May 31, 2009
Love And Bullets: The Real Bonnie & Clyde
Their Crime Spree Ended In A Hail of Gunfire 75 Years Ago, But Their Legend Remains
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Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, whose bloody crime spree in the Central United States during the early 1930s captured the public fascination. The pair were slain in a hail of gunfire near Bienville Parish, La., on May 23, 1934. (AP Photo)
It's real simple, it's a love story ... but not your typical love story. And far from simple.
This is the story of Bonnie and Clyde, the infamous couple behind one of the most notorious crime sprees in American history.
"They were just two kids who fell in love and fell off the wrong side of the law's fence, and that was what it was," said Boots Hinton, who runs the Bonnie and Clyde Ambush Museum.
What it was, was a two-year long, multi-state rampage.
From 1932 to 1934, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were perhaps the best-known outlaws in the United States, equals of the likes of Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger.
"The history, the mythology is that, 'Oh, they were sort of Robin Hood thieves, rob from the rich, gave to the poor.' And that is not true," said author Jeff Guinn.
They may not have been Robin Hoods, but they were legends ... lovers. With their gang, they robbed and killed their way through the central United States. Bonnie and Clyde stole money, cars, and guns. Their targets were mostly gas stations and mom-and-pop stores. Eight lawmen would die at the hands of the Barrow gang.
Their fame grew with every new victim and with each escape from the law.
"The media was eating it up," said Buddy Barrow Williams, Clyde's nephew. "And law enforcement were looking kind of, you know, like they're really failing their job. But that's what made Clyde so famous, 'cause he was so elusive."
(AP Photo)
"There are these scandalous pictures, these amazing pictures, which immediately appear in the Joplin newspapers, and then, thanks to the wire services, all over the country," said Guinn, author of "Go Down Together; The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde." "Now, suddenly, almost overnight, the Barrow gang's no longer regional. They are national celebrities. It changed (snaps fingers) like that."
Bonnie and Clyde were front page news. They had traveled far, indeed ...
Clyde Barrow was the fifth of seven children. The expression "dirt poor" understates the way he grew up,
When he was a teenager, Clyde's family moved to West Dallas to a notorious slum called "The Bog." Guinn described this tent community:
"You could have thousands of people all along here. The Barrows, all these poor people pitching a tent, the Barrows don't even have a tent, they've got a wagon, and at night they would sleep under the wagon."
From their campsite, young Clyde could look across the Trinity River to downtown Dallas, to a life that was out of reach.
"What it must have been like at night when it was dark here and there's nothing but a few cooking fires, and then right across the river a couple miles away you see these gleaming skyscrapers with all these wonderful things … what kid wouldn't want more of that?" said Guinn.
To get more of that, Clyde turned to crime by the age of 16 … first, small-time thefts that barely got him noticed, except by police.
Then, at a party one night in 1930, he met another poor kid from West Dallas. She also wanted more. Bonnie Parker was tiny, cute and ambitious.
"It was apparently love at first sight," said Guinn. "They were both people who wanted other's approval. They wanted glamour, they wanted excitement. They found in each other the things they were looking for."
Not long after they met, Clyde went off to prison for car theft. Bonnie's mother begged her to forget him. But the couple vowed to stay together, forever.
"We wouldn't be talking about this if there wasn't a film out in 1967 about them," said Dan Zak, features writer for the Washington Post.
(Warner Brothers)
"The fact that it was a man and a woman and they were young and they were actually in love in real life, you know, you can build a whole movie around that," said Zak. "We've been doing that for, you know, over 100 years: Building movies around two people in love. And it's not something we ever are going to tire of."
Still, don't believe everything you see in the movies. "You had this kind of cultural landmark that compressed their story into a matter of months, not years, and turned them into beautiful people who were flawed but still you could kind of get in there and root for them," said Zak.
But you won't find any fans of the film among descendants of Clyde Barrow. They know the real story.
"Nothing glamorous about it, period," said Buddy Williams. "Always looking over your shoulder. What money you're gonna get, where you gonna spend it? Where you gonna go? I mean, you're just like a hunted, you know, animal."
Which bring us to this man: Retired Texas Ranger Frank Hamer. Hamer's mission: Bring 'em in, dead or alive.
"Hamer himself used the power of mythology and was this huge man for those days ... 6'2", 6'3", weights over 200 pounds," said Guinn. "He calls his gun 'Old Lucky. His gun is famous. And he claims in interviews he can see a bullet in flight. And he can hear a crack of thunder thirty seconds before anybody else can."
Hamer tailed his prey for months. Then, in the spring of 1934, he had them cornered.
It happened in a small town 45 miles east of Shreveport. Until that day, Gibsland was perhaps best known as Louisiana's daffodil capital.
