Results for Buffalo Bill Cody
On this page:
 
American Theater Guide:

William Frederick Cody

Cody, William Frederick (1846–1917), actor. Better known as “Buffalo Bill,” the Iowan served as a pony‐express rider and as a Civil War and Indian scout. A play called Buffalo Bill, recounting his exploits, appeared in 1871. To capitalize on his renown, he himself began to act in dramas purporting to recount his adventures, such as The Scouts of the Prairie, The Knight of the Plains, and Buffalo Bill at Bay. Cody toured in these for nearly a decade before founding his Wild West Show in 1883. Played in the open air, these entertainments allowed him to re‐create vividly the old Indian skirmishes and show off his shooting and riding skills. The Wild West Show took on a major attraction when the great sharpshooter Annie Oakley joined the company in 1885. The show prospered for many years as it toured the entire country, but eventually competition, the need to outspend that competition, and dwindling returns from a public tired of his style of entertainment forced him to merge with his major rival, Pawnee Bill's Historic Far West and Great Far East Show, in 1909. But the combined show continued to run up debts and was closed by bankruptcy in 1915.

 
 
Actor:

Bill Cody

  • Born: Jan 05, 1891 in St. Paul, Minnesota
  • Died: Jan 24, 1948 in Santa Monica, California
  • Occupation: Actor
  • Active: '20s-'30s
  • Major Genres: Western, Action
  • Career Highlights: Cyclone Ranger, Texas Pioneers, Ghost City
  • First Major Screen Credit: Riders of Mystery (1924)

Biography

A former member of the Metropolitan Stock company and a riding double for Marion Davies, the old-fashioned, gallant Bill Cody became a star on the independent market in the 1920s and was especially well liked by those who steadfastly resisted the flamboyant style of showmen like Tom Mix. Veteran genre director Harry L. Fraser found him to be "one of the most unimpressive Western stars" he had ever worked with, adding that Cody "couldn't memorize lines no matter how hard he tried." Not surprisingly, Cody's starring Westerns in the 1930s are considered some of the era's worst. Looking emaciated, he last costarred with son Bill Cody, Jr. (1924-1989) in a no-budget series for Spectrum in 1934-1936, but was obviously no longer any threat to virile newcomers like John Wayne or Charles Starrett. Cody, a native of Minnesota and no relation to legendary Buffalo Bill Cody, left films in the late '30s to tour with "Bill Cody's Ranch Wild West Show." His final screen appearance was a bit in Joan of Arc (1948). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

 
Biography: Buffalo Bill

The controversial, half-fictitious career of William Frederick Buffalo Bill' Cody (1846-1917), American scout and publicist, helped create the prototype "Wild West" hero.

William Cody, born in Scott County, lowa, and raised on a farm, served briefly in the Civil War. Hunting buffalo for construction crews of the Kansas Pacific Railroad, he was dubbed "Buffalo Bill" because of his proficiency. He also served as civilian scout for U.S. generals Sheridan and Carr. Though he went east to begin a stage career in 1873, he returned west in 1876 to avenge Gen. Custer's defeat. Claiming to have killed Chief Tall Bull, he later brought the Wild West indoors and toured widely with his Wild West Show. Clever publicists, like Ned Buntline, Prentiss Ingraham, and John Burke, billed him as "Prince of the Plains" and made him the hero of countless stories and novels.

Often in trouble and always in debt, Buffalo Bill toured Europe to recoup his fortunes. He became the darling of Queen Victoria's Jubilee in England and went on to France, Spain, and Italy, spreading the legend of the American West, depicting the wild yet romantic life which Europeans liked to think of as uniquely American, and paving the way for the 20th-century cowboy movie. The name Buffalo Bill was magic; in Victorian days he personified the American dream.

