On the Ugly Truth and Beautiful Fiction of Butch Cassidy

 Who are those guys?

 Prison mugshot of Robert LeRoy Parker (1894)

Publicity photo of Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy (1969)

 

On this day, in April 1866, the (in)famous American outlaw and leader of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang [1] Robert LeRoy Parker - better known as Butch Cassidy - was born in Utah, the son of English immigrants (his mother, like mine, was a Geordie lass from Tyneside).

 

Parker's life (and death) have been so extensively dramatised (and, indeed, mythologised) in film, TV, and literature, that he has assumed legendary status as a figure of the Wild West during its late period at the tail end of the nineteenth-century and beginning of the twentieth-century.

 

In fact, it's almost impossible when thinking of Parker not to immediately have an image in one's mind's eye of Paul Newman playing the role of an affable and intelligent Butch Cassidy (alongside Robert Redford as the rather more laconic Sundance Kid) in the ridiculously entertaining 1969 film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman.    

 

Ultimately, beautiful fiction always wins out over brutal fact, and that's why far more people know Newman's handsome face in relation to the story of Butch Cassidy than know Parker's ugly mug - and it's why whenever the movie is shown on TV I have to watch it, whereas I wouldn't dream of reading a biography of Parker (or even writing a lengthy post about him) [2].      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Although in the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Parker and his criminal cohorts were referred to as the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, they were actually known as the Wild Bunch (a name they borrowed from another gang of outlaws - the Doolin-Dalton Gang). 

      The Hole-in-the-Wall was a popular hideout in Wyoming for several gangs whose members may have interacted on occasion, but mostly operated independently. 

 

[2] Having said that, I would like to read more about Etta Place - the female companion of Parker and Harry A. Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid), who accompanied them to South America and participated in at least one robbery. 

      Sadly, however, little seems to be known about her, other than the fact she was a very striking young woman, as the picture below taken in NYC in 1901 (alongside her lover Sundance) illustrates. 

      In the 1969 film, Place is played by Katharine Ross and said to be a schoolteacher (screenwriter William Goldman rejected claims that she was a prostitute). Upon returning to the United States in 1906, it is believed Place settled in San Francisco. After that, she vanishes from the historical record ...     

 

 

 

Musical bonus: 'Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head', written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), sung by B. J. Thomas. Click here.