Wild West – June 2019

1 4 WILD WEST JUNE 2019

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BIRTHDAY V
BABY
Belated birthday
wishes to Baby Peggy,
a longtime friend of
Wild West, as well of
the Old West and “reel”
West. Born Peggy-Jean
Montgomery in San
Diego, Calif., Dianna
Serra Cary turned
100 on Oct. 29, 2018.
She was discovered
by Hollywood at 19
months and became
an early child silent
film star—Shirley
Temple before there
was a Shirley Temple.

By 1924 Baby Peggy

was earning $1.

million a year and

became known as the

“Million-Dollar Baby.”

Though failing to make

the jump to teen or

adult stardom, she

did appear in films

through 1938. She

later became an au-

thor, writing her auto-

biography (What Ever

Happened to Baby Peggy?)

and a biography of

fellow child actor Jackie

Coogan. Cary long

harbored an interest

in the American fron-

tier and wrote several

articles for Wild West

in the 1990s. In 2017

she self-published her

first historical novel, The

Drowning of the Moon. To

honor her contributions

Turner Classic Movies

screened the documen-

tary Baby Peggy: The

Elephant in the Room

on her 100th birthday.

DEADWOOD V

LIVES

From 2004 to 2006 the

HBO series Deadwood

developed a large fol-

lowing of fans and its

fair share of detractors,

who objected to the

violence, vulgarity and

depiction of frontier

Deadwood, Dakota

Territory, as a hellhole.

The finale left viewers

hanging, and there has

been talk about resur-

recting the eight-time

Emmy winning concept

in movie form. Well,

%$#$@, if filming didn’t

begin last fall. Series

creator David Milch

wrote the screenplay,

while series veteran

Daniel Minahan directs.

Most of the cast returns,

including Timothy Oly-

phant as Sheriff Seth

Bullock, Ian McShane

as Al Swearengen (see

photo, above) and Robin

Weigert as Calamity

Jane—all historical fig-

ures who resided in the

real Deadwood. The

film is reportedly set

a decade after the era

depicted in the series’

conclusion—around the

time South Dakota be-

came a state, on Nov. 9,

1889. The still-untitled
      film will premiere on
      HBO this spring.

BUSTER V

NOMINATIONS

At press-time the

2019 Academy

Awards had yet to

be announced, but

the Western anthol-

ogy film The Ballad of

Buster Scruggs (reviewed

in the April 2019 issue)

had been nominated

in three categories—

Best Adapted Screen-

play ( Joel Coen and

Ethan Coen), Best

Costume Design (Mary

Zophres) and Best Ori-

ginal Song (“When a

Cowboy Trades His

Spurs for Wings,”

music and lyrics by

David Rawlings and

Gillian Welch). Buster

wasn’t nominated in

the Best Picture cate-

gory, although the

National Board of

Review of Motion

Pictures named it

one of the Top 10

films of 2018.

PICKETT

POSTER V

Cowboy Bill Pickett

(1870–1932) is cred-

ited with originat-

ing the bulldogging

technique, in which

a man wrestles a

steer to the ground

by grabbing its horns

while biting the ani-

mal’s lip. Bulldog-

ging went on to

become a standard

rodeo event, morph-

ing into present-day

steer wrestling. Pickett

himself won a national

championship in steer

wrestling. He was also

the first black Ameri-

can induced into the

National Rodeo Hall

of Fame, in 1971, and

was a 1989 inductee

into the ProRodeo

Hall of Fame. In 1922

Pickett, Bennie Turpin,

Steve Reynolds and

Anita Bush starred in

the silent Western The

Bull-Dogger, promoted

in the three-sheet,

linen-backed poster

shown above. Only

fragments of the film

survive. A copy of the

poster sold for $5,

at a Heritage Auctions’

African American

Social History event.