As Lake continued work on the manuscript, his relationship with Sadie deteriorated. He knew Sadie had much to hide from her days in Tombstone, and she fought mightily to keep her secrets. Lake knew part of the story and sought help from Houghton Mifflin editor Ira Rich Kent, asking if he should tell the story of Sadie's involvement in the Earp-Behan feud. Lake added a handwritten note at the bottom of the letter: "Of course, if I so much as hint at all this in the Ms. Sadie is going to raise hell."3
Sadie did raise hell, no matter what Lake did. She went as far as consulting a lawyer about suing Lake.
On Kent's advice, Lake barely mentioned the conflict over an unnamed woman in Tombstone, then told of Wyatt's wooing Sadie in San Francisco years later. Throughout the writing, Sadie continually asked Lake for copies of the un finished manuscript and beseeched him to hurry the book as she pleaded poverty. Late in 1930, both Lake and Sadie received a big surprise with the publication of Saint Johnson, a novel by William R. Burnett. A tale of brothers' vengeance in Tombstone, the book was clearly based on the Earp experience. Sadie accused Lake of stealing the story and writing a novel under a different name. Lake grew tired of the interruptions and accusations and wrote to Kent, "I'll put it this way now: I think that Mrs. Earp is very completely upset, mentally.... I feel sorry for her, very sorry. She is, however, the most suspicious person whom I have encountered."4
Angry and frightened, Sadie headed East to meet with Kent in Boston in early October. Kent wrote to Lake that Sadie had expressed her anxiety that the book should be a "nice, clean story," and that the incidents of rescuing a woman from a burning building and guarding a pay train were more important than the gunfights. Kent wrote, "It was plain to see that Mrs. Earp was deeply concerned about the matter. She sat at my desk for the better part of an hour, tears rolling down her cheeks in her emotion. She told me of various disagreements with you and with her refusal to meet your requests in some particulars." Kent consoled her and told her the revised version of the book would be more to her liking. Kent wrote, "She would much prefer that her husband's memory be left in as quiet a state as possible. I tried to show her that if there were to be any book at all, it must deal with the exciting episodes in which Earp played so important a part. It is obviously a situation calling for great tact, patience, kindliness and forbearance on your part."5
As Lake squabbled with Sadie, Kent and the editors at Houghton continued to implore the writer to shorten his manuscript, primarily by making cuts in the Tombstone section, and to contain himself in his idolizing. Other editors to whom Kent showed the manuscript "grew a little weary of having Earp presented in such a uniformly glowing light and they feel that the Tombstone incident has the air of being presented not quite ingenuously-that is, it evidently still seems a bit too much like a brief for the defense."6
Even when Lake toned down the praise, Earp came off as a candidate for sainthood. But the book read well-very well-and the editors at Houghton appreciated Lake's effort. Lake and Sadie anguished over the title. He suggested "Wyatt Earp: Gunfighter." She objected. Houghton representative Harrison Leussler came back with "Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal." Again Sadie complained.
"The title 'Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal,' I am not satisfied with. I would prefer much more that the title be just'Wyatt Earp,' " she wrote Lake. "Thus far, what I have read of the story impresses me more as that of the blood and thunder type than a biography." Whether Sadie Earp liked it or not, "Frontier Marshal" stuck, and would continue to stick to Wyatt Earp.7
The series in the Saturday Evening Poet appeared in November of 1930, priming America for the tale of a man who brought law to the frontier. In June of 1931, the book went into production. In August, Lake's relationship with Sadie reached the boiling point over her failure to return two working copies of his manuscript. He wrote to her, "Why did you do this? If, all through this job of producing and marketing Wyatt Earp's biography you had deliberately intended to hamper my work in every way possible you couldn't have done a much more thorough job of it."8
By the time the book appeared, Lake and Sadie Earp were struggling to maintain a shred of cordiality. She sent angry business letters followed by friendly little notes, inquiring about family and minor details. Lake would write to her that she was receiving bad advice on such things as movie rights and copyright laws. He suspected Flood was behind the misinformation, although he was never certain.
