Days, which started in 2017 and celebrate the gunfighter-dentist on the 2nd weekend of August each year. Events include gunfights, a parade, and a Doc Holliday look-alike contest. Val Kilmer, who played Doc in 1993's Tombstone, was the grand marshal in 2017 and Dennis Quaid, who played Doc in 1994's Wyatt Earp, was the grand marshal in 2018.

Many people have died of TB throughout history, including Frédéric Chopin, Andrew Jackson, Vivien Leigh, Eleanor Roosevelt, Stephen Crane, Paul Gauguin, George Orwell, Franz Kafka, Louis Braille, Walt Whitman, John Calvin, W.C. Fields and Jane Austen to name but a few.

See also: Buffalo Bill & the American Wild West, 200 Books on DVDrom
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/09/buffalo-bill-american-wild-west-200.html