Wyatt Earp - A Legendary Hero Shared by Poker, Hollywood, and the Wild West

Everyone knows him as a gambler, gunfighter and lawman; as the hero of Tombstone and the gunfight at O.K.Corral. The gunman who was never hit by a bullet himself has been featured in dozens of movie productions and his image is intertwined with that of the Hollywood stars who portrayed him - from Henry Fonda and Burt Lancaster, to Kurt Russel and Kevin Costner, to name but a few.

But did you know how much Wyatt Earp loved the movies himself? That towards the end of his life he was an unpaid consultant on many silent cowboy films? A friend of John Wayne? And John Ford?

Soon after settling in the silver mining town of Tombstone, Arizona, Wyatt Earp and his brothers became involved in a feud with the local cowboys which culminated in the notorious 1881 gunfight at the O.K. Corral (the town's stables). At the subsequent trial, Wyatt Earp and his friend Doc Holliday were acquitted.

Wyatt Earp spent the last years of his life in Los Angeles where he travelled from one end to another just to watch the lastest cowboy films. He is said to have been an unpaid consultant on many of those early silent movies.

It was about this time that he befriended John Ford, a great poker aficionado himself, as well as a young actor named Marion Morrison - who was in fact none other than John Wayne.

The O.K. Corral scene in John Ford's  'My Darling Clementine' was based on the first-hand account and a sketch drawn by Wyatt Earp.

In his lifetime, John Wayne made more than 170 movies, more than half of which were Westerns. He shared that his portrayals of cowboys and Western lawmen were based on his conversations with Wyatt Earp.

Wyatt's own passion for cowboy films, and his friendship with John Ford and John Wayne  helped shape some of the most iconic characters and Old West stories that have not lost their power of fascination over audiences all over the world for nearly a century.