July 9, 2006 Bonus Blog
Henry Beck is finishing up his Tombstone Bombshell article this weekend, and on Friday, when he met with Meghan and I, we got to comparing notes on just how influential the move Tombstone has been to a new generation of fans. I told them the story about being at a book signing for my new Wyatt Earp book in January of 1994 (the movie came out in December of 1993) and I encountered a guy in line with his young son. The dad was standing behind the son, and the dad had his hands on the kid's shoulders. I looked at the dad and said, "How would you like it signed?" and he said, "It's not for me, it's for my son here." I looked at the kid, who must have been about ten and said, "Really? You're interested in a history book about Wyatt Earp? Why?"

The kid beamed and said one word: "Tombstone!"

I was floored. Up to that moment, all my book buyers had been Baby Boomers and older. This was the first kid I ever enountered at one of my book signings. And he wasn't the last. There were at least three or four other kids in line behind the first one, and as they came up I said, "Have you seen Tombstone?" And they all nodded enthusiastically.

This quickly became a standard opener for me. "Okay," I'd say as they came forward, "How many times have you seen Tombstone?" And the answers were stunning: "Twenty five times!" "I watched it just before I came here today." "My dad and I have seen it 255 times." "My dad puts the movie on random scenes and I watch it every night before I go to sleep." (The all time champ, of course, is Cowboy Dan, who had seen the film some 5,000 times, and this was in 2003!).

So our new poll is of major interest to me. Have you seen Tombstone? And more importantly, Email me above and tell me how many times you've seen it.

"I'm feeling just Capital!"
—Curly Bill (Powers Booth), in Tombstone