The Spurious Photo of Mrs. Wyatt Earp That Launched A Thousand Books

 October 9, 2025

   It's amazing how much damage can be done to history with just a simple little fib, here and there. If you've seen either "Tombstone" or Kevin Costner's "Wyatt Earp" you know that Josephine "Sadie" Marcus came to Tombstone with a theatrical group and met Wyatt Earp there, and, well, they eventually got room service. Oh, and in both movies she posed for an infamous semi-nude photo for C.S. Fly. In fact, in one of them Sadie is posing for the photo as the so-called Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is about to happen. It's as if they were both joined together in one big mythic tale. 

   Gee, ya think?

   So, here's the spurious photo that launched a thousand books (well, not quite, but it ain't over!)

Daily Whip Out: "Kaloma Baloney!"

   And, here's how it appeared on the groundbreaking 1976 book, "I Married Wyatt Earp":

My personal copy of "I Married Wyatt Earp"

has been read a few times as you can see

   This book not only led to the big blockbuster movies mentioned above, but it also was optioned for a 1983 TV movie starring Marie Osmond as Sadie and Bruce Boxleitner as Wyatt Earp.

Marie Osmond is Sadie Marcus!

   For me, the first crack in the facade came when I found myself in an Austin, Texas recording studio in 1978 and I noticed on the wall of the control room was a classic San Francisco rock poster for Vanilla Fudge utilizing a very familiar image and I thought to myself, "Hmmmm, how did Mrs. Wyatt Earp end up on a Vanilla Fudge rock poster?"

Vanilla Fudge Sadie?

   Well, it turns out the actual image of what is now known as "Kaloma" was first registered by the Pastime Novelty Company in New York with a copyright of 1914 and it's been around for a good while.

   Glenn Boyer claimed he received the photo in 1956 from a woman in Yuma who had a cantina named Carmelita's Place. He also claimed she claimed Wyatt Earp gave it to her when they came to Yuma on their way to the Harquahala Mining District in 1889. The only problem with this story is Carmelita was 8-years-old in 1889.

   Then Boyer changed his story and claimed it was found in Johnny Behan's personal things stored at the Tombstone Courthouse and that could be true, but it could also be true Behan was a horndog and possibly had a pinup from 1914 in his private stash. Either way, it is without question NOT Mrs. Wyatt Earp. But then, neither was Josephine Marcus. They were never legally married.

The Genesis of The Bean Scene

"I watched so many westerns when I was a kid. Gene Autry or Roy Rogers would be sitting around the campfire playing the guitar, and you could see these tin plates and beans. And I always wondered: How many beans could you eat and how much black coffee could you drink out of those tin cups without letting one go? I don’t know if 'Blazing Saddles' was the first movie to have a fart in it. But when I went to work on it, I said: Let’s tell the truth of the campfire. So we got a bunch of guys around a microphone, soaped up our armpits and . . ."

—Mel Brooks to Cal Fussman, 2008