But triumph turned to ashes. Tired of sham hero worship, Buffalo Bill drank heavily and involved himself in many foolish liaisons. Women doted on him, but his wife wanted a divorce. Sick children sought his touch, but his only son died in his arms. Manipulated by shrewd men, he had to perform his Wild West act daily to avoid bankruptcy. Finally, disillusioned, he petitioned the Federal government for the $10 monthly Congressional Medal-holders' dole. All his dreams had become nightmares.

In 1910 Sam Goldberg released a slide series showing Buffalo Bill in action, and Harry Powers made the first moving picture of the Wild West Show, "300 thrills in 300 reels." But Bill himself was not able to utilize the new mass-media opportunities. Instead, the old man watched William S. Hart, Harry Carey, and Tom Mix fill the heroic void. When he died he was buried in Cody, Wyo.; since citizens of Denver plotted to steal the body, tons of concrete were poured over it. Thus the man whose life revolved in frantic motion had found his resting place.

Buffalo Bill epitomized a whole phase of the American western movement and the final winning of the Great West. His reputation had been contrived and half-fictitious, but to his own code and image he remained faithful.

Further Reading

The best contemporary accounts of Buffalo Bill are Henry L. Williams, "Buffalo Bill" (1887), and Helen Cody Wetmore, Last of the Great Scouts (1899). The only thorough and scholarly biography is Richard J. Walsh, The Making of Buffalo Bill: A Study in Heroics (1928). Dan Muller, My Life with Buffalo Bill (1948), is a convincing apologia, while James Monaghan, The Great Rascal (1952), concentrates on the feet of clay. For the Cody literature see Albert Johannsen, The House of Beadle and Adams and Its Dime and Nickel Novels: The Story of a Vanished Literature (1950).

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: William Frederick Cody

William Cody, 1916.
(click to enlarge)
William Cody, 1916. (credit: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)
(born Feb. 26, 1846, Scott county, Iowa, U.S. — died Jan. 10, 1917, Denver, Colo.) U.S. buffalo hunter, army scout, and Indian fighter. He became a rider for the Pony Express and later served in the American Civil War. In 1867 – 68 he hunted buffalo to feed construction crews for the Union Pacific Railroad; he became known as Buffalo Bill after slaughtering 4,280 head of buffalo in eight months. He was a scout for the U.S. 5th Cavalry (1868 – 72, 1876) as it subdued Indian resistance. His exploits, including the scalping of the Cheyenne warrior Yellow Hair in 1876, were chronicled by reporters and novelists, who made him a folk hero. He began acting in dramas about the West, and in 1883 he organized his first Wild West Show, which included stars such as Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull. The show toured in the U.S. and abroad to wide acclaim.

For more information on William Frederick Cody, visit Britannica.com.

 
US History Companion: Cody, Buffalo Bill

(1846-1917), western scout and showman. Anyone interested in the history of the American West must eventually reckon with the life and legacy of William F., "Buffalo Bill," Cody. A master of show business, Cody confirmed American and European audiences in their conviction that the real West was a place of glory and adventure, an enormous space reserved for the equestrian exercises of Indians, cowboys, and outlaws.

With his buckskin outfits and sharpshooting skills, Cody was by no means a frontier fake. Born in Iowa, he moved with his family to Kansas in 1854 and, following his father's early death, began a long occupational odyssey. He worked as a messenger for the freighting firm of Russell, Majors, and Waddell; he served as a scout for the U.S. Army; he killed buffalo to feed workers on the Union Pacific Railroad; he guided celebrities on hunting expeditions; he tried his hand at mining, at ranching, and at townsite development.

In 1872, the flexible Cody added "actor" to his list of occupations, appearing on stage in a frontier melodrama in Chicago. In 1883, Cody departed from the limitations of stage plays and launched his open-air Wild West Show. For thirty years, the show toured the United States and Europe.

