Doc Holliday

John Henry "Doc" Holliday (August 14, 1851 – November 8, 1887) was an American gambler and gunfighter who is usually remembered for his associations with Wyatt Earp and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Doc Holliday in Popular Culture

Holliday became a Western folk hero for his part in the Gunfight at O.K. Corral, immortalized in songs, stories and films. As the gunfight is one of the most famous moments in the American West, numerous Westerns have been made of it and Doc's role, almost always as an anti-hero, has been a key performance in all of them.

Related Topics:
Folk hero - Westerns - Anti-hero

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Actors who have played Doc Holliday include:

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• Walter Huston in The Outlaw, in 1943, a historically inaccurate film
• Victor Mature in My Darling Clementine, in 1946, a popular yet highly inaccurate version directed by John Ford
• Kirk Douglas in Gunfight at the OK Corral, in 1957, with frequent co-star Burt Lancaster
• Laurence Payne in the 1966 Doctor Who story The Gunfighters
• Jason Robards in Hour of the Gun, a 1967 sequel to the 1957 movie, which is the first movie to fully delve into the vendetta that followed the gunfight
• Stacy Keach in Doc, in 1971, in which the Tombstone events are told from his perspective and which shows the Earps in an unforgiving light
• Val Kilmer in Tombstone (film), in 1993, a show-stealing performance most critics currently hold as one of the best depictions of Doc Holliday -- many historians believe he caught perfectly Holliday's cheerful mix of despair and courage
• Dennis Quaid in Wyatt Earp (film), in 1994, a serious and drawn-out bio-epic of Wyatt's life

The Doc is also remembered through the medium of computer games, paticularly in the Fallout (computer game) computer game series in which at least one character carries his name. Doc Holliday can be found serving as the local doctor in the frontier-mining town of Broken Hills. He is presented as being a very long-winded but useful doctor with ties to the former San Fransico. Unlike the real 'Doc' he is a non-violent and even-tempered man who is trying to unite the people and the mutants of the town peaceably.

Related Topics:
Fallout (computer game) - San Fransico

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