As publication neared, Lake began fearing he had wasted more than two years of his life and much of his money on the project. He thought the book would sell only about thirty-five hundred copies, and his half-after the split with Sadie-would not come close to covering his expenses. America was in the throes of the Great Depression, and people were not buying books as they had three years earlier. He had ominous expectations of failure about a project that once seemed certain of success.
In October of 1931, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal began trickling into bookstores. Stuart N. Lake suddenly went from magazine writer to legend-maker. The saga of a brave lawman fighting for justice captured the hearts of America. It was the right book at the right time. In those dreary days of Depression and Prohibition, the streets of major cities had suddenly grown dangerous, with gangsters rattling machine guns and robbers heisting banks. Americans sensed a national crime wave and feared their neighborhoods had grown unsafe. With the likes of Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, or any of their numerous imitators prowling around, safety was only an illusion, or at least that is what many people believed. Americans needed a hero, and Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal came galloping out of Boston.
Florence Finch Kelly summed up the appeal of the story in her New York Tunes book review: "That situation [in Tombstone] appears to have been not unlike Chicago's predicament, to say nothing of New York's, and what both those cities need seems to be a few Wyatt Earps." 9
The saga met with instant success, selling out the first two print runs totaling seven thousand copies almost immediately. The sales made Lake and Sadie Earp solvent in the midst of the Depression, and Sadie kept planning. Motion pictures came with words now, and a talkie of the Wyatt Earp saga would cement the legend. Lake tried to sell the rights, with his agent suggesting Gary Cooper as "the living image of Wyatt Earp in his relentless youth."10 Sadie kept writing him with suggestions and steaming at the content of the book. She grew so angry that she contacted attorney Nellie Bush to sue Lake. Bush declined the case.11
But before Hollywood found Wyatt Earp, Hollywood discovered Burnett's Saint Johnson-same story, different royalties. Wyatt Earp, with a different name, first appeared on the screen in the 1932 movie, Law and Order, with Walter Huston starring as the laconic Frame Johnson, riding into corrupt Tombstone. During filming, Sadie visited the Universal Studios lot to protest to Burnett, already known for his novel Little Caesar. Burnett recalled: "I talked to her for an afternoon, and she turned out to be a very nice woman. She realized I felt very strongly that Earp was a hero, a western hero, and we became friends."12
Even as the movie based on Saint Johnson went to the screen, Frontier Marshal continued to build momentum. Lake had created a wonderful story of a man with few flaws. Through his discussions and correspondence with Earp, he had continued to ask the tough questions, as a journalist should. He asked about the incident in Wichita when Wyatt dropped his gun-Wyatt didn't want it in the book. He asked about the rumored stint as Andy Lawrence's bodyguardWyatt declined to discuss it. Lake gave no indication of knowing of Mattie's existence, and Wyatt apparently did not volunteer the information.
Earp did not make up stories so much as he covered them up, a natural human reaction. Not many folks would want their biography to include a discussion of their adolescent acne. Wyatt Earp had more than a few pimples to hide. Lake had compromised, ignoring the Wichita firing and leaving out other embarrassments. His letters to Earp show an earnest determination to tell an accurate story, with the difficult details covered; Earp wanted all blemishes ignored. Lake probably
understood the logic in not exposing all his subject's flaws"Wyatt Earp: Frontier Philanderer, Con Man, Gambler, and Marshal" would not have made nearly as appealing a title.
Lake also made a tactical decision, choosing to write the book as an interview with a series of first-person quotes and stories. He represented that most of the details came directly from his subject. In the foreword, Lake wrote: "Wyatt Earp was persuaded to devote the closing months of his long life to the narration of his full story, to a firsthand and a factual account of his career. It is upon this account that the succeeding pages are entirely based." Lake clearly used many sources for his information, then credited Earp, while adding quotes Earp never said. A decade later, Lake wrote to Rascoe explaining why he had falsified many quotes: "There had been so much erroneous matter printed about the Earp exploits, none ever put down in the order of cause and effect, that I was hunting for a method which would stamp mine as authentic. Possibly it was a form of 'cheating.' But, when I came to the task, I decided to [employ] the direct quotation form sufficiently often to achieve my purpose. I've often wondered if I did not overdo in this respect."13
It was cheating, and it was inaccurate. Because of Lake's overuse of the first-person device, Earp would be blamed-or credited-for making up or enhancing much of his own legend when actually most of the false details came from Lake and the Kansas old-timers who had spun some exaggerated yarns to Lake during his trip to Dodge City.