Featuring horses and riders in a variety of displays, the Wild West Show held equal appeal for American crowds and European royalty, with England's Queen Victoria a particular fan. Although the down-to-earth project of transporting, feeding, sheltering, outfitting, and organizing cowboys, Indians, sharpshooters, advance men, laborers, cooks, managers, horses, and even buffalo may well have been the show's most impressive feat, audiences were riveted by the evocation of another, less practical world--a world of parades, races, and reenactments of stagecoach robberies and Custer's Last Stand. Over time, the show added events and participants beyond the framework of the American West, with the staging of the Charge at San Juan Hill and the creation of the Congress of Rough Riders of the World, including Russian, French, German, British, Arab, Argentinean, Mexican, Cuban, Hawaiian, and Filipino riders.

Marketing both himself and his show, Buffalo Bill Cody traded heavily on the authentic adventures in his personal history. He had in truth been a child of the West and a genuine scout and hunter. But the necessary theatricality of the Wild West Show, the flourishes of dime novelists using Cody as their main character, and Cody's own creative habits as an embellisher of his autobiography soon made the line dividing authenticity from illusion an impossible one to trace. Accordingly, depending on the interpreter's perspective, the Wild West Show was a trick and a fraud in its distortions of western reality or an innocent diversion, of considerable mythic power, from the mounting pressures of urban industrial life.

Although the show brought in substantial revenue, Cody spent his last years in financial uncertainty, drained in particular by unwise investments in an Arizona mine. At the time of his death in Denver, his unsuccessful struggle for financial stability had forged yet another link in the chain that made Buffalo Bill Cody, both intentionally and unintentionally, a key representative of the fortunes of the American West.

Bibliography:

David H. Katcive et al., Buffalo Bill and the Wild West (1981); Joseph G. Rosa and Robin May, Buffalo Bill and His Wild West: A Pictorial Biography (1989).

Author:

Patricia Nelson Limerick

See also Cowboys.


 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Buffalo Bill,
1846–1917, American plainsman, scout, and showman, b. near Davenport, Iowa. His real name was William Frederick Cody. His family moved (1854) to Kansas, and after the death of his father (1857) he set out to earn the family living, working for supply trains and a freighting company. In 1859 he went to the Colorado gold fields and he claimed, apparently falsely, to have ridden for the Pony Express in 1860. His adventures on the Western frontier as an army scout and later as a buffalo hunter for railroad construction camps on the Great Plains were the basis for the stories later told about him.

On his first visit to the East in 1872, Ned Buntline persuaded him to appear on the New York stage, and, except for a brief period of scouting against the Sioux and Cheyenne in 1876, he was from that time on connected with show business. In 1883 he organized Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and toured with it for many years throughout the United States and Europe. Wyoming granted him a stock ranch, on which the town of Cody was laid out. He died in Denver and was buried on Lookout Mt. near Golden, Colo. The exploits attributed to him in the dime novels of Buntline and Prentice Ingraham are only slightly more imaginative than his own autobiography (1920).

Bibliography

See R. J. Walsh and M. S. Salsbury, The Making of Buffalo Bill (1928); biographies by D. B. Russell (1960, repr. 1969) and J. Burke (1973); L. W. Warren, Buffalo Bill's America (2005).

 
Works: Works by William F. Cody
(1846-1917)

1883Wild West Show. Cody and sharpshooter William F. Carver create an open-air entertainment depicting Indian skirmishes and displays of trick riding and shooting, and enthusiastic audiences throughout America and Europe flock to it for the next three decades. The show often enacts a moral drama in which the whites conquer savagery and bring civilization to the West. Sharpshooter Annie Oakley (1860-1926) would join the troupe in 1885. It merged in 1909 with the chief competition, Pawnee Bill's Historical Far West and Great Far East Show, and finally closed in 1915 due to bankruptcy.

 
History Dictionary: Buffalo Bill

William F. Cody, a frontier settler, scout, and soldier of the nineteenth century. He was involved in several military actions against Native Americans and later turned to entertainment, founding the celebrated “Wild West Show.” (See also under “Fine Arts.”)

