Wyatt Earp
Directed By: Rob Rapley. Producers: Rob Rapley, Kathryn Lord, Deborah Clancy Porfido. Editor: Bruce Shaw.

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Synopsis:
Wyatt Earp has been portrayed in countless movies and television shows by some of Hollywood’s greatest actors, including Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, and more recently, Kevin Costner, but these popular fictions often belie the complexities and flaws of a man whose life is a lens on politics, justice and economic opportunity in the American frontier.

As a young man, Wyatt Earp was a caricature of the Western lawman, spending his days drinking in saloons, gambling, and visiting brothels. He gained notoriety as the legendary gunman in the shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, but shortly after his death in 1929, distressed Americans down on their luck transformed Wyatt Earp into a folk hero. “We think of him as the ultimate example of a man controlling his own destiny. Although there's some truth to that, the fact is he spent almost all of his life being tossed around by the vast forces that were reshaping the West,” explains Rob Rapley, who wrote, directed, and produced the one-hour film.

“How the West was won is one of our greatest American narratives,” says American Experience executive producer Mark Samels. “In the tradition of Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill, and our other Western histories, Wyatt Earp examines an ordinary man’s role in that larger-than-life story, and how he became the legend that lives on today.”