Trivia for
Tombstone (1993)

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• Director George P. Cosmatos is quoted as saying that all lightning and mustaches are real.
  
  
• The nocturne that Doc Holliday plays is Chopin's Noctune #19 in E minor, Opus 72 No. 1.
  
  
• Actor Trademark: [Val Kilmer] flipping a poker chip over his knuckles.
  
  

• The real Wyatt Earp's fifth cousin, Wyatt Earp, plays Billy Claiborne.
  
  
• Although the gunfight at the O. K. Corral plays out more or less as it did in real life, the filmmakers made several small changes. In the actual incident it was Ike Clanton who ran through the corral to escape (in the film it is Barnes who runs out the back). The film instead shows Ike Clanton running into the photographer's studio while firing a few shots back at the Earps and Doc. In reality, it was Billy Claiborne who performed this action before escaping unscathed.
  
  
• The Latin phrases spoken by Doc and Ringo have implied meaning beyond their literal translation. The conversation could be translated into vernacular English this way: DOC: Wine loosens the tongue. RINGO: You better pay attention to what you're doing. DOC: Go tell someone else. RINGO: (tapping his gun) Fools must learn through experience. DOC: Rest in peace.
  
  
• Kevin Jarre began as director, filming all of Charlton Heston's scenes. After he was fired, Kurt Russell rallied the cast and crew to continue shooting, for fear that the studio would shut the picture down instead of hiring a new director. Russell acted as director (unofficially) until the studio sent George P. Cosmatos to take over as the director.
  
  
• Kevin Jarre's original script for Tombstone was significantly longer than the final film. It was intended to be an epic, detailing the lives of all the combatant parties in the story. After Jarre was fired as director, George P. Cosmatos hired John Fasano to trim the script to focus primarily on the Earp family (to make the already-delayed shoot more manageable). Fasano received co-author credit in early promotional materials, but his name was removed from the film's credits (probably due to Writer Guild arbitration). Instead, Fasano was given an Associate Producer credit.
  
  
• When the Earps first enter Tombstone, a grave marker can be seen in the cemetery that reads "Here lies Lester Moore, Four slugs from a .44, No Les No more." There is an actual tombstone in Tombstone, Arizona that has that epitaph.
  
  
• The excerpt from William Shakespeare's "Henry the V" that is recited by Mr. Fabian is the same passage that Dutton Peabody speaks to himself while walking down the street in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).
  
  
• The expression "I'm your huckleberry" spoken by Doc means "I'm the perfect man for the job." It is not a reference to Mark Twain's Huck Finn, as that book was published in 1885 and this movie takes place in 1881.
  
  
• Here is the translation of what Doc and Johnny Ringo are saying to one another in Latin: Doc Holliday: In vino veritas. (In wine there is truth.) Johnny Ringo: Age quod agis. (Do what you do.) Doc Holliday: Credat Judaeus Apella, non ego. (Let Apella the Jew believe, not I.) Johnny Ringo: Iuventus stultorum magister. (Youth is the teacher of fools.) Doc Holliday: In pace requiescat. (May he rest in peace.)
  
  
• Val Kilmer has been quoted as saying that screenwriter Kevin Jarre insisted the actors wear real wool costumes, in accordance with the time period. During the scene in the Birdcage Theater, Val Kilmer says, a thermometer was placed on the set, and it read 134 degrees Fahrenheit. Kilmer suggested jokingly that this was the reason Doc Holliday killed so many people: "It's just, like, he wore wool in the summer, in the Arizona territory, and that made him mad."
  
  
• Robert Mitchum was signed on to star as Old Man Clanton. On the first day of shooting he fell from his horse and injured his back, forcing him to quit the part. Instead, Mitchum provides the narration at the beginning and end of the film. The part of Old Man Clanton was eliminated from the script.
  
  
• Many scenes/subplots cut from the film still did not make the expanded DVD version: one sequence was the Cowboys' bonfire rally/mourning scene, which takes place the night they buried the Clantons killed in the OK Corral gunfight. A brief shot can be seen in some of the trailers (Curly Bill throwing a bottle of whiskey into the bonfire).
  
  
• In the original teasers for the film, John Fasano is credited as being co-screenwriter. His name disappeared by the time the trailers were released.
  
  
• Longtime veteran western actor Glenn Ford had originally signed on as a cameo role in this film; however, poor health forced him to withdraw.
  
  
• The line quoted by Doc at the end of the fight at the OK Corral is historically true and was reported in the Tombstone papers reporting the fight. When confronted by one of the Cowboys at point blank range, the Cowboy reportedly said, "I got you now Doc, you son of a bitch," to which Doc gleefully retorted, "You're a daisy if you do!"
  
  
• In an interview with True West magazine (Oct. 2006), star Kurt Russell admits that after original director Kevin Jarre was fired, he directed a majority of the picture. According to Russell, credited director George P. Cosmatos served merely to make things run smoothly. Also in the True West interview, Kurt Russell states that the film was nearly cast with Richard Gere as Wyatt Earp and Willem Dafoe as Doc Holliday.
  
  
• Then-72-year old Harry Carey Jr. played Marshal Fred White in spite of the fact that the real Fred White was about 31 years old at the time of his murder.
  
  
• Throughout the movie, Ike constantly refers to the Earps as "Pimps". This was due to the fact that the Earps' wives were all Dodge City prostitutes and that the women would sometimes continue to sell themselves out for extra income while they were in Dodge.
  
  
• At the Birdcage Theater, one of the cowboys sees the juggler, "Professor Gilman" and says "Aw! Professor Gilman? I seen him in Bisbee. He catches things." To which another cowboy stands up, pulls a gun and says "Hey, Professor! Catch this!" and shoots one of the bowling pins he's juggling. This is based on a true anecdote told in the Time Life book series "The Old West-Gunfighters" profile of the OK Corral shootout. As in real life, the juggler raced off stage yelling "My God! They're really shooting at us!" Actually...."Professor" Gillam was performing a show in which blanks would be fired at him, and he would spit slugs out of his mouth that he had already prepared, when the cowboy made his "Catch this" remark.
  
  
• "I'll be damned" really are the final words of John "Doc" Holliday. To this day, historians have debated on why Doc said that. The main theory is that Doc had become a gunfighter hoping that someone would kill him and spare him the effects of tuberculosis and that he was amazed that that the disease is what killed him: not the drinking, gambling, or gunfighting.
  
  
• Doc Holiday's last words "I'll be damned" were uttered when he realized he had bare feet. Doc swore he would "die with his boots on".
  
  

• SPOILER: As extraordinary as the scene is in which Wyatt kills Curly Bill Brocius in the creek, it is true. During the shootout in the creek when Wyatt kills Curly Bill, the next person he shoots is Johnny Barnes (the cowboy who yells "JESUS CHRIST!!"). As in real life, Wyatt shoots Barnes in the stomach. However, Barnes was not killed on site. He managed to escaped and died in a farmhouse. However, before dying, he told the story of how Wyatt REALLY did walk into a hail of Curly Bill's gunfire unscathed and walked right up to Bill and shot him point blank with both barrels of a double-barreled shotgun.
  
  

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