 
Fine Arts Dictionary: Buffalo Bill

William F. Cody, an American adventurer, soldier, and showman of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His popular “Wild West Show,” begun in the 1880s, featured acts such as the marksmanship of Annie Oakley, mock battles between Native Americans and army troops, and breathtaking displays of cowboy skills and horsemanship. It toured the United States, Canada, and Europe.

  • Buffalo Bill's “Wild West Show” was a major influence in the creation of the popular image of the romantic and exciting old West.

    •  
    Wikipedia: Buffalo Bill
    "Wild West Show" redirects here. For the 2004 Big & Rich single, see Wild West Show (song).
    William Frederick Cody
    February 26, 1846 – January 10, 1917)
    Cody-Buffalo-Bill-LOC.jpg
    Buffalo Bill Cody
    Nickname Wild Bill
    Place of birth near Le Claire, Iowa
    Place of death Denver, Colorado
    Allegiance United States of America
    Service/branch United States Army
    Years of service 1863-1866
    Battles/wars Civil War
    Awards Medal of Honor
    Other work After being a frontiersman, Buffalo Bill entered show business

    William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody (February 26, 1846 – January 10, 1917) was an American soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was born in the American state of Iowa, near Le Claire. He was one of the most colorful figures of the Old West, and mostly famous for the shows he organized with cowboy themes. Buffalo Bill is a recipient of the Medal of Honor.

    Nickname and work life

    William Frederick ("Buffalo Bill") Cody got his nickname for supplying Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with bison meat. The nickname originally referred to Bill Comstock. Cody won the nickname from him in 1868 in a bison killing contest.

    Performer in Buffalo Bill's Wild West, seen at Buffalo Bill Museum at Lookout Mountain, Colorado.
    Enlarge
    Performer in Buffalo Bill's Wild West, seen at Buffalo Bill Museum at Lookout Mountain, Colorado.

    In addition to his documented service as a soldier during the Civil War and as Chief of Scouts for the Third Cavalry during the Plains Wars, Cody claimed to have worked many jobs, including as a trapper, bullwhacker, "Fifty-Niner" in Colorado, a Pony Express rider in 1860, wagonmaster, stagecoach driver, and even a hotel manager, but it's unclear which claims were factual and which were fabricated for purposes of publicity. He became world famous for his Wild West show.

    Early years

    William Frederick Cody was born at his family's farmhouse in Scott County, Iowa, on February 26, 1846, to Isaac and Mary Cody. When Cody was 7, his older brother, Samuel, was killed by a fall from a horse. His death so affected Mary Cody's health that a change of scene was advised and the family relocated to Kansas, moving into a large log cabin on land that they had staked there.

    Cody's father believed that Kansas should be a free state, but many of the other settlers in the area were pro-slavery (see Bleeding Kansas). While giving an anti-slavery speech at the local trading post, he so inflamed the supporters of slavery in the audience that they formed a mob and one of them stabbed him. Cody helped to drag his father to safety, although he never fully recovered from his injuries. The family was constantly persecuted by the supporters of slavery, forcing Isaac Cody to spend much of his time away from home. His enemies learned of a planned visit to his family and plotted to kill him on the way. Cody, despite his youth and the fact that he was ill, rode 30 miles (48 km) to warn his father. Cody's father died in 1857 from complications from his stabbing.

    After his father's death, the Cody family suffered financial difficulties, and Cody, aged only 11, took a job with freight carrier as a "boy extra," riding up and down the length of a wagon train, delivering messages. From here, he joined Johnston's Army as an unofficial member of the scouts assigned to guide the Army to Utah to put down a falsely-reported rebellion by the Mormon population of Salt Lake City. According to Cody's account in Buffalo Bill's Own Story, this was where he first began his career as an "Indian fighter".

