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6 Things About Bonnie and Clyde

beneteaubeneteau Member Posts: 8,552 ✭✭✭
edited July 2015 in General Discussion
1. Although Barrow and Parker claimed to be married, Parker remained legally married to her first husband, Roy Thornton. On the day she died, she still wore his wedding ring and bore a tattoo on her knee with intertwined hearts and their names, Bonnie and Roy.

2. Bonnie and Clyde were both short. Parker was only 4'11#8243; and Barrow 5'4#8243; at a time when average heights for women and men were about 5'3#8243; and 5'8#8243;. (Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, who played Bonnie and Clyde in the famous 1967 film, stood 5'7#8243; and 6'2#8243; respectively.)

3. Parker was an honor student and a poet, and life as one of America's most wanted didn't stifle those interests. Shortly before her death, Parker wrote a poem called "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde," which was published in several newspapers and immortalized their tale.

4. Parker and Barrow remained close to their families, even on the run. In fact, it was their predictable pattern of stopping to visit family that aided the team of Texas Rangers and deputies who ambushed and killed them.

5. The pair attained such notoriety that hordes of people flocked to the scene of their death and later to the coroner's to retrieve "souvenirs." Some attempted to cut off Barrow's ear or finger; others took snippets of Parker's blood-soaked dress or shattered window glass. One man offered Barrow's father over $30,000 for Barrow's body-the equivalent of over $600,000 today.

6. Eight decades later, the morbidly curious can see Bonnie and Clyde's bullet-riddled death car on display at Whiskey Pete's Casino in Primm, Nevada, outside of Las Vegas.
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Comments

  • Spider7115Spider7115 Member Posts: 29,704 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    A little Bondo and a few sprays of Febreeze and it'll be as good as new. [:D]

    30c58d18861305acf0ee2e3133643cb8.jpg
  • Ditch-RunnerDitch-Runner Member Posts: 25,366 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    when I was maybe 13 maybe 14 years old they had the car on tour from what I remember , and for like a dollar you could walk thru the trailer and see it . I think it had to be very early 70's or late 60's
    as a side none Clyde and I share the same height [:I][:I]
  • searcher5searcher5 Member Posts: 13,511
    edited November -1
    In the picture, the blow up in the background, and the car itself, do not have the same bullet patterns. Reckon why is that?
  • Ricci WrightRicci Wright Member Posts: 8,259 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    The last time I toured the Texas Ranger Museum in Waco, Tx. they had a display of B&C memorabilia including a lot of the guns used on both sides.
  • select-fireselect-fire Member Posts: 69,521 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by searcher5
    In the picture, the blow up in the background, and the car itself, do not have the same bullet patterns. Reckon why is that?



    Choppers can be made various ways
  • cbxjeffcbxjeff Member Posts: 17,633 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Terrible waste of a '34!
    It's too late for me, save yourself.
  • Don McManusDon McManus Member Posts: 23,691 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by searcher5
    In the picture, the blow up in the background, and the car itself, do not have the same bullet patterns. Reckon why is that?


    One is a reversed image of the other side?
    Freedom and a submissive populace cannot co-exist.

    Brad Steele
  • fishkiller41fishkiller41 Member Posts: 50,608
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by Spider7115
    A little Bondo and a few sprays of Febreeze and it'll be as good as new. [:D]

    30c58d18861305acf0ee2e3133643cb8.jpg

    Looks like the front seat and the inside of the windshield are still covered in their blood.Doesn't it?
  • searcher5searcher5 Member Posts: 13,511
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by Don McManus
    quote:Originally posted by searcher5
    In the picture, the blow up in the background, and the car itself, do not have the same bullet patterns. Reckon why is that?


    One is a reversed image of the other side?


    May be. The spare tire doesn't show on the car itself, but it does in the blow up.
  • TxsTxs Member Posts: 17,809 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by Spider7115
    30c58d18861305acf0ee2e3133643cb8.jpg[/b]That's the car used in the '67 movie, not the actual death car.

    Here's the real deal...
    235307.jpg?545

    And now at Whiskey Pete's...
    5390511_orig.jpg
  • buschmasterbuschmaster Member Posts: 14,229 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    7. it was an insult to say a woman smoked cigars. one newspaper editor claimed Bonnie Parker smoked cigars. (there was one picture of her smoking a cigar) Clyde sent him a letter telling him that if he didn't pipe down, they would pay him a visit. he didn't write any more about that.
    quote:
    Jerry Flemmons tells about a letter Clyde sent to Carter after being displeased with printed comments about Bonnie: "You better think, decide and make up your mind and not let your Editor make another remark about Bonnie like you did the other day," Clyde wrote the publisher. "They called her my cigar-smoking woman. Another remark about my underworld mate and I will end such men as you mighty quick. I know where you and your reporters live."