And there were fundamental mistakes. Lake had the gunfight take place inside the O.K. Corral, not in a vacant lot down the street. More misleading, he almost always cast Wyatt as the top-dog lawman in every situation, both in Dodge and in Arizona. Lake also made the outrageous claim that the cowboys fired the first two shots at the gunfight, while Wyatt consistently said he and one cowboy fired first.
Frontier Marshal emerged as the story of a white knight on horseback, defending the populace against corrupt officials and vile desperadoes. Lake erased the many shades of gray from Tombstone to create a conflict of good versus evil, rather than exploring the complex questions that actually existed. In Kansas, every minor incident turned into a confrontation for the ages. Earp's ancestry became a source of glory. Even Earp's weapon of choice became part of the image. By Lake's account, Earp received a long-barreled Colt as a gift from writer Ned Buntline, a pistol that gave him superior firepower to that of his foes.14
Many of the biographies of the day, especially of frontier heroes, were expected to be dramatic and exciting. Lake created a classic of the genre. Lewis Gannett's review in the New York Tribune said, "It has all the exciting qualities of a dime novel, the added value of authentic history, and the curious virtue that it might be used as a Sunday School text or a Hollywood scenario.""
Wyatt Earp emerged from the pages of Frontier Marshal as a hero who could do no wrong. Stuart N. Lake created a flesh-and-blood superhero, and he did it so convincingly that the majority of his readers believed unquestioningly. Many of Earp's old friends, sick of the false stories, congratulated Lake on his authenticity although they must have seen the many inaccuracies. Pronouncing the book "the most satisfactory story of the old West that has been published," John Clum wrote: "I have no doubt that this fine tribute to Wyatt Earp will be eagerly sought and widely read, and that the story will grow in popularity and interest with the passing years -thus securing for this foremost frontier marshal the public recognition and appreciation that his heroic services on behalf of the public welfare have so well merited."16
There were murmurs from a few doubters who didn't remember the stories quite that way. In 1934, Pink Simms, a former range rider who claimed to have known Earp, wrote a letter to writer Jay Kalez puzzling at the exploits. "Since Stuart Lake interviewed Wyatt Earp in Hollywood and wrote his articles ... Earp has blossomed as a great western hero and a marvel with a revolver. I want to assure you that these stories presumed to have come from Wyatt himself have not a vestige of truth. It isn't like Wyatt to have told them and I often wonder if he did. He was alive when Walter Noble Burns' book was published, but he was dead when Lake's stuff came out. I never heard Wyatt talk like that; he was rather a quiet sort of person with many likable qualities."17
Down in Tombstone, James C. Hancock started spinning his own stories. He had been a teenager in Galeyville during the Earp period, hearing the cowboy version of Earp and accepting it. Of the Curley Bill killing, he said, "Wyatt must have had an extra dose of 'hop' when he dreamed that pipe dream, and his authors must have had several strong pulls at the same pipe."18 Hancock came up with the most bizarre charge of all. "I have understood that Wyatt Earp was supposed to have left a publicity fund out of which any writer that would blow him up to the public as a great hero and lion was to be well paid. Surely some of them must have been working overtime and getting a bonus for they have turned out some of the most impossible and nonsensical stuff that was ever published and make the old time yellow back dime novel that was so popular in our boyhood days turn green with envy."19 The thought of the impoverished Earps leaving a publicity fund is beyond absurdity, but Arizona old-timers who had grown up on the myth of Earp as villain believed that Lake had canonized a fraud.