    Presently the moon rose, dead ahead of me; and painted boldly across its face was the figure of an Indian. He wore the war-bonnet of the Sioux, at his shoulder was a rifle pointed at someone in the river-bottom 30 feet below; in another second he would drop one of my friends. I raised my old muzzle-loader and fired. The figure collapsed, tumbled down the bank and landed with a splash in the water. 'What is it?' called McCarthy, as he hurried back. 'It's over there in the water,' I answered. McCarthy ran over to the dark figure. 'Hi!' he cried. 'Little Billy's killed an Indian all by himself!' So began my career as an Indian fighter.

    At the age of 14, Cody was struck by gold fever, but on his way to the gold fields, he met an agent for the Pony Express. He signed with them and after building several way stations and corrals was given a job as rider, which he kept until he was called home to his sick mother's bedside.

    His mother recovered, and Cody, who wished to enlist as a soldier, but was refused for his age, began working with a United States freight caravan which delivered supplies to Fort Laramie.

    Civil War soldier and marriage

    Buffalo Bill at age 19
    Enlarge
    Buffalo Bill at age 19

    Shortly after the death of his mother in 1863, Cody enlisted in the 7th Kansas Cavalry Regiment and fought with them on the Union side for the rest of the Civil War.

    While stationed at military camp in St. Louis, Bill met Louisa Frederici (1843-1921). He returned after his discharge and they married on March 6, 1866. Their marriage was not a happy one, and Bill unsuccessfully attempted to divorce Louisa. They had four children, two of whom died young: his beloved son, Kit died of scarlet fever in April, 1876, and his daughter Orra died in 1880.

    His early experience as an Army scout led him again to scouting. From 1868 until 1872 Cody was employed as a scout by the United States Army. Part of this time he spent scouting for Indians, and the remainder was spent gathering and killing bison for them and the Kansas Pacific Railroad.

    Medal Of Honor

    He received the Medal of Honor in 1872 for "gallantry in action" while serving as a civilian scout for the 3rd Cavalry Regiment. This medal was revoked on February 5, 1917, 24 days after his death, because he was a civilian and therefore was ineligible for the award under new guidelines for the award in 1917. The medal was restored to him by the army in 1989.

    See List of Medal of Honor recipients: Indian Wars

    Buffalo Bill's Wild West

    After being a frontiersman, Buffalo Bill entered show business. He formed a touring company called the Buffalo Bill Combination which put on plays (such as "Scouts of the Prairie", "Scouts of the Plain") based loosely on his Western adventures, initially with Texas Jack Omohundro, and for one season (1873) with Wild Bill Hickok. The troupe toured for ten years and his part typically included an 1876 incident at the Warbonnet Creek where he claimed to have scalped a Cheyenne warrior, purportedly in revenge for the death of George Armstrong Custer. [1] [2]

    It was the age of great showmen and traveling entertainers, like the Barnum and Bailey Circus and the Vaudeville circuits. Cody put together a new traveling show based on both of those forms of entertainment. In 1883 in the area of North Omaha, Nebraska he founded "Buffalo Bill's Wild West," (despite popular misconception, the word "show" was not a part of the title) a circus-like attraction that toured annually.

    A handbill for Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World'
    Enlarge
    A handbill for Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World'
    Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill, 1885
    Enlarge
    Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill, 1885

    As the Wild West toured North America over the next twenty years, it became a moving extravaganza, including as many as 1200 performers. In 1893 the title was changed to "Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World". The show began with a parade on horseback, with participants from horse-culture groups that included US and other military, American Indians, and performers from all over the world in their best attire. There were Turks, Gauchos, Arabs, Mongols and Cossacks, among others, each showing their own distinctive horses and colorful costumes. Visitors to this spectacle could see main events, feats of skill, staged races, and sideshows. Many authentic western personalities were part of the show. For example Sitting Bull and a band of twenty braves appeared. Cody's headline performers were well known in their own right. People like Annie Oakley and her husband Frank Butler put on shooting exhibitions along with the likes of Gabriel Dumont. Buffalo Bill and his performers would re-enact the riding of the Pony Express, Indian attacks on wagon trains, and stagecoach robberies. The show typically ended with a melodramatic re-enactment of Custer's Last Stand in which Cody himself portrayed General Custer.

