Stuart N. Lake

Stuart Nathaniel Lake
Born (1889-09-23)September 23, 1889
Rome, New York, USA
Died January 27, 1964(1964-01-27) (aged 74)
San Diego, California
Occupation Author: Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal

Stuart Nathaniel Lake (September 23, 1889, Rome, New York – January 27, 1964, San Diego, California) was a writer who focused on the American Old West.

Professional career

Lake was a professional wrestling promoter and a press aide to Theodore Roosevelt during the Bull Moose presidential campaign in 1912. During World War I, he was run over by a truck.[1]

Works about Wyatt Earp

His 1931 biography of Wyatt Earp, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, was a best seller and was adapted for several films, including Frontier Marshal, a 1939 production starring Randolph Scott, and John Ford's My Darling Clementine.[2] His work also inspired the 1955-1961 ABC television series, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, starring Hugh O'Brian in the title role.[3] The biography was later found to be highly fictional. Lake was the first writer to describe Earp's use of the Colt Buntline. Later researchers have been unable to establish that Earp ever owned such a weapon.[4][5][6]

Other films

Lake also wrote for other motion pictures, including The Westerner, starring Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan;[7] Powder River with Rory Calhoun; and Winchester '73 starring James Stewart.[8]

Accuses politician of bribery

In 1951, Lake alleged that Robert M. Wright, a member of the Kansas House of Representatives from 1875 to 1883, and a founder and later mayor of Dodge City, Kansas, had paid money to get his son acquitted of a crime. In a letter to the author and historian Stanley Vestal of the University of Oklahoma, Lake said that in 1878, Wright had pocketed $25,000 as a "fee" from the South Texas cattleman Mifflin Kenedy, for whom Kenedy County, Texas, is named. Lake claimed that Kenedy had paid the money to gain acquittal of his son, James "Spike" Kenedy (1855-1884), in the inadvertent shooting death of the popular dance hall singer, Dora Hand. Young Kenedy and James H. "Dog" Kelley, another early Dodge City mayor, were both suitors of Dora. Kenedy thought that he was shooting Kelley, rather than Dora.[9]

Bibliography

Filmography

Lake wrote scripts for the following shows.[10]

References

  1. ↑ "Josephine Earp, Wyatt Earp's Jewish Widow, Admits Her Destitution to Earp's Biographer". Shapell Manuscript Collection. Retrieved 10 November 2011.
  2. ↑ Nixon, Rob. "My Darling Clementine (1946)". Retrieved 15 September 2014.
  3. ↑ O'Brien, Hugh (11 May 1957). "Wyatt Earp Just Wasn't A Cowboy". Desert Sun, Number 187,. 30 (187): 7.
  4. ↑ Goodman, Michael (July 30, 2005). Wyatt Earp. The Creative Company. p. 95. ISBN 9781583413395.
  5. ↑ "Wyatt Earp". History.com. Retrieved 29 April 2013.
  6. ↑ Shillingberg, William B. (Summer 1976). "Wyatt Earp and the Buntline Special Myth". Kansas Historical Quarterly. 42 (2): 113–154.
  7. ↑ The Westerner on IMDb
  8. ↑ Stuart N. Lake on IMDb
  9. ↑ "Susan Leiser Silva and Lee A. Silva, "The Killing of Dora Hand"". Wild West Magazine. reprint, history.net. October 1, 2009. Retrieved April 13, 2014.
  10. ↑ Stuart N. Lake on IMDb Edit this at Wikidata


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