Surely James Gregory was a Gorilla and not a revolutionary fighter? He was General Ursus in Beneath The Planet of The Apes in 1970 after Orson Welles refused the role! 
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JB
Trek guest actors in maybe surprising roles
- Thread starter Maurice
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Watching the MST3K version of 'Girls Town' and Elanor Donahoe (sp), wearing a blonde wig, is in it, playing Mamie Van Doren's younger sister.
Elinor Donahue. For future reference.
Louise Sorel looks gorgeous in that pic!
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JB
^I recognized the first one from the eyes, but I couldn't place the second even without the bandana.
The second one is Ron 'Wyatt Earp' Soble and the first is the Chief Engineer of the Starship Enterprise himself!
JB
JB
Yeah, that's Wyatt Earp. Referencing the "Things TOS taught you Incorrectly" thread elsewhere in the forum, TOS taught me Wyatt Earp was a villain! Imagine my shock when I eventually learned he was one of the most respected lawmen of the late 19th century!
The notion of Wyatt and the rest of the Earps as heroic (and morally upright defenders of truth, justice and the American way) was itself a manufactured one, however. Star Trek turned that several-decades-in-the-making romanticized picture on its head for dramatic purposes. In reality, the Clanton gang were no good guys; the Earps weren't necessarily a great deal better... but they wore the badges, and they got the better write-ups after the fact.
I'll imagine your further shock when you learn that Wyatt Earp was a shady character who bounced around the West, sometimes taking jobs as a peace officer, but almost always also involved in the brothel business, and had to leave towns under questionable circumstances several times. His great advantage over his contemporaries was that he settled in Los Angeles in his old age and was able to spin his own myths to writers and people in the movie business.
Audiences in the '60s, when Westerns were as ubiquitous as superheroes are now, would've known going in that the Earps were supposed to be the good guys who defeated the villainous Clantons. So they would've gotten the significance of the Melkot casting Kirk and his crew as the bad guys -- i.e. that they were meant to lose.
For sure. Especially six seasons of The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, a well-rated show, which had extensive and lengthy story arcs about the upstanding and lawful Earps defeating the always-scheming, villainous Clanton family/gang.
I heard that part of that swagger was from fracturing his hip. Not a good way to pick something like that up.
I remember Tombstone, the Kurt Russell starring version of Wyatt Earp's history, ending with Robert Mitchum intoning "Tom Mix wept." in regards Wyatt Earp's funeral.
The Clantons did and do have defenders, who thus of course are among those who don't have good opinions about the Earps. And from my reading on the subject I find it easier to believe in bad Earps than in good Clantons.
The Melkotians based their recreation on Kirk's knowledge - accurate or otherwise - of the era. And even though the Earps had to be portrayed as the inevitable winners to scare our heroes, the Melkotians did not have to portray the Earps as sinister or evil to scare them. Thus I think that Kirk may have learned about the Gunfight at the OK Corral from sources, perhaps family sources, that were a lot more pro Clanton and anti Earp that most sources in 20th century popular culture. Kirk said he know about the old west because of his ancestors who settled it, and I can't help suspecting that some of Kirk's ancestors in the old west had the surname of McLowery or Clanton.
I note that the Melkotians cast Montgomery Scott, played by James Doohan, as Billy Clanton. James Doohan was born on 3 March 1920 and so was aged 48 years, 2 months, and 18 days when filing of Spectre of the Gun began on 21 May 1968. And probably most viewers assumed that Scott was about as old as Doohan.
How old was Billy Clanton on October 26, 1881? Most sources describe him as being about 20, while some pro Clanton sources described him as a much younger boy murdered by the Earps. Wikipedia's article says he was born on an unspecified date in 1862, thus making him 18 or more probably 19 on October 26, 1881.
So once I looked up the Clanton ranch in the village of Charleston, Pima County, Arizona in the 1880 census, and found that Billy's age was given as 18.
And that census data can also be found online here:
http://www.clantongang.com/oldwest/billy_history.html
That either means that Billy was 18 on the official census day of June 1, 1880, the date that all data was supposed to be valid on, or else means that Billy Clanton was 18 on June 16, 1880, the date that the enumerator visited. So if Billy's age is correct he should have been born sometime between June 2, 1861, and June 16, 1862. That would make Billy Clanton aged between 19 years, 4 months, and 10 days, and 20 years, 4 months, and 25 days on October 26, 1881.
So Mr. Scott was definitely not "acting his age' in the Melkotian staging of the Gunfight at the OK Corral!
(Of course "Spectre of the Gun" is nowhere near the record for "Dawson casting" - TV tropes Warning - https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DawsonCasting - in US television, which should probably go to the Fantasy Island episode "My Fair Pharaoh/The Power"10 May 1980.)
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Johnny Ringo who also turned aside from the bad ways was County Sheriff for a time but wasn't he also killed in Tombstone 1881?
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JB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Ringo
Fans of Doctor Who may remember "The Gunfighters" in 1966. Johnny Ringo inaccurately appears in the Gunfight at the OK Corral, and has very memorable scene earlier.
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