Buffalo Bill on Stage

10: Finale

• 191 • • C h a p t e r t e n • Finale •••• “Cody,” I said to myself, “you have fetched ’em!” —Cody, Story of the Wild West Cody was forty years old when he retired from the theatrical stage. He had only a moment to play Janus and look back on his accomplishments and forward to his biggest challenge. Experience had been a commanding force in his education as an entertainer, and he was eager to apply the lessons learned during the combination years. No one had expected his frontier plays to make great contributions to theatrical art, and they didn’t. But, as journalists frequently observed, they did give the plainsman and his scouting partners the opportunity to show off frontier skills already proven, if only fictitiously, in hundreds of dime novels. Later in his career, when he wrote stories, he apologized for the “blood and thunder.” “I am sorry to have to lie so outrageously in this yarn. My hero has killed more Indians on one war-trail than I have killed in all my life. . . . If you think the revolver and bowie-knife are used too freely, you may cut out a fatal shot or stab wherever you deem it wise.”1 Onstage, Cody’s technique of underplaying his role reflected the emerging realism style, while his status as bona fide frontiersman lent authenticity to chapter ten 192 • the performance. As the years went on and he became more respected as a performer, he grew more pragmatic than a dime-novel hero caricature. Referring in interviews to his land and cattle holdings, announcing in the theatrical papers his seasonal profits, and wearing ostentatious jewelry all reinforced the evolution. The “savagery to civilization” theme, intrinsic to most border dramas, formed a backdrop to the action. The sights and sounds of wild and fierce Indians effortlessly exemplified the violence of the frontier, especially if their appearance and aggression corresponded to easterners’ ideas of Indian hostility, until Cody allowed the Indians to act as themselves instead of formulaic savages. While the land and environs also tested a frontiersman’s fortitude, the effect of acres of harsh landscape, unrelenting sun, or torrential rains was difficult to reproduce on a stage and relied for their portrayal on the playwright’s talent and on skillfully painted scenery. Cody had grown up on the plains, was more or less self-educated, and had spent years scouting and hunting buffalo. Expecting a man crude and uncivilized, easterners delighted in his and the other combination scouts’ easy ability to deal with dangers, even those exaggerated for the stage. That the men possessed grace and charm surprised them. Instead of the anticipated hulking appearance, the scouts had “splendid manly forms which their wild lives on the plains have admirably developed.” Newsmen were quick to report their bearing “is what might naturally be expected from men of undaunted bravery, self-conscious of their powers, fierce and powerful in struggles, but with the ease and gentleness of well bred men when unaffected by the excitement incident to their professions.”2 The Wisconsin State Journal observed Cody’s “fine, intelligent, strong face” and concluded he was “a man ready to counsel or command or to cope with any adversary he may meet.”3 A buckskin suit worn alternately with evening clothes and diamond jewelry perfectly befitted the man billing himself as the link between savagery and civilization. At the time the combination debuted in December 1872, Cody had acquired only a minute measure of business sense from several months following the Civil War spent managing the boardinghouse his mother had built in Salt Creek, Kansas. His sister, Helen Cody Wetmore, recalled that “Socially, he was an irreproachable landlord; financially, his shortcomings were deplorable.”4 New to acting, he left arrangements for the first season up to Ned Buntline who, from his many cross-country temperance tours, was familiar with trooping. Cody’s decision to exclude Buntline the next Finale • 193 season meant he and Texas Jack had to manage all aspects of the stage production. The experience taught him what an overwhelming task it was. After the first season, the Omaha Daily Bee informed its readers that the scouts had “each cleared $30,000 during the past eight months,”5 yet Cody complained that he had only profited by $6,000. He blamed Buntline, thinking all those full houses should have translated into bigger takings. But suddenly, “[u...