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Post by Diane Merkel on Jun 24, 2009 20:21:02 GMT -6
I know we've discussed this before (can't find it) but it's always a fun story to revisit. This was submitted to a friend: In late 1940's or early 50's - Groucho Marx had a game show called "You Bet Your Life". On this show, he had a man in his 90's who claimed to be the last of Custer's men.
When Custer left for Little Big Horn, he was left behind to care for two sick men. Shortly, the first man died. Soon the other two decided to catch up with the others. Soon, the other man died.
When this man caught up with Custer, they were all dead. He did not know where he really was and what to do, so he went AWOL for 70 plus years.
Is there Kinoscope recording of this show available? Could be an interesting story here. I believe the person on Groucho's show was Windolph, but I've never heard the parts about the two other guys or going AWOL. Has anyone actually seen or heard the show, or is this just a growing legend?
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Post by princesstori on Jun 24, 2009 22:00:22 GMT -6
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Post by Diane Merkel on Jun 29, 2009 20:29:29 GMT -6
Marshall Trimble of True West magazine, gave me permission to post this: I just heard from my "Ask the Marshall" editor at True West, Mark Boardman, and he says, "The TV show debuted after Windolph died, so he wasn't there. And I've been through the radio episodes, which started in 1947--nada. Also, I've gone through some bios of Windolph and there is no mention of his ever being on the radio program. I think it's just a myth." Unless someone can come up with an authentic audio of the program, I think we can put this to rest once and for all. Too bad. It would have been great to hear if it were true. Thanks to Marshall and Mark! Diane
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Post by bubbabod on Jun 30, 2009 0:15:01 GMT -6
Diane, I personally saw that episode of "You Bet Your Life." I remember well what the guy looked like, but not much of what he said other than that he was a survivor. I was very young, probably 10 or younger, making it pre-1956, and I knew nothing of the LBH at the time other than that famous picture of Custer's Last Stand so many of us have seen. I just returned from 10 days in Montana and Wyoming with my friends, and we were just discussing this show. I didn't know Windolph from Santa Claus at the time, but I do remember the man had long white hair and a very long full white beard. I don't remember what story he told Groucho other than he was a survivor.
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Post by crzhrs on Jun 30, 2009 12:59:05 GMT -6
Another one of those "Last Survivor" hoax?
Windolph with long white hair and a beard?
The only photo I've seen of him was taken when he was still young. However, since he lived into his 90s having white hair/beard is not out of the question.
Anyone remember seeing his daughter's interview on Last Stand at LBH? (92?)
Unbelievable to see her and tell stories of what her father related to her about Custer (sadly she has since died, however)
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Post by Diane Merkel on Jun 30, 2009 17:03:05 GMT -6
Bubba,
Windolph died in March 1950, and Wikipedia -- granted, not the greatest source -- says the TV show first aired in October 1950. Perhaps it's as Crazy suggests: Some guy went on the show and claimed to be an LBH survivor. We are assuming the contestant was Windolph since we know he was the last soldier to die, but it could have easily been a wannabe.
Diane
P.S. Chuck and I drove through Carlsbad last week. Beautiful!
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Post by Diane Merkel on Jul 16, 2009 18:46:31 GMT -6
I just heard from our good friend Scout who pointed out that the answer to the "You Bet Your Life" question was on this website all along. If you will look at the wiki (listed on the main menu of www.littlebighorn.info) Scout has a great article there about some of the "sole survivors." Here's his entry about the Groucho show: Ed Ryan- In 1950 Ryan wrote a book Me and the Black Hills in which he claimed to have served in the Seventh Cavalry under Custer. He was said to have appeared on an early Groucho Marx radio show in which he told his tale. The Chicago Daily News and Billings Gazette featured articles on the famous "sole survivor" in August of 1951. Ryan was later exposed to be 65, not the 95 he claimed. His hometown of Custer, South Dakota, labeled him the biggest liar in South Dakota. Speaking of the wiki, if you have some research you would like to share, please consider putting it on the wiki. It is a much underutilized tool. Thanks, Scout!
