Tim McCoy’s,
1938 version of a Wild West show didn’t last long, bankrupt in less than a
month. McCoy’s version was more of an anthropological look at the way the west
once was, instead of a Wild West thrill show. With Buffalo Bill, whose show
went bankrupt in 1913 after a 25 year run, and others long gone, McCoy had
hoped to get Americans and then Europeans interested in the old west once
again. But moving pictures and by 1938, talking ones, were enough to satisfy
people’s old west cravings. McCoy seemed to be the old, too little, too late.
McCoy grew up in
the east but moved to Wyoming and became a cowboy as a young man. He joined the
Army during WW1 and again in WW2. He rose to the rank of Colonel in the Army
Air Corps and Army Air Force. He was the Adjutant General for the state of
Wyoming between the wars and given the brevet rank of Brigadier General at age
28. At the time he was the youngest Brigadier General in the history of the
U.S. Army.
In 1942, McCoy ran for the
Republican nomination for the open US Senate Seat from Wyoming. He lost in the
primary and immediately entered the army again.
McCoy became an
honorary member of the Arapaho tribe and was given the name of, High Eagle, by
the tribe on the Wind River Reservation.
Tim McCoy continued making movies
and touring with other wild west shows after the war ended but never had either
the money or the inclination to try his own Wild West show again.
1 comment:
Thanks for the bio. Did not know these other sides of the man.
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