Profile of William F. Cody on Famous Like Me

Buffalo Bill (February 26, 1846 – January 10, 1917) was born William Frederick Cody in the American state of Iowa, near Le Claire . He was one of the most colorful figures of the Old West, and was perhaps a bit misunderstood.

Nickname and work life

He assumed his nickname for supplying Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with buffalo meat. The nickname originally referred to Bill Comstock. Cody won the nickname from him in 1868 in a buffalo killing contest 69 to 48.

He worked many jobs, having been a trapper, bullwhacker, "Fifty-Niner" in Colorado, a Pony Express rider in 1860, wagonmaster, stagecoach driver, a Civil War soldier, and even a hotel manager. But he became famous for his Wild West Show.

Early years

Buffalo Bill was born in 1846, the year before Mormon pioneers went west to Utah and two years before gold was discovered in California. He was fifteen when he worked as a rider on the Pony Express, which went bankrupt the next year (1861). 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.

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 buffalo for the U.S. Army and the Union Pacific Railroad. He received the Medal of Honor in 1872 for "gallantry in action" while serving as a civilian scout for the 3rd Cavalry. This medal was revoked on February 5, 1917, 24 days after his death, because he was a civilian and therefore was ineligible for the award under new guidelines for the award in 1917.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.

After being a frontiersman, Buffalo Bill entered show business. He toured the United States starring in plays based loosely on his Western adventures. His part typically included an 1876 incident at the Warbonnet Creek where he scalped a Cheyenne warrior, purportedly in revenge for the death of George Armstrong Custer.

Wild West Show

In Omaha, Nebraska in 1883, Cody founded the "Buffalo Bill Wild West Show," a circus-like attraction that toured annually: Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull both appeared in the show. In 1887 he performed in London in celebration of the Jubilee year of Queen Victoria, and toured Europe in 1889. He set up an exhibition near the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 (properly the World's Columbian Exposition), which greatly contributed to his popularity.

As the Wild West Show toured North America over the next twenty years it became a moving extravaganza, including as many as 1200 performers. The show began with a parade on horseback, with participants from horse-culture groups that included military, Native American and show performers from North and Central America in their best attire. In addition to this there were Turks, Gauchos, Arabs, Mongols and Cossacks, each showing their own distinctive horses and colorful costumes. Visitors to this spectacle could see main events, feats of skill, staged races and sideshows. Cody's performance typically ended with a melodramatic reenactment of Custer's Last Stand in which Cody himself portrayed General Custer. Many historians claim that, at the turn of the century in 1900, Buffalo Bill Cody was the most recognizeable celebrity on earth.

And yet, despite all of the recognition and appreciation Cody's show brought for the Western and Native American cultures, Buffalo Bill saw the American West change dramatically during his tumultuous life. Buffalo herds, which had once numbered in the millions, were now threatened with extinction. Railroads crossed the plains, barbed wire and other types of fences now 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. Builders called it the Buffalo Bill Dam.

Death

Cody died on January 10, 1917. By his own request he was buried on Colorado's Lookout Mountain, west of the city of Denver, located on the edge of the Rocky Mountains and overlooking the Great Plains.

Legacy

Buffalo Bill may have been a rough-hewn outdoorsman, but was also something of a liberal, pushing for the rights of American Indians and women. In addition, despite his history of killing the buffalo, he supported their conservation by speaking out against hide-hunting and pushing for a hunting season.

Having been a frontier scout who respected the natives, he once said,

"Every Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken promises and broken treaties by the government."

Despite the depiction of Native Americans in his Wild West shows, he was a 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."

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.

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

In film and television

Buffalo Bill has been represented in the movies by:

• Himself (1898 and 1912)
• George Waggner (1924)
• John Fox, Jr. (1924)
• William Fairbanks (1928)
• Jack Hoxie (1926)
• Roy Stewart (1926)
• Tom Tyler (1931)
• Douglass Dumbrille (1933)
• Earl Dwire (1935)
• Moroni Olsen (1935)
• Ted Adams (1936)
• James Ellison (1936)
• Carlyle Moore (1938)
• Jack Rutherford (1938)
• Roy Rogers (1940)
• Joel McCrea (1944)
• Richard Arlen (1947)
• Enzo Fiermonte (1949)
• Monte Hale (1949)
• Louis Calhern (1950)
• Tex Cooper (1951)
• Clayton Moore (1952)
• Charlton Heston (1953)
• William O'Neal (1957)
• Malcolm Atterbury (1958)
• James McMullan (1963)
• Gordon Scott (1964)
• Guy Stockwell (1966)
• Rufus Smith (1967)
• Matt Clark (1974)
• Michel Piccoli (1974)
• Paul Newman (1976)
• Buff Brady (1979)
• R. L. Tolbert (1979)
• Ted Flicker (1981)
• Ken Kercheval (1984)
• Jeffrey Jones (1987)
• Brian Keith (1993)
• Dennis Weaver (1994)
• Keith Carradine (1995)
• Peter Coyote (1995)
• J. K. Simmons (2004)
• Frank Conniff (2005)

"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 untitled, but commonly known by its first two lines: "Buffalo Bill's / defunct". 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.

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.

External links and references

• buffalobill.org
• University of Wyoming on Buffalo Bill
• Americanwest.com on Buffalo Bill
• The Life of Hon. William F. Cody (1879) and An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (1920) from Project Gutenberg.
• The life of Hon. William F. Cody, known as Buffalo Bill, the famous hunter, scout and guide. An autobiography. (1879); Digitized page images & text from the Library of Congress.
• Buffalo Bill UK William Frederick 'Buffalo Bill' Cody Historical Fan Site
• Free mp3 files of the Autobiography of Buffalo Bill

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article William F. Cody