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Post by cefil on Jul 17, 2009 9:23:21 GMT -6
Lawrence Frost tells some of Ryan's story (including the fact that he "was featured on a national television show") in his book, Custer Legends (p. 218). You can find the relevant passages here: tinyurl.com/nw8622Also, I found some pictures of the old (but not as old as he claimed) rascal: cefil
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Post by cefil on Jul 17, 2009 9:44:13 GMT -6
Here, in Ryan’s own words, from Me and the Black Hills, is his story… [Ryan claims to have been part of Custer’s 1874 Black Hills expedition. After describing the search for gold – including the observation that “the General cut quite a figure on his big horse Commanche” – Ryan writes:] It was August 3, 1874, that he [Custer] sent a rider, Charlie Reynolds, to Ft. Laramie with dispatches reporting the find on French creek…I’ll always remember that date ‘cause the night before Reynolds left for Ft. Laramie my buddy, Johnny, came down with fever. We were both buck privates and had been together since we signed up the same day back in St. Louis and since then had been as thick as thieves [sic].
When the regiment broke camp on August 5 to move on eastward over French divide Johnny was too sick to be moved. I asked the doctor to see if he could get me permission to stay behind and told him as soon as Johnny recovered we could follow and catch up with the outfit.
The doctor came back a few minutes later and told me that General Custer had given his consent because he couldn't leave a doctor behind just for one man. "The General said you two men are to follow as soon as you can and rejoin the regiment. He said you'd be responsible, Mr. Ryan," was the last words the doctor told me. I never gave it a thought, but when the old Seventh pulled out of camp it was to be my last sight of the whole unit.
Well, Johnny didn't seem to get better and about all I could do was feed him and keep him company and see that he was comfortable. He lingered on until November, and I buried my friend in a casket I fashioned from pine poles. I lined his grave with pretty rocks and made a cross of birchwood with his name on it to put by his head.
But winter was setting in and by that time I knew General Custer and the Seventh were out of the Black Hills. It was too late to follow until spring came anyway.
I never did catch up with the regiment even though I tried, and it was a bitter pill to swollow [sic] when I learned the entire outfit had been wiped out by sitting Bull and Crazy Horse at the Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876.
If my buddy hadn't died, I'd have been with the outfit at their last stand. As I look back over 75 years the memory of Johnny is very real because it was his life that saved mine. I never did report back to the army, and as is in the records both Johnny and me are listed as dead among Custer's cavalry.
Still I wouldn't say I'm AWOL, either. General Custer's last orders to me were to rejoin the regiment, but that would be pretty hard to do considerin' it was wiped out by Sioux. You'd feel kinda silly, too, walkin' up to the General's grave by the Little Big Horn river, saluting and reporting in.
cefil
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Post by cefil on Jul 18, 2009 15:45:08 GMT -6
Ed Ryan was not one of those earnest claimants to LBH-survivor status. In fact, he took great glee in being a self-professed prevaricator. On the title page of his book, he says: “(This story is fictional in part)”. Indeed.
Ed describes in some detail his first-ever trip to New York City, apparently in 1951. He loves name-dropping (for example, he met and exchanged autographs with Jane Russell – “the kind of young woman who wears a sweater well”), and he recounts in some detail his appearance as a contestant on the Bob Hawk radio quiz show (“That’s where you answer five questions with the letters in the word Camel”). His category was about drums, and he answered the basic questions right and won $25. He missed the big question, though, so he didn’t collect the grand prize of $225. Unfortunately, he let slip with a “damn” and so his appearance was cut from the broadcast.
This couldn’t have been his You Bet Your Life trip, though, because if he had met Groucho he surely would have relished dropping that name. Besides, he says, “One thing I passed up was a chance to be on a television show…”
Most of Ed’s book was written in 1951, but there’s an added chapter that updates events through mid-1953…with still no mention of Groucho.