    In 1887 he performed in London in celebration of the Jubilee year of Queen Victoria, and toured Europe in 1889. In 1890 he met Pope Leo XIII. He set up an exhibition near the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, which greatly contributed to his popularity, and also vexed the promoters of the fair. As noted in The Devil in the White City, he had been rebuffed in his request to be part of the fair, so he set up shop just to the west of the fairgrounds, drawing many patrons away from the fair. Since his show was not part of the fair, he was not obligated to pay the fair any royalties, which they could have used to temper the financial struggles of the fair.

    Many historians claim that, at the turn of the 20th century, Buffalo Bill Cody was the most recognizable celebrity on earth and yet, despite all of the recognition and appreciation Cody's show brought for the Western and American Indian cultures, Buffalo Bill saw the American West change dramatically during his tumultuous life. Bison herds, which had once numbered in the millions, were now threatened with extinction. Railroads crossed the plains, barbed wire, and other types of fences divided the land for farmers and ranchers, and the once-threatening Indian tribes were now almost completely confined to reservations. Wyoming's resources of coal, oil and natural gas were beginning to be exploited towards the end of his life.

    Even the Shoshone River was dammed for hydroelectric power as well as for irrigation. In 1897 and 1899 Colonel William F. (Buffalo Bill) Cody and his associates acquired from the State of Wyoming the right to take water from the Shoshone River to irrigate about 169,000 acres (684 km²) of land in the Big Horn Basin. They began developing a canal to carry water diverted from the river, but their plans did not include a water storage reservoir. Colonel Cody and his associates were unable to raise sufficient capital to complete their plan. Early in 1903 they joined with the Wyoming Board of Land Commissioners in urging the federal government to step in and help with irrigation development in the valley.

    The Shoshone Project became one of the first federal water development projects undertaken by the newly formed Reclamation Service, later to become known as the Bureau of Reclamation. After Reclamation took over the project in 1903, investigating engineers recommended constructing a dam on the Shoshone River in the canyon east of Cody.

    Construction of the Shoshone Dam (later called Buffalo Bill Dam) started in 1905, a year after the Shoshone Project was authorized. Almost three decades after its construction the title of dam and reservoir was changed by Act of Congress to Buffalo Bill Dam to honor Cody.

    Life in Cody, Wyoming

    In 1895, William Cody was instrumental in helping found Cody, Wyoming. Incorporated in 1901, Cody is located 52 miles (84 km) from Yellowstone National Park's east entrance. Cody was founded by Colonel William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody who passed through the region in the 1870s. He was so impressed by the development possibilities from irrigation, rich soil, grand scenery, hunting, and proximity to Yellowstone Park that he returned in the mid-1890s to start a town. He brought with him men whose names are still on street signs in Cody’s downtown area – Beck, Alger, Rumsey, Bleistein and Salsbury.

    In 1902, he built the Irma Hotel in downtown Cody. The hotel is named after his daughter, Irma. He also had lodging along the North Fork of the Shoshone River, which is a route to the east entrance of Yellowstone National Park that included the Wapiti Inn and Pahaska Teepee. Up the south fork of the Shoshone was his ranch, the TE.

    When Cody acquired the TE property, he ordered the movement of Nebraska and South Dakota cattle to Wyoming. This new herd carried the TE brand. The late 1890s were relatively prosperous years for Buffalo Bill's Wild West and he used some of the profits to accumulate lands which were added to the TE holdings. Eventually Cody held around eight thousand acres (32 km²) of private land for grazing operations and ran about a thousand head of cattle. He also operated a dude ranch, pack horse camping trips, and big game hunting business at and from the TE Ranch. In his spacious and comfortable ranch house he entertained notable guests from Europe and America.

