Links to actress/playwright Terry Earp
"The Frontier
Marshal Lives On"
Along with Grandma & Grandpa
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George O\'Brien Photograph Courtesy surfnetinc.com
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Tombstone
Epitaph Newspaper
Tombstone,
Arizona, U.S.A. Thursday, September 28, 1933 VOLUME
54
NUMBER 21
"The Most Widely read weekly newspaper in Southern Arizona"
Consolidated with the Tombstone prospector and borderland times
Walter H. Cole Editor and manager
Established 1880
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Fifty
Years Elapse, But "The Frontier Marshal" Lives On
(Article rewritten as it appeared on the front page of the Epitaph in 1933)
Within a few days, Wyatt Earp will be walking about the film studio of the great Fox corporation. Wyatt Earp in flesh and blood, strong, husky, a pioneer. How closely his make-up will resemble the thin intellectual face of the peace officer of Tombstone's 80's it is impossible to tell at that distance. But it is quite probable that George O'Brien in his part in the spectacular film, "Frontier Marshal," will be uncommonly true to life.
There is but one strange thing about the fact that George O'Brien will impersonate Wyatt Earp and that he is the grandson of a pioneer grandmother of Tombstone, a grandmother who lived here in the very early boom days and died in 1883. She lies in a lonely grave, whether in Boot Hill or the Tombstone cemetery, it matters not which, both are lonely, the kind that Kipling may have had in mind when he wrote, "Under the wide and starry sky, dig the grave and let me lie...gladly I lived and gladly die and I lay me down with a will."
These grandparents of George O'Brien lived in that beautiful part of the city which overlooks the Dragoons, the Swisshelms and catches a glimpse now and then of the lofty Chiricahuas. Their large adobe home lay in the northeast section of the mining camp that stretched for thirty-seven blocks from the present First Street, eastward. His grandfather was a carpenter for the Contention mine.
In 1883, the tired young mother laid down the burden with the advent of her twelfth child and upon the shoulders of the youthful Mary Cummings fell the responsibility of the eleven children.
In due time the family left the Old Camp for California, the lure of whose gold in a multitude of forms has robbed Tombstone for- lo--? these many years. And there, this daughter of the man and woman who were contemporaries in Tombstone of the famous Wyatt Earp became a police matron and still, we believe, holds that office in Santa Monica.
Across the mesas from Tombstone lay Fort Huachuca filled with the glamor of uniform and military music. The lover who won Mary Cummings was not an army man, but was from Fort Huachuca. And so in old Tombstone they were married. Their two sons have been blessed with much of that elusive thing known as popularity. George O'Brien being a world famous actor and his brother, a baseball player of renown formerly with the big leagues.
Forty-six years after her mother's funeral, Mary Cummings O'Brien came back to Tombstone for the first time since leaving it. This was in 1929, when the first Helldorado did so surprise the world. Her special pilgrimage was to seek out at St. Paul's church the very pew which she occupied as the last prayers were said for one she loved.
And when George O'Brien makes his bow before film audiences in the role of Wyatt Earp, those who read this tale may appreciate his portrayal of the part more keenly because they know that his mother can paint for him, if she chooses, vivid pictures of the days when the real Wyatt Earp stalked the streets of this city maintaining peace and order.
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Click here for more info on actor George O'Brien More George O'Brien
Links to "Many other actors walked in the boots of Wyatt Earp" Terry & Wyatt Earp with Dolan Ellis Terry & Wyatt's Web Page
OldWestHistory.Net takes no responsibility for content of documentation posted on our Web site...All Video/Audio/Text etc. is copyright protected. Content does not reflect opinions of OldWestHistory.Net. (upload date..11/15/06) George O'Brien photo courtesy of Brian's Drive-in