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In his forty years as a freelance writer and newspaper reporter, Bill Kelly had interviewed and written about hundreds of names familiar to us: Mickey Rooney, Rory Calhoun, Sylvester Stallone, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Broderick Crawford, Henry Fonda, Victor Mature, Ginger Rogers, Ida Lupino, John Wayne, Aldo Ray, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Leonard, Muhammad Ali, and Henry Armstrong are among many.

Bill has authored an astounding 15,000 magazine articles -- a phenomenal feat for any writer. He had appeared in Poker Digest, Card Player, Real West, True West, Treasure Search, Treasure Cache, Lost Treasure, South Bay, Country Review, True Detective, Inside Detective, California Highway Patrolman, Oklahoma State Trooper, Texas Highway Patrol, Inland Empire, Reader’s Digest, Poker World, Ring Magazine, Boxing Illustrated, K.O., and Variety.

His freelance work has appeared in too many California newspapers to list here, but they include, Herald Examiner, Orange County Register and Press-Enterprise.

His critically-acclaimed Collector’s Edition of Bill Kelly’s Encyclopedia of Gunmen is a reference book treasured by historians and Western buffs alike. Bill’s second book, Treasure Trails and Buried Bandit Booty, is a collection of true accounts of buried outlaw swag, and contains clues to reportedly hidden loot throughout the United States.

Bill recently appeared on the History channel as an old west historian in High Rollers: The History of Gambling.

His latest book is Gamblers of the Old West ($24.95). An autograph copy can be purchased by contacting Bill by e-mail: wildbill@cosmoaccess.net or by snail mail: 29759 Longhorn Dr. Canyon Lake, Ca. 92804.

Bill Was born in Tom’s River, New Jersey, on May 5, 1927. He now resides in Canyon Lake, California, where he spends most of his waking hours writing tons of articles to be enjoyed by thousands of readers.

His book, EMPTY SADDLES, is a nostalgic tribute to the sagebrush sagas of the 1940s and 50s, and contains Bill’s interviews with fifty Cowboy stars that made cinema history. No release date has been set for this book at this writing

DOC HOLLIDAY

The son of a wealthy and prominent Georgian family, Dr. John H. Holliday, or "Doc" as he was more commonly known, was raised as a pampered, hot-tempered, over-intelligent Southern aristocrat. His father sent him to Baltimore, Maryland where he attended dental college. Shortly after he became a bona fide dentist, he discovered that he had tuberculosis. Faced with a death sentence, he was advised to move to a warm dry climate.

Dust-smothered, Dallas, Texas was Doc's initial choice of towns to hang out his shingle, which read: "J.H. Hollidayy-Dentist." A slight man, with a wispy moustache, he stood 5'10" in height, and weighed 115 pounds. His eyes were pearl grey, and his thick curly hair, sandy brown. So thin, he could walk through a harp, Doc opened a legitimate dental office, but the consumptive, coughing doctor was not the man to spur confidence in his patience. Finally his lung troubled coughing resulted in an empty office. The wafer-thin dentist took to the gambling tables where his TB cough was less noticeable.

In time, Doc gradually pulled fewer teeth and drew more straights and flushes. Around Dallas' then-flourishing gambling halls and saloons, his reputation as an anomalous poker player was superseded only by his reputation as a gunman with a hair-trigger temper. Law was at a minimum in the West, and a gambler who could not handle a gun, was as defenseless as one who could neither deal nor shuffle. Doc was as uncompromising as a policeman's club, and his stay in Dallas was abruptly terminated when he had a disagreement with a prominent member of the local elite over a $500 pot. The argument was settled when Doc pulled his trusty Colt .36 percussion M-1851 Navy pistol and shot the man dead.

Rather than risk the uncertainty of a trial, Doc took the next stage for Jacksborough, Texas, where he set up his dentist practice. He spent more time at the gambling tables than he did preforming oral surgery. Again, he became embroiled in a quarrel over a poker pot. He shot and killed a soldier from nearby Fort Richardson, this time using a Pocket Revolver in .31 caliber, which was preferred by gamblers who found the need for concealable arms. Since Doc was a Southerner and the garrison was mostly veterans of the Union Army, he saddled a horse he had won playing seven-up, and galloped rapidly northward - to Denver.

The distance was some nine hundred miles across the Panhandle though treacherous Indian territory, and rugged southern Colorado. The frail dentist-gambler arrived in Denver in the summer of 1876. Then-Denver was slightly larger than Dallas, although not a mite different as far as being fronted by the inevitable plankwalks and halter-polished hitch rails. A sign posted at the edge of town warned: "No-guns in town." This law was strictly enforced. Doc checked into a hotel, left his pistols with the desk clerk, showered, shaved, and dressed. That night he went looking for poker game. A holster in the back of his collar held a long, sharp Bowie knife. Doc was just as deadly with a knife as he was with a six-gun.

Not long after his arrival in Denver he got into a tiff with a fellow gambler named Bud Ryan. The fight was fast and furious and when it was over, the green felt table, the spades and clubs in the deck, and Ryan were all as red as the hearts and diamonds. Ryan survived the terrible knife-slashing minus one eye and three fingers. Again Doc saddled his pony and headed even further north towards Wyoming. He cleaned out the best poker players in town and headed back to Texas. Ft. Griffin was loaded with gambling casinos. This is where he met the celebrated Wyatt Earp. He also met a bubbling dance hall girl named Kate Fisher or "Big-Nosed Kate," as they called her behind her back. She looked like the reflection in a hub-cap. Nevertheless, she fell in love with Doc and Doc fell in lust with her.

