When not offering us rootin’-tootin’ tales of action and adventure, the Western film and television show open a fascinating window to our past: history on horseback, a look at events of the not-so-long ago, told Hollywood style. When ultimate screen hero John Wayne put on a coonskin hat and played Davy Crockett, poor Davy had to measure up, not vice-versa. And if the real-life Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid weren’t actually like their rowdy ‘n’ ready screen counterparts Paul Newman and Robert Redford, they should have been. But in spite of the John Ford adage, “When the fact becomes legend, print the legend,” sometimes it’s a wonder what certain filmmakers were thinking when they skewed American history to fit their vision. True, there have been some seemingly odd casting choices for roles of historical persons that turned out to be excellent—Ira Grossel (better known to fans as Universal action and costume movie star Jeff Chandler) made a superb Chief Cochise in the film Broken Arrow (1950) and a couple of years later Fred Gwynne who was born to play TV’s “Herman Munster” did a bang-up job as Davy Crockett in the historical series, You Are There. But every now and then casting goes wrong, very wrong. So here’s the latest list of boo-boos—the wrong guy (or gal) impersonating an historical figure in not-so-historical fashion.

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    It’s amazing how many times Wyatt Earp has been portrayed in the movies. Putting aside dozens of token “Wyatts” in B-movie shoot-’em-ups, we have Wyatt by way of Randolph Scott in Frontier Marshal, Henry Fonda in My Darling Clementine, Burt Lancaster in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Jimmy Stewart in Cheyenne Autumn, James Garner in Hour of the Gun, Kevin Costner in Wyatt Earp, Kurt Russell in Tombstone, and of course, Hugh O’Brian in TV’s The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp—all good actors in good portrayals as the rough-and-ready, not-to-be-messed-with marshal of Tombstone. But then there’s Anthony Mann’s classic Winchester ’73 with an impressive cast that includes James Stewart, Dan Duryea, Stephen McNally, John McIntire, J.C. Flippen, Shelley Winters, Rock Hudson and a very young Tony Curtis. Oh yeah, there is also Will Geer—you know, Grampa Walton from TV’s long-running series The Waltons? The old geezer in Jeremiah Johnson? In Winchester ’73, Grampa Will plays none other than rough-and-ready, not-to-be-messed-with marshal of Tombstone, Wyatt Earp! Most of the time Wyatt Will cackles away like a carnival barker during the film’s shooting contest. But later on the sarsaparilla-sipping lawman tries to get menacing while keeping all the bad guys and good guys from Winchester ’73-ing each other. He might have had better luck disarming the cap pistol-packin’ kids on the Howdy Doody Show! If the boys on Boot Hill saw this guy, they’d be spinning in their Tony Lamas!..........................................