American postcard by AZUSA Publishing, Inc., Englewood, Colorado, no. 124, 2000. Photo: David Notman, 1885. Caption: Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill. Sitting Bull made only one tour with William F. Cody's Wild West Show - this photograph was taken during that tour.
French poster postcard in the Buffalo Bill's Wild West series, no. 14. Caption: Amusements des Cowboys.
German collectors card by J & M Serienbilder Produktion Saar, no. 21. Photo: Gloria Film. Gordon Scott in Buffalo Bill, l'eroe del far west / Buffalo Bill, Hero of the Far West (Mario Costa, 1965). The German film title was Das war Buffalo Bill. Caption: 'Colonel William Frederick Cody is about to embark on the most dangerous adventure of his daring life. The victor over white bandits and scalp greedy redskins with the honourable name Buffalo Bill wants to establish order in the Wild West with all his might.'
Creating an enduring cliché about the Old West
William Frederick Cody was born in 1846. He was the son of Isaac Cody and his wife, Mary Ann Bonsell Laycock. He was born on a farm just outside Le Claire, Iowa Territory (now the U.S. state of Iowa), but he lived for several years in his father's hometown in modern-day Mississauga, Ontario, before the family returned to the Midwest and settled in the Kansas Territory.
Cody started working at the age of 11, after his father's death. At the age of 14, in 1860, Cody was caught up in the 'gold fever', with news of gold at Fort Colville and the Holcomb Valley Gold Rush in California. On his way to the goldfields, however, he met an agent for the Pony Express. He signed with them, and after building several stations and corrals, Cody was given a job as a rider. He worked at this until he was called home to his sick mother's bedside
Cody told in the press that he held many jobs, including trapper, bull catcher, prospector in Colorado, guide for settler caravans, stagecoach driver, soldier in the American Civil War, and even hotel manager. However, historians have had difficulty documenting them. He may have fabricated some for publicity. Wikipedia: "Namely, it is argued that in contrast to Cody's claims, he never rode for the Pony Express, but as a boy, he did work for its parent company, the transport firm of Russell, Majors, and Waddell. In contrast to the adventurous rides, hundreds of miles long, that he recounted in the press, his real job was to carry messages on horseback from the firm's office in Leavenworth to the telegraph station three miles away."
After his mother recovered, Cody wanted to enlist as a soldier in the Union Army during the American Civil War, but was refused because of his young age. He began working with a freight caravan that delivered supplies to Fort Laramie in present-day Wyoming. In 1863, at age 17, he enlisted as a teamster with the rank of private in Company H, 7th Kansas Cavalry, and served until discharged in 1865. In 1866, he reunited with his old friend Wild Bill Hickok in Junction City, Kansas, then serving as a scout. From 1868 to 1872, the U.S. Army employed Cody himself as a scout. He was attached as a scout, variously, to Captain George Augustus Armes (Battle of the Saline River) and Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer (guide and impromptu horse race to Fort Larned). In 1872, he received the Congressional Medal of Honour for his role as a civilian scout for the United States Army. This medal is the United States' highest award for valour.
Cody received the nickname 'Buffalo Bill' after the American Civil War, when he had a contract to supply Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with buffalo (American bison) meat. The nickname had previously been given to a certain Bill Comstock. Cody and another hunter, Bill Comstock, competed in an eight-hour buffalo-shooting match over the exclusive right to use the name, which Cody won by killing 68 animals to Comstock's 48. Cody is purported to have killed 4,282 buffalo in eighteen months in 1867 and 1868. In 1869, the 23-year-old Cody met Ned Buntline, an American journalist from New York. Buntline later published a story based on Cody's adventures (largely invented by the writer) in Street and Smith's New York Weekly> He then published a highly successful novel, 'Buffalo Bill, King of the Bordermen', which was first serialised on the front page of the Chicago Tribune. Many other sequels followed from the 1870s through the early 1900s. They played a key role in creating the enduring cliché about the Old West.
French postcard. Image: Adrian Jones, 1903. Caption: Published for Buffalo Bill's Wild West.
American postcard by AZUSA Publishing, Inc., Englewood, Colorado, no. 610, 2000. Photo. J.E. Stimson, 1907. Caption: Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, Grand Entry. The American Wild West became legendary in its own time due to Buffalo Bill's vision, bringing the action and personalities of the Old West to audiences around the world. Cody is credited with inventing both the rodeo and the Wild West Show in North Platte, Nebraska, during a July 4th Celebration amply termed the "Old Glory Blowout". Later that year, the first Wild West Show premiered in Columbus, Nebraska, and performances continued for 31 years until 1913.
Australian poster postcard. Poster by Pawnee Bill Film Company. William 'Buffalo Bill' Cody himself in The Life of Buffalo Bill (Paul Panzer, 1912). Caption: Thrilling Incidents in the life of the last of the great scouts.
French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 118. Joë Hamman was the French equivalent of the cowboy in a long-ranging career from 1907 to 1967. He was also an affluent film director. In 1904, he met Buffalo Bill Cody when he was 21, and his father took him on a business trip to America. Hamman and Cody became friends, and Hamman visited Cody’s North Plate house in Nebraska, meeting the extras of Cody’s Wild West Show, and drawing watercolours for local rangers. At a ranch in Montana, Hamman learned to ride, was engaged as a cowboy, and learned to break and gather horses.