Coupling this information with Bubbabod’s remarkable memory of seeing the show with a man with “long white hair and a very long full white beard” (a perfect description of Ed, as seen in the pictures posted above) prior to 1956, means there’s a good chance the appearance occurred between mid-1953 and mid-1956.
Since Ed was a well-known local character, and garnered a lot of attention from the local media, I’ll bet his appearance on something as well known as You Bet Your Life would have been covered in regional papers. With a three-year window of opportunity, it shouldn’t be too daunting a task to dig out some definitive proof, and put an authoritative end to this question once and for all.
I’ll let you know what I find out!
cefil
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Post by cefil on Jul 20, 2009 15:27:01 GMT -6
With a big tip of the hat and profuse thanks to the Research staff at the South Dakota State Library, I am pleased to say that the definitive answer has, indeed, been found. Yes, Ed Ryan appeared on You Bet Your Life with Groucho Marx and claimed to be a survivor of LBH. He was a guest on March 3, 1954. The secret word was paper. In his Crosby’s Radio and Television column of March 22, 1954, John Crosby describes what happened: And, of course, you just never know what a contestant is going to bare when he starts unlimbering his life story. Not long ago, Groucho Marx stumbled on 97-year-old Ed Ryan, a contestant on “You Bet Your Life,” who confessed that he was a technical survivor of Custer’s last stand.
He had, he said, been left behind on that historic occasion to care for a sick buddy. Disgusted at being left behind and thereafter having avoided massacre, he deserted the army and never went back.
“In other words,” said Groucho, “you’ve been AWOL for seventy-five years.”
Mr. Ryan allowed that this was true.
“If I were you,” Groucho told the white-bearded ancient, “I’d sneak back into that camp and keep my mouth shut. Of course, right at this minute 200 colonels in the Pentagon are getting dizzy thinking of your back pay.”
I'll post a bit more info later... cefil
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Post by cefil on Jul 20, 2009 16:45:10 GMT -6
Ed Ryan continued to be a minor media sensation after his YBYL appearance. Here's an example, from the Newsmakers column, Newsweek magazine, May 2, 1955: Final Stand: Most historians agree that Gen. George Custer and his entire command were massacred by the Indian Sitting Bull in the bloody battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. Last week in Chicago, ED RYAN, a spry 98, claimed that he was both a casualty and a survivor: “I’m still listed as one of the casualties by the Army. The name I enlisted under—George Ryan, because I was only 17—is on the monument…I survived because on June 1 my tentmate was sick, so Custer says to me: ‘Ryan, you stay here with the man and overtake us when he feels better’…Then Custer rode west to his fate.” Ryan added that the tentmate died and that he never got around to catching up with the Army again. Reminded that he had therefore been AWOL for nearly 80 years, he answered: “General Custer’s last orders to me were to rejoin the regiment. That would be pretty hard, considering it was wiped out by the Sioux.” Notice how his story has changed from the 1951 version...He's still left behind with a sick friend, but this time it's in June, on the way to LBH, rather than in the Black Hills back in 1874. cefil
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Post by cefil on Jul 21, 2009 9:46:30 GMT -6
For the detail-oriented among you (you know who you are) I should point out that the date mentioned above (3/3/54) is actually the date that the radio version of Ed Ryan’s appearance was aired. The television version ran the following day (Thursday, March 4, 1954).
Television episodes of You Bet Your Life were different editions of performances aired on radio the previous evening.
cefil
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Post by Diane Merkel on Jul 23, 2009 8:53:02 GMT -6
Great research, cefil! Thanks very much.
Bubbabod, your memory was correct!
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Post by wolfgang911 on Jul 30, 2009 7:11:50 GMT -6
His category was about drums, and he answered the basic questions right and won $25. He missed the big question, though, so he didn’t collect the grand prize of $225. Unfortunately, he let slip with a “damn” and so his appearance was cut from the broadcast. ;D ;D great story, seems like a gary larson cartoon with that "damn" at the end. to leave such a guest out of the show does not seem groucho to me. so we still don't know hey if he was fake or not hey
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