    "The letter scared the hell out of Amon," Flemmons adds. "[The letter] was never mentioned in the `Star-Telegram,' but until the couple's ambush and death in Louisiana, Bonnie was never again called a cigar smoker."

    8. during the ambush, Bonnie's hand was nearly shot off. it was found still holding a sandwich.


    The Story of Bonnie and Clyde

    You've read the story of Jesse James
    Of how he lived and died;
    If you're still in need
    Of something to read,
    Here's the story of Bonnie and Clyde.

    Now Bonnie and Clyde are the Barrow gang,
    I'm sure you all have read
    How they rob and steal
    And those who squeal
    Are usually found dying or dead.

    There's lots of untruths to these write-ups;
    They're not so ruthless as that;
    Their nature is raw;
    They hate all the law
    The stool pigeons, spotters, and rats.

    They call them cold-blooded killers;
    They say they are heartless and mean;
    But I say this with pride,
    That I once knew Clyde
    When he was honest and upright and clean.

    But the laws fooled around,
    Kept taking him down
    And locking him up in a cell,
    Till he said to me,
    "I'll never be free,
    So I'll meet a few of them in hell."

    The road was so dimly lighted;
    There were no highway signs to guide;
    But they made up their minds
    If all roads were blind,
    They wouldn't give up till they died.

    The road gets dimmer and dimmer;
    Sometimes you can hardly see;
    But it's fight, man to man,
    And do all you can,
    For they know they can never be free.

    From heart-break some people have suffered;
    From weariness some people have died;
    But take it all in all,
    Our troubles are small
    Till we get like Bonnie and Clyde.

    If a policeman is killed in Dallas,
    And they have no clue or guide;
    If they can't find a fiend,
    They just wipe their slate clean
    And hang it on Bonnie and Clyde.

    There's two crimes committed in America
    Not accredited to the Barrow mob;
    They had no hand
    In the kidnap demand,
    Nor the Kansas City depot job.

    A newsboy once said to his buddy;
    "I wish old Clyde would get jumped;
    In these awful hard times
    We'd make a few dimes
    If five or six cops would get bumped."

    The police haven't got the report yet,
    But Clyde called me up today;
    He said, "Don't start any fights
    We aren't working nights
    We're joining the NRA."

    From Irving to West Dallas viaduct
    Is known as the Great Divide,
    Where the women are kin,
    And the men are men,
    And they won't "stool" on Bonnie and Clyde.

    If they try to act like citizens
    And rent them a nice little flat,
    About the third night
    They're invited to fight
    By a sub-gun's rat-tat-tat.

    They don't think they're too tough or desperate,
    They know that the law always wins;
    They've been shot at before,
    But they do not ignore
    That death is the wages of sin.

    Some day they'll go down together;
    And they'll bury them side by side;
    To few it'll be grief
    To the law a relief
    But it's death for Bonnie and Clyde.

    -- Bonnie Parker


    as it turns out, Clyde was buried next to his brother. Bonnie was buried in a different cemetery. her gravestone reads:

    As the flowers are made sweeter
    by sunshine and dew,
    so this old world is made brighter
    by folks like you.
  • TxsTxs Member Posts: 17,809 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by buschmaster
    during the ambush, Bonnie's hand was nearly shot off.Wouldn't doubt it a bit.

    The cops were shooting .35 Rem's and .30-06's.
  • buschmasterbuschmaster Member Posts: 14,229 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    hit 40 times with those .35 Rem's and .30-06's

    might as well have thrown them in a meat grinder.
  • Ditch-RunnerDitch-Runner Member Posts: 25,366 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    being political correct was not much of a option when the LEO knew what you were capable of . seems the bad guys got a warning shot into a body part a split second before they got serious on the old gangsters



    quote:Originally posted by buschmaster
    hit 40 times with those .35 Rem's and .30-06's

    might as well have thrown them in a meat grinder.
  • TxsTxs Member Posts: 17,809 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by buschmaster
    hit 40 times with those .35 Rem's and .30-06'sAnd each round was richly deserved.
  • TrinityScrimshawTrinityScrimshaw Member Posts: 9,350 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    There was also a snub nosed 38 found tapped to Bonnie's thigh.