Today, it's home to not one, but two museums dedicated to the legend of Bonnie and Clyde, and the events of May 23, 1934.
Bonnie and Clyde were alone that morning as they drove south out of Gibsland to pick up a member of their gang. What they didn't know was they were driving into an ambush. When their car reached the top of a hill, a posse of six law enforcement officers opened fire from the trees.
(AP Photo)
Olen Jackson runs Gibsland's original museum, but that's not his real claim to fame. Jackson was 23 when he heard those 140-odd shots that morning.
"When they got shot, I was plowing in the fields and I got me a drink of water," he said. "Plug plug plug, I heard 'em. 'Hot dog,' I says, 'that sucker sure can set off some dynamite!'"
A couple of doors away is the Ambush museum run by Boots Hinton. He, too, has a claim to fame: He's the son of Ted Hinton, a member of Frank Hamer's posse. According to his dad, the man who opened fire on the duo was Prentiss Oakley. "Fired the first two shots, bull barrel 35 Remington - hit Clyde right there. That was it," said Boots.
Film shot by Ted Hinton immediately after the ambush shows the bullet-riddled car, their arsenal of weapons, and the limp bodies of 24-year-old Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, just 23.
"Ted had a sayin', he said, 'It puts Romeo and Juliet to shame,'" recalled Hinton.
They died together, but Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow would be buried apart, in separate Dallas cemeteries.
Bonnie's mother made good on her vow that, even though he'd had her in life, Clyde wasn't going to have her daughter in death.
Even so, when we remember Clyde Barrow ... Bonnie Parker is at his side.
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Add a Comment
- As a child I remeber the carnivals and firs around the country all had the bonnie and clyde car they were shot and killed while driving. I figure between the stories and myths . These two were shot and killed thirty one times that included a entire fleet of cars. The truth was people would buy a old car from a salvage yard shoot it full of holes and tow it around the country. They same was done with biggfoot and the largest alligator in the world. Half he people had never seen one up close they wouldn't if if was the largest or not.
- Reply to this comment
- Do you guys even hear yourselves? Your minds might be a nice place to visit but I should would hate to live there.
They were criminal punks and they got what they deserved. Its just too bad it did not happen sooner. - Reply to this comment
- Bonnie never killed anyone. In fact, she never even carried a gun. She wasn't wanted for murder. Yet, she was gunned down in cold blood. Machinegunned in the face. Something is wrong with this picture.
Posted by toooldtovote at 12:26 PM : Jun 1, 2009
Is that a fact???????
"By the time of the jailbreak, former Texas Ranger Captain Francis (Frank) Hamerqv and his associates had begun to track Bonnie and Clyde. On Easter Sunday, 1934, near Grapevine, Texas, two highway patrolmen unwittingly stopped to check on the wanted couple's car, which was stopped by the side of the road. She and Clyde opened fire on the officers and Bonnie, according to witnesses, walked over to one of the officers, rolled him over with her foot and fired her sawedoff shotgun at the officer's head. She then reportedly said, "look-a-there, his head bounced just like a rubber ball."
http://www.famoustexans.com/bonnieparker.htm
LOLOLOL How about that!!!!! - Reply to this comment
- Remember law Men died at thier hands so dont HERO them they where ruthless killers and small time cowards hiding behind guns, The real hero is Frank Hamner and the vilant men who hunted thes animals.
- Reply to this comment
- Well, despite the nice write-up, I still see the AMBUSH for what it was..a killing.
Arrests were not sought, and had another car come up the road...well, it would
have been too bad and none of the police would have gone to jail in those days.
All prior to Miranda and police procedure, this gang struck at random and killed
when it felt threatened, much like gangs of today. Police back then beat suspects that were arrested and obtained confessions to any one of an assortment of crimes which
were on the books...Despite the crime spree, the obvious still comes back to me
that a Texas Ranger crossed the border into Lousiana where he had no jurisdiction
and was not in hot pursuit of a suspect....and conspired to commit murder of
persons driving a car down that road. Identification would have been hard to verify
PRIOR to shooting....and with so many holes in the car...there was no fire from
either Clyde or Bonnie. And had there been one trigger-happy lawman, how would you stop them all from shooting.
The fact that Police were killed prior to this ambush meant that both were to be killed on sight. Good thing Police did not kill any innocent civilians since they had exhibited poor skills in the previous two years to trapping the gang. Sounds alot like present day SWAT. - Reply to this comment
- Bonnie never killed anyone. In fact, she never even carried a gun. She wasn't wanted for murder. Yet, she was gunned down in cold blood. Machinegunned in the face. Something is wrong with this picture.
- Reply to this comment
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