THE GEM & CENTURY THEATRES

MAN THROE GH FEB. 13

"NEW 'FORBIDDEN/ IS
A WICKED BEWITCHEIC

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f-. holm.

book, has nothing to go and see, so
he didn't make the cut.

JN: Have you visited all of the com-
memorative sites you list at the end
of each essay?
GC: As many as I possibly could. I
spent the best part of a year traveling
to many of these sites, especially
associated with a lot of the western
villains that I wrote about — Billy
the Kid, Jesse James, Quantrill's
raiders, Wyatt Earp. For those that I
couldn't get to firsthand, I made sure
to verify firsthand by telephone con-
versations with the people who run
them. There were verifications of the
facts and what you will be able to see
when you visit these places.

JN: To what do you attribute the
attitudes that make people set up
tourist sites in memory of criminals,
establish festivals around events like
the Salem witch trials and inspire the
public to leave flowers at the
gravesites of the lawless?
GC: I would like to say that these
people really don't know their history
very well. They've grown up on a diet
of Hollywood movies and television
in which many of these people are
depicted rather sympathetically.
Once you start looking into the
real history and reading a little bit
about it, you come to realize that
these weren't just poor, misunderstood
boys; these were killers. These were
[yesterday's] versions of today's drive-
by shooters. These were guys who had
very few positive motivations for what
they did and in many cases killed just
for the hell of it.

JN: What message do these criminals
give about the whole idea of celebrity?
GC: They became heroes because

that's how the media presented them.
In America, after the Civil War, peo-
ple were really hungry for heroes, I
think. This was the time when news-
papers were really rising to the peak of
their influence, and it also was the
time of the rise of tabloid journalism,
the yellow press. They just kept the
United States in a constant supply of
people of dubious morality, people
they would present as heroes. That's
why Wyatt Earp, who was really kind
of a cheap thug, was presented as this
great lawman.
When [Hollywood] began making
movies, [producers] seized upon the
reputations that had been created by
the newspapers, enhanced them and
even brought them to more brilliant
light. Even in our own days, they're
still making movies about people like
Wyatt Earp and others and presenting
them in a very favorable light when
the historic record shows something
very different.

• • •
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DetroitFret' Press

,41

The Purple Rose Theatre Company Production of

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"Yoop it up for Escanaba,
a Gem of a comedy."

-Michael H. Margolin, Detroit News

"Some comedies have laughs
by the dozen. Escanaba has
them by the gross."

-Martin F. Kohn, Detroit Free Press

A Hilarious Comedy

JN: Which of the criminals you pro-
filed seems most interesting to you?
GC: These weren't all criminals who
were shooting guns. There were peo-
ple who damaged lives by means of
their financial manipulations. Jay
Gould was just an odious human
being. He thought nothing of
wrecking the lives of thousands and
thousands of Americans by his
financial shenanigans. He tried to
corner gold in 1869 and even dou-
ble-crossed his own partner in the
scheme.
That was one of the most interest-
ing personalities that I dealt with
because he considered himself a very
sensitive man, a man who supported
the arts and was instrumental in
founding many of the cultural institu-
tions of New York City.

[Tabloid journalismJ
just kept the United
States in a constant
supply of people of
dubious morality,
people they would
present as heroes."

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