    I wish I could find and post the picture of the arsenal Ranger Hammer, and his crew pulled out of that vehicle. There were Browning shotguns, BAR's, 1911's and lot's of ammo.

    Trinity +++
  • Ditch-RunnerDitch-Runner Member Posts: 25,366 ✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    I think this may be the ones

    BarrowDeathCarArsenal1934.jpg
    deathcar_sax.jpg
    tons of photos on the net

    quote:Originally posted by TrinityScrimshaw
    There was also a snub nosed 38 found tapped to Bonnie's thigh.

    I wish I could find and post the picture of the arsenal Ranger Hammer, and his crew pulled out of that vehicle. There were Browning shotguns, BAR's, 1911's and lot's of ammo.

    Trinity +++
  • buschmasterbuschmaster Member Posts: 14,229 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    quote:Originally posted by TrinityScrimshaw
    There was also a snub nosed 38 found tapped to Bonnie's thigh.

    I wish I could find and post the picture of the arsenal Ranger Hammer, and his crew pulled out of that vehicle. There were Browning shotguns, BAR's, 1911's and lot's of ammo.

    Trinity +++
    nah.

    quote:

    Simply put, Texas authorities had had enough. Bonnie and Clyde were making them look bad, and, in the darkest days of the Depression, the powerful image of glamorous outlaws out to get something for themselves was one that authorities wanted desperately to snuff out. So Frank Hamer, a legendary Texas Ranger with scars from 23 bullet wounds, was named to head a posse devoting itself exclusively to hunting down Bonnie and Clyde.

    The first problem was obvious. A car recovered from an earlier shootout with the gang had more than 100 dents from bullets -- none had penetrated the metal. The posse needed Browning Automatic Rifles, and there were eight stored in Texas' National Guard Armory. But the law prohibited the rifles being loaned to nonmilitary personnel.

    "When they came to me, I turned 'em down," says 95-year-old Col. Weldon Dowis of Hot Springs, Ark., then a 29-year-old National Guard captain. "It was against the rules."

    Texas congressman Hatton W. Summers wrote Dowis a letter saying he would take responsibility for the loan. Reluctantly, Dowis handed over two of the rifles.

    "We had to show them how to shoot 'em on our range," he recalls. "They said they figured they'd know pretty soon where they could catch [Bonnie and Clyde]."

    They were right. In January 1934, the Barrow gang added Henry Methvin, a young hood whose family had a farm in Louisiana's Bienville Parish. Bonnie and Clyde had established a previous pattern of hiding out in the family homes of gang members. Hamer knew Henderson Jordan, the Bienville sheriff. They arranged a meeting with Ivan Methvin, Henry's father, and offered a deal: If Methvin helped the posse ambush Bonnie and Clyde, his son would be pardoned for his crimes in Texas and Arkansas. Methvin agreed.

    In May, the Barrow gang showed up in Bienville. Ivan Methvin welcomed them, then contacted the authorities. The posse was summoned, the terrain scouted, and, on May 22, Methvin warned his son to stay away from Bonnie and Clyde the next day.

    Early in the morning, Bonnie and Clyde and Henry Methvin drove into the sleepy town of Gibsland. Henry made himself scarce. The infamous couple went to a cafe and ordered sandwiches. Bonnie was still eating hers when Clyde spotted a police car on a nearby street and told her they had to get back to the car. There was no concern about Henry's whereabouts; he could easily find transportation home.

    The outlaws took Sailes Road back toward the Methvin farm. They probably didn't hurry; they were enjoying their stay in the area and weren't too concerned about local residents recognizing them. Ninety-year-old Pauline Evans, who lived in Bienville Parish at the time, remembers Clyde pulling his car over to talk to her as she stood by her family's mailbox. He politely introduced himself -- Bonnie was also in the front seat -- and asked if she wanted a ride. She declined.

    The posse had taken up its position in the brush alongside the road hours earlier. About 9 a.m., a lookout spotted Clyde's car coming and gave a signal. Ivan Methvin pulled his truck opposite the ambush site, parking on the side of the road. Clyde spotted his host's vehicle as he crested a small hill, and stopped to see if Methvin needed help. As the car halted, Methvin dived under his truck. The six members of the posse leaped to their feet and opened fire.

    When it was finally silent, the officers gingerly opened the car door. Bonnie was still clutching the remnants of her sandwich. A .45 pistol was in her lap. Clyde had a sawed-off shotgun beside him; his beloved saxophone was in the back seat, beside the other guns he hadn't had time to use. Each of the partially dismembered bodies had more than 40 bullet wounds.

    unquote.
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