His TB had already reached a fairly advanced stage when the quick- shooting dentist killed a man in a five card stud game. Before he could disappear he was hauled off to the hoosegow. "Big-Nosed Kate" set fire to a building a few doors from the jail. While the townspeople were busy mobilizing themselves to save their little town from certain destruction, Kate freed her sweetheart, brought him a horse, and together they hit leather towards Dodge City.

Dodge City, Wyatt Earp's headquarters, provided shelter for Kate and John Holliday in 1879. Here he saved Earp's life when Earp got trapped in the Long Branch saloon by two dozen drunken-hell-raising Texas cattlemen. Side by side, the two famous gunfighters backed the rowdy Texans down.

In Dodge, Doc stayed so drunk that ever time he coughed, he rippled. This caused quarrels between him and Kate, who feared that some young punk looking to get a reputation would kill her quick-tempered gambling man. The couple who had swore to love now loved to swear. In a tither, Doc saddled his horse and left Dodge for Trinidad, Colorado. Trinidad was the same old story; a squirt called "Kid" Colton, accused Doc of cheating after he had raked in his seventh straight pot. They both went for their shooters. Doc, using an 1880 Remington, .41 RF double derringer, silver and gold plated with pearl grips, SN 474, bearing the engraved inscription on the back strap, "To Doc from Kate," got off first. Thinking the wounded man dead, Holliday fled Trinidad and galloped the barren wastelands of Northern New Mexico, arriving in the railroad boom-town of Las Vegas. Once more the fragile little consumptive made a living from the poker deck, winning when he was so drunk he approached a poker table from several different directions. Again, he was challenged by a sore- loser named Mike Gordon, a resident of the Fort Sumner area. The town bully died with three slugs in his abdomen. Doc fled to Dodge City and his courageous friend Wyatt Earp.

Through his regard for Wyatt, Doc, along with Big Nose Kate (she tracked him down), migrated from Dodge City to help the Earps tame Tombstone, Arizona, where Wyatt was employed as a Federal Marshal. On the way to the silver capital, Doc killed three more men in Santa Fe who questioned his honesty with cards.

Holliday's life in Tombstone was that of a drunken gambler who got into numerous gunfights and spats over poker hands. Wyatt's brothers constantly begged him to ditch Holliday, who remained in a state of melancholism 24 hours a day. But Wyatt's fondness for Holliday prevailed. Kate long ago had decided to join Doc in his drinking bouts and became the butt of many jokes around Tombstone.

"Did you know that Big Nosed Kate was a magician?"

"No."

"So help me. She walked down the street yesterday, and turned into a saloon."

Doc threw Kate out during one of their drunken brawls. One night she got soused and spread a rumor that Doc had committed an unsolved robbery of the stage of $80,000. Doc became so enraged by one of the gossipers, Bud Philpot, that he shot him down in the street with his "street howitzer," a 10-guage Meteor double shotgun with sawed off barrels and a cropped stock. Philpot was a McLowery-Clanton supporter, whose anti-Earp gang included Sheriff Behan and a notorious cattle thief named Curly Bill. Some historians say this is what touched off the famous gunfight at the OK Corral.

The OK Corral fight resulted in the deaths of two McLowerys and young Billy Clanton. In a trial before Judge Wells Spicer, Holliday's plea of self defense was upheld as well as the Earps contention they were doing their duty as peace officers. But the Earp dynasty was broken for good. The Clanton forces began picking them off one by one and the Earps retaliated by gunning down "Indian" Charlie, and some say Curly Bill at Iron Springs and Johnny Ringo at Turkey Creek. Doc, Wyatt, and their friends Texas Jack Vermillion, Jack Johnson and Shermon McMasters rode to Deming, New Mexico, where they gambled and stayed drunk. Doc shot a man over a card game and galloped the heat- blistered facades towards Colorado, one jump ahead of a sheriff's posse.

The last years of Doc's exciting life were spent following mining camps with his deck of cards. By now he was steadily coughing blood into his handkerchief. The Arizona authorities tried desperately to have him extradited for the murder of Frank Stillwell, but the Colorado governor, Pitkin, refused to sign the extradition papers. In 1897 he was hospitalized in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, where he died of tuberculosis. Beside him, strewn among the fluffy white sheets was a well-worn deck of cards. The doctor asserted that he asked for one last glass of whiskey before crossing the Great Divide. The gentleman gambler chugalugged down a full glass of bourbon. Then, looking down at his bare feet, contentedly said, "Well I'll be damned." He had always promised Big Nose Kate that he would not die with his boots on.

The Sun Chronicle, on Monday, December 20, 1976, reported that relatives of Doc Holliday wanted his bones moved to a Valdosta, Ga, cemetery, where his parents are buried. Holliday's huge tombstone stands in a lonely cemetery on a cliff overlooking the city high in the Rockies. The marker is engraved with the gambler's picture and the words: "He died in bed."

But the remains may not be there; City Manager John West said Holliday was supposedly moved to the cemetery from his original site because of street construction. "The old cemetery records were lost and nobody knows if Doc's body was really moved," West said.