The Buffalo Bill Wild West Show
After his experiences in the 'Old West', Buffalo Bill Cody entered show business. He toured the United States with shows based on his 'Western' adventures. In 1883, he and the sharpshooter William Frank 'Doc' Carver founded 'Cody & Carver's Rocky Mountain and Prairie Exhibition', later called the 'Buffalo Bill Wild West Show' and 'Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World'. The show featured a huge array of people and animals, and Cody managed to engage famous Native American chiefs such as Sitting Bull as performers. A tent with a capacity of approximately 6,000 spectators was erected for the show. The circus-like attraction toured for many years. Both Annie Oakley, a female sharpshooter, and Cody's friend Texas Jack, who served as the model for the idealised cowboy, were part of this show.
Buffalo Bill's show inspired Irving Berlin to write the musical 'Annie Get Your Gun' in 1946. Cody also exported his show to Europe. In 1887, he performed with the entire circus in London at the celebration of Queen Victoria's Jubilee. In 1889, Buffalo Bill toured Europe, including the Paris World's Fair. He pitched his tents near the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, a clever move that greatly contributed to his popularity. In 1905, Cody’s circus came to France, and he invited his French admirer and friend, Jean Hamman, to join and participate in the French tour of Buffalo Bill. Jean became known as the French cowboy star Joë Hamman. In 1907, Hamman started out in the cinema as both actor and director of the short silent Le desperado / The Desperado (Joë Hamman, 1907). He followed his debut with performances in some 40 more short Westerns, including Les aventures de Buffalo Bill / The Adventures of Buffalo Bill (Joë Hamman, 1911). According to IMDb, the script was written by Buffalo Bill Cody himself.
IMDb does not mention another early silent film, The Life of Buffalo Bill (Paul Panzer, 1912), in which Cody himself appeared. It was produced by the Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill Film Company, based in New York City. Cody himself appeared in scenes that bookend the short film, a series of adventures presented in flashback as Buffalo Bill's dreams. The film is in the collection of the Library of Congress. IMDb does mention Cody's appearance in The Circus Girl's Romance (Henry MacRae, 1915,) starring Marie Walcamp, and several films films based on Cody's 'Buffalo Bill's Own Story' including Fighting with Buffalo Bill (Ray Taylor, 1926) and 'The First All-Talking Universal Serial', Indians Are Coming (Henry MacRae, 1930), both with Edmund Cobb as Buffalo Bill. Countless films about Buffalo Bill followed.
In 1917, Buffalo Bill appeared in the Essanay production The Adventures of Buffalo Bill (Charles A. King, 1917). Moving Picture World: "Buffalo Bill is shown in the early days of his thrilling career as a pony express rider in the pioneer west; later as hunter of buffalo and then as the chief Indian scout for the United States army. Appearing with Buffalo Bill in the picturization of the Indian battles which follow are Lieutenant-General Nelson A. Miles, Major-General Jesse M. Lee, Brigadier-General Frank D. Baldwin and Marion P. Maus and other heroic figures of the pioneer days. Historically accurate versions of the Battle of Summit Springs, the Battle of Warbonnet, Col. Cody's knife duel with the Sioux Chief Yellow Hand and his fight with Chief Tall Bull, in which the Indians were killed, are shown. Five thousand United States troops and Indians participated in the battles. Buffalo Bill's later life, giving intimate glimpses of him at home and of his great hunting expeditions, including that on which he guided the Prince of Monaco after big game in the Rockies, concludes this picture." IMDb suggests that The Life of Buffalo Bill (1912) was re-edited and released as The Adventures of Buffalo Bill to cash in on Buffalo Bill Cody's death in 1917.
During his eventful life, Buffalo Bill witnessed the American West change dramatically. Towards the end of his life, he witnessed the beginning of the exploitation of coal, oil, and natural gas in his beloved Wyoming. Cody was married to Louise Maude Frederici, and they had four children. William Cody died of uremia following kidney disease in 1917 in Denver, Colorado, USA. After his death, he was buried, at his own request, in Lookout Mountain Park in Colorado, just west of Denver on the edge of the Rocky Mountains and overlooking the Great Plains. Twenty-four days after Buffalo Bill died in 1917, the Medal of Honour was revoked because it should not have been awarded to the 'civilian' William Cody. However, the U.S. Army posthumously re-awarded the medal to Cody in 1989. He was pictured as Buffalo Bill on one of a set of twenty 29¢ US commemorative postage stamps celebrating Legends of the West, issued in 1994. Other persons honoured were Annie Oakley, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, Kit Carson, and Geronimo.
French poster postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, Levallois Perret, no. E 34. Belgian poster by Paramount. Gary Cooper as Buffalo Bill and Jean Arthur as Annie Oakley in The Plainsman (Cecil B. DeMille, 1936).
British postcard in the Picturegoer series, London, no. W. 868. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Betty Hutton as Annie Oakley, J. Carrol Naish as Chief Sitting Bull and Louis Calhern as Buffalo Bill Cody in Annie Get Your Gun (George Sidney, 1950).
German collector card by J & M Serienbilder Produktion Saar, no. 38. Photo: Gloria Film. Gordon Scott and Feodor Chaliapin Jr. in Buffalo Bill, l'eroe del far west / Buffalo Bill, Hero of the Far West (Mario Costa, 1965). The German film title was Das war Buffalo Bill. Caption: 'Buffalo Bill enjoys the admiration of the great chief ‘Wise Fox’, to whom he reports the disgraceful deeds of ‘Yellow Dog’. The treacherous breach of the peace treaty must be punished.'
American Arcade card by the Exhibit Supply Co. of Chicago. Photo: Pathé. Buffalo Bill Jr. a.k.a. Jay Wilsey.
Buffalo Bill Jr. was a stage name of cowboy star Jay Wilsey (1896-1961) who appeared in nearly 100 very low-budget Westerns, both in the silent and the sound era. He had no connection with the real Buffalo Bill Cody, aka Buffalo Bill.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, German, French and English) and IMDb.
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