HOLLIDAY, DOC

HOLLIDAY, Doc: translation

(1851–1887)

John Henry (Doc) Holliday was a gunfighter and friend of Wyatt Earp and his brothers. As portrayed in Western movies, the basic elements of Doc’s story usually have him as a dentist who came West due to his poor health. He is dying of tuberculosis and in most films has a tell-tale cough. His relationship with Wyatt is usually stormy, but they remain friends to the end. His girl is Big Nose Kate, or sometimes Katie Elder (though not the Katie Elder of The Sons of Katie Elder [1965]). He usually is associated with the Earps in Dodge City, Kansas; Fort Griffith, Texas; and Tombstone, Arizona, where he helps the Earps defeat the Clanton gang at a shootout at the O.K. Corral. Important films featuring Doc Holliday include John Ford’s My Darling Clementine (1946), John Sturges’s Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Tombstone (1993), and Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp (1994).