    Death

    Buffalo Bill's grave on Lookout Mountain in Colorado
    Enlarge
    Buffalo Bill's grave on Lookout Mountain in Colorado

    Cody died of kidney failure on January 10, 1917, surrounded by family and friends at his sister's house in Denver. On his death bed William F. Cody was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church the day before his death January 9, 1917, by Father Christopher Walsh of the Denver Cathedral. Upon the news of his death he received tributes from the King of England, the German Kaiser, and President Woodrow Wilson. [1] His funeral was in Denver at the Elks Lodge Hall. Wyoming Governor John B. Kendrick, a friend of Cody's, led the funeral procession to the Elks Lodge.

    Contrary to popular belief Cody was not destitute, but his once great fortune had dwindled to under $100,000. Despite his request to be buried in Cody, Wyoming, in an early will, it was superseded by a later will which left his burial arrangements up to his wife Louisa. To this day there is controversy as to where Cody should have been buried. According to the writer Larry McMurtry, his then partner Harry Tammen, a Denver newspaperman, either "bullied or bamboozled the grieving Louisa" and had Cody buried in Colorado.[2] On June 3, 1917, Cody was buried on Colorado's Lookout Mountain, in Golden, Colorado, west of the city of Denver, located on the edge of the Rocky Mountains and overlooking the Great Plains. While there is evidence that Cody had already been baptized as a baby, he was baptized a Catholic on January 9, 1917, the day before he died. In 1948 the Cody branch of the American Legion offered a reward for the 'return' of the body, so the Denver branch mounted a guard over the grave until a deeper shaft could be blasted into the rock. [3]

    Legacy

    In contrast to his image and stereotype as a rough-hewn outdoorsman, Buffalo Bill pushed for the rights of American Indians and women. In addition, despite his history of killing bison, he supported their conservation by speaking out against hide-hunting and pushing for a hunting season.

    Buffalo Bill became so well known and his exploits such a part of American culture that his persona has appeared in many literary works, as well as television shows and movies. Westerns were very popular in the 1950s and 60s. Buffalo Bill would make an appearance in most of them. As a character, he is in the very popular Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun, which was very successful both with Ethel Merman and more recently with Bernadette Peters in the lead role. On television, his persona has appeared on shows such as Bat Masterson and even Bonanza. His personal appearance has been portrayed everywhere from an elder statesman to a flamboyant, self-serving exhibitionist.

    Having been a frontier scout who respected the natives, he was a staunch supporter of their rights. He employed many more natives than just Sitting Bull, feeling his show offered them a better life, calling them "the former foe, present friend, the American", and once said,

    "Every Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken promises and broken treaties by the government."
    Buffalo Bill Cody in 1903
    Enlarge
    Buffalo Bill Cody in 1903

    While in his shows the Indians were usually the "bad guys", attacking stagecoaches and wagon trains in order to be driven off by "heroic" cowboys and soldiers, Bill also had the wives and children of his Indian performers set up camp as they would in the homelands as part of the show, so that the paying public could see the human side of the "fierce warriors", that they were families like any other, just part of a different culture.

    The city of Cody, Wyoming was founded in 1896 by Cody and some investors, and is named for him. It is the home of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. Fifty miles from Yellowstone National Park, it became a tourist magnet with many dignitaries and political leaders coming to hunt. Bill did indeed spend a great amount of time in Wyoming at his home in Cody. However, he also had a house in the town of North Platte, Nebraska and later built the Scout's Rest Ranch there where he came to be with his family between shows. This western Nebraska town is still home to "Nebraskaland Days," an annual festival including concerts and a large rodeo. The Scout's Rest Ranch in North Platte is both a museum, and a tourist destination for thousands of people every year.

