Speakers Bureau Speaker
John H. Ziegler, Tombstone
John H. Ziegler is a writer who is interested in the history of the American West. Dr. Ziegler makes his home in Tombstone, where the history he talks about took place. Formerly a college philosophy and film teacher, Dr. Ziegler is now retired.
Presentations are suitable for high school as well as adult audiences.
Gunfight at the OK Corral
The OK Corral shootout is shrouded in myth. Through research in legal documents, photographs, diaries, newspapers, and scholarly studies, Ziegler examines the confrontation as it looked in the late fall of 1881, and contends that the gunfight centered on the political and financial control of Tombstone. The shootout marked the climax of a power struggle between the "world unfenced" of the cowboys and the law-and-order world of the town-centered Earps. Contrary to what novelists and screenwriters have portrayed, Tombstone in 1881 was evenly divided in its sympathies.
• Host organization provides a table.
John Wayne: American Icon
Orson Wells once remarked that one great film should be enough for any actor. John Wayne made at least ten great films, from The Big Trail (1930) to the Shootist (1976). This "oversize, powerful, and dramatic" actor created characters like the Ringo Kid, CPT Nelson Brittles, SGT John Stryker, and Rooster Cogburn that still amaze and delight audiences. Wayne worked well with the best American directors – John Ford, Raoul Walsh, Howard Hanks, Allan Dwan, and Don Siegal. In this presentation, Dr. Ziegler discusses both biographical details of Wayne’s life (his boyhood poverty, three marriages, first film job as set director, and relationship with Wyatt Earp and Harry Carey Sr.), as well as his film achievements. Ziegler includes outtakes from such famous films as Stagecoach, Fort Apache, and Red River to demonstrate Randy Robert’s and James Olson’s thesis that "John Wayne personified individual liberty."
• Host organization provides a table and VHS or DVD player.
Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday: The Tombstone Years
Wyatt Earp first met Doc Holliday in Fort Griffin, Texas, in 1877. They were an odd pairing – a robust, ambitious Midwesterner and an alcoholic consumptive from Georgia. While most people detested the probably psychotic Holliday, Earp liked and respected him, crediting Doc with saving his life in Dodge City in 1878. Doc joined Wyatt in Tombstone in 1880 and proved a key figure in Earpiana. Doc backed the Earps’ play during the OK Corral and later rode with Wyatt during the Tombstone Vendetta. After escaping from a Cochise County posse, Doc and Wyatt quarreled in New Mexico in 1882. Doc spent most of his remaining years in Colorado, dying in Glenwood Springs in 1887.
• Host organization provides a table.
Wyatt Earp: The Man in the Movies
Since the publication of Stuart Lake’s Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal in 1931, there have been more than thirty films dealing with the legends of Earp. In this presentation, Ziegler focuses on the factual accuracy of such films as My Darling Clementine, Gunfight at the OK Corral, Hour of the Gun, Doc, Sunset, Tombstone, and Wyatt Earp. He includes outtakes from these films that clash with or mirror the historical Earp. Particular attention is devoted to the actors portraying Earp (Henry Fonda, James Garner, Harris Yulin) and their differences and similarities with the real person.
• Host organization provides a table and VHS player.