BEFORE SADIE EARP BEGAN HER TROUBLES WITH LAKE, she faced an immediate problem: no arrangement had been made yet for burial of her husband. Earp's body was cremated after the services, and she kept the urn in her Los Angeles cottage for nearly six months. Then, in July, it was brought to the Marcus family plot at Hills of Eternity Cemetery in Colma, near San Francisco. For nearly three decades mystery would surround the final resting place of Wyatt Earp.20
Lake succeeded in selling the movie rights to Fox in 1932, sending Sadie a check for $3,375, half the profits. In the Depression, it was a tidy stake for the coming years. She protested quickly, writing to film agents Collier & Flinn that she would not allow the sale. Lake had to sweet-talk her into approval before the sale could be completed. The film Frontier Marshal, starring George O'Brien as "Michael Wyatt," appeared in 1934 and barely drew notice.
Sadie insisted to her relatives that she never received a penny from Lake. Hildreth Halliwell recalled Sadie complaining that the writer had cheated her out of her share and she had no money. More likely, the cash went quickly across the green felt tables in San Bernardino.
Sadie carried on for fifteen years after Wyatt's death, through good times and bad. She spent much time in Oakland visiting her sister, but most of her final years were spent in Los Angeles, complaining about her health or whatever other problems arose. At various times she angered other members of the Earp family, most notably Virgil's widow, Allie, also living in Los Angeles. During these years, Sadie made her own changes. She began referring to herself as "Josie," and signed Josie to her correspondence with her family, although her family had always called her Sadie. She told relatives and friends she grew up in a rich family -Sadie the baker's daughter became the offspring of a wealthy San Francisco merchant. Gradually, she became a most unwelcome visitor in the home of Wyatt's old friends the Welshes.
Christenne Welsh remembers Sadie coming to visit, usually two or three times a week, at dinnertime. "She was always broke and always begging. When we'd see her, we'd have to hide; we only had enough food for ourselves. She'd knock on the door and say in her high voice, 'I know you're in there, I know you're in there."' The family ran into the bedroom and hid under the bed when they saw Sadie coming.2' Elena Welsh Armstrong, Christenne's sister, recalls the voice as "high-pitched and sharp. It kind of grated on you. It was during the depression, and my mother was working very hard to feed us. She'd see it disappear when Sadie came and sat down at the table."22
Sadie fell into serious depression with the death of her sister Hattie in April of 1936. The ever-changing Sadie, now well into her seventies, again contacted Lake. "I am very lonely for my dear sister and it seems like I have nothing now to live for. My darling husband left me and now my best dear friend has gone on after. I am just miserable and so alone."23
Sadi
e Earp needed a new project in her life, and she found one. She had never been satisfied with Lake's vision of her husband. The Bold Knight of Tombstone had not been good enough to satisfy her belief in Wyatt's goodness. Around 1937, Sadie read an obituary notice of an Earp relative and looked up two sisters, Mabel Earp Cason and Vinnolia Earp Ackerman, both with some experience as writers, and approached them about the possibility of writing the story her way. By this time Sadie had grown more docile, and Jeanne Cason Laing, Mabel's daughter, affectionately recalled the woman who moved into her home: "She'd drive you nuts, but we all liked her. She was always interested in my sister Rae and me finding Mr. Right, and she'd talk to us about that. She made a scarf for me, hand sewn, when I graduated from high school. I remember her fondly."24 However, the attempted book did not go well. Mabel Cason described the events in a letter to the Arizona Historical Society:
We worked with her for four years, she was much of the time in our homes. We were very busy and didn't have time to check on all other possible avenues of information. My sister was in editorial work and I was teaching high school art besides maintaining a home for my college-age children. But we took voluminous notes, all in my sister's shorthand. We did all the research in source material that we could find. Houghton Mifflin Company, Publishers, through their agent in Los Angeles where we lived, encouraged us in this. But when we sent them the finished manuscript they asked for the complete Tombstone story. She simply would not give it to us. She had told us much about their time in Tombstone, how she had gone there with a theatrical troupe playing Gilbert and Sullivan's "HMS Pinafore" and that she had met Johnny Behan there and went back later with the understanding that they were to be married.... Finally he began running around with a married woman and neglecting her and she met Wyatt Earp. She never made any mention of his wife....
Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend Page 54