Bonnie and Clyde Totally Explained

Everything about Bonnie And Clyde totally explained

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1 1910 – May 23 1934) and Clyde Barrow (March 24 1909 – May 23 1934) were notorious outlaws, robbers, and criminