Isn’t it interesting how attitudes have changed in the last 100 years? Take, for example, the subject of beautiful women and their role in the popular culture charts. Let’s face it, beautiful is popular and the more beautiful a woman is, or tries to be, the more famous she is.
In the 1990’s, we are overwhelmed by cosmetic advertising, promoting fake tans, face lifts, silicone implants and even acid face packs! Rigid regimes, hours of exercise, mud baths and an array of herbal treatments dictate the daily timetable of Hollywood babes, lily-skinned-nymph-like supermodels, pop stars, actresses and cosmopolitan career girls. No expense is spared in the desire for perfection. Beauty is, in fact, big business.
By contrast, attitudes to beauty in the popular culture of the American Wild West was a somewhat different ball game in the reputation stakes. From around the mid-nineteenth century onwards, there’s a little piece of American history which tells us that the famous belles of the day were anything but beautiful. They were, in fact, plain ugly. Thus they did not gain their notoriety by getting their face on the cover of the latest glossy ladies magazine but more likely on a wanted poster outside the local sheriff’s office!
Some had uncomplimentary titles and some had what we now would consider to be bizarre habits, while others were more inclined to shoot you point blank rather than seduce you. They hung out in saloon bars and they ran with some of the most hardened outlaws of the day. Among them we may include Calamity Jane, Belle Starr, Madame Moustache, Poker Alice and last, but not least, Big Nose Katie. Certainly, any one of them would have been better off selling tobacco or bullets rather than advertising Oil of Ulay! Nonetheless, these women were the stuff that legends are made of and even without the right to vote, they shot, fought, drank, stole, gambled, lied and screwed their way onto the pages of history.
While we may be surprised to see Noami Campbell chew tobacco or skin mules, these were the everyday activities of Calamity Jane (born Martha Jane Canary) who was a heavy drinker, a terrible liar, a crackshot mark’s women and, an army scout serving under General Custer. It was also said that Calamity swore like a trooper and could take any man out of the boxing ring.
During this period, the lure of the gold rush saw the development of mining towns (camps), such as Deadwood, Tombstone, Dodge City and Leadville. In the absence of a regular police force, gambling, killing, prostitution and general lawlessness prevailed. It was in Deadwood that Calamity met and fell in love with Wild Bill Hickok, although she continued to indulge in a string of affairs, often with disastrous results - several of her lovers were gunned down, ending up on Boot Hill. A similar case is that of Myra Belle Shirley, an outlaw who married the Oklahoma Indian, Sam Starr. Better known as Belle Starr, she bore a child to Cole Younger, rode alongside Jessie James and, at one stage, was jailed for horse stealing. Among her unfortunate list of partners, we may include Jim Reed, John Middleton (shot dead by her husband), Indian’s Blue Duck (also shot by her husband) and Jim July. Belle was eventually shot in the back in 1889 at the age of 41.
Poker Alice earned her title from hanging out in saloon bars with her card-shark husband. A gun-slinging, cigar-smoking brothel queen, Alice was an extravagant character and was often seen sporting the most outlandish of fashions. Before she died in 1930 at the age of 79, she was said to have shot a least 2 men. Finally, Big Nose Katie, real name Katie Fisher, was the dance-hall girlfriend of ‘Doc’ Holliday and, some reckon, he was not only an alcoholic but a short-sighted one at that for Katie was the ugliest woman ever to walk the plains around Dodge City!
Many of these women worked hard in the mining ‘camps’ during the gold rush even if they did goad men into gun fights and sleep with the winner! It’s hard to imagine them parading up and down the Parisienne cat-walk or appearing in the latest Hollywood blockbuster but, in their day, they were popular gals. My, how attitudes have changed!