    Buffalo Bill became a hero of the Bills, a Congolese youth subculture of the late 1950s who idolized Western movies.

    In film and television

    Buffalo Bill has been portrayed in the movies by:

    William Cody's statue at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.
    Enlarge
    William Cody's statue at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.

    "Buffalo Bill's / defunct"

    A famous free verse poem on mortality by E. E. Cummings uses Buffalo Bill as an image of life and vibrancy. The poem is generally untitled, and commonly known by its first two lines: "Buffalo Bill's / defunct", however some books such as "Poetry" edited by J. Hunter uses the name "portrait". The poem uses expressive phrases to describe Buffalo Bill's showmanship, referring to his "watersmooth-silver / stallion", and using a staccato beat to describe his rapid shooting of a series of clay pigeons. The poem which featured this character caused great controversy. Buffalo Bill was actually in debt at the time of his death which is why the word "defunct" used in the second verse is so affective. The fusion of words such as "onetwothreefour" interprets the impression in which Buffalo Bill left on his audiences.

    References

    1. ^ Lloyd, J & Mitchinson, J: "The Book of General Ignorance". Faber & Faber, 2006.
    2. ^ Larry McMurtry: "Sacagawea's Nickname". New York Review of Books, 2001.
    3. ^ Lloyd, J & Mitchinson, J: "The Book of General Ignorance". Faber & Faber, 2006.

    Other Buffalo Bills

    • Buffalo Bill is also the name of a fictional character from Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs, who was also parodied in the movie Joe Dirt under the name Buffalo Bob.
    • Two television series, Buffalo Bill, Jr. (1955–6) starring Dickie Jones and Buffalo Bill (1983–4) starring Dabney Coleman, had nothing to do with the historic person.
    • The Buffalo Bills, an NFL team based in Buffalo, New York, were named after Buffalo Bill. Prior to that team's existence, other early football teams (such as Buffalo Bills (AAFC)) used the nickname, solely due to name recognition, as Bill Cody had no special connection with the city.
    • The Buffalo Bills are a barbershop-quartet singing group consisting of Vern Reed, Al Shea, Bill Spangenberg, and Wayne Ward. They appeared in the original Broadway cast of The Music Man (opened 1957) and in the 1962 motion-picture version of that play.
    • Buffalo Bill is the title of a song by the jam band Phish.
    • Buffalo Bill is the name of a bluegrass band in Wisconsin
    • Samuel Cowdery, buffalo hunter, "wild west" showman and aviation pioneer changed his surname to "Cody" and was often taken for the original "Buffalo Bill" in his touring show Captain Cody King of the Cowboys.

    See also

    External links

    Further reading

    • Buffalo Bill Days (June 22-24, 2007). A 20-page special section of The Sheridan Press, published in June 2007 by Sheridan Newspapers, Inc., 144 Grinnell Avenue, Post Office Box 2006, Sheridan, Wyoming, 82801, USA. (Includes extensive information about Buffalo Bill, as well as the schedule of the annual three-day event held in Sheridan, Wyoming.)

    This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

     
     

    Join the WikiAnswers Q&A community. Post a question or answer questions about "Buffalo Bill Cody" at WikiAnswers.

     

    Copyrights:

    American Theater Guide. The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
    Actor. Copyright © 2006 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
    Biography. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
    Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
    US History Companion. The Reader's Companion to American History, Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors, published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
    Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/  Read more
    Works. The Chronology of American Literature, edited by Daniel S. Burt. Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
    History Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.  Read more
    Fine Arts Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.  Read more
    Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Buffalo Bill".  Read more

    Search for answers directly from your browser with the FREE Answers.com Toolbar!  
    Click here to download now. 

    Get Answers your way! Check out all our free tools and products.

    On this page:   E-mail   print Print  Link  

     

    Keep Reading

    Mentioned In:

     |  More >More >
     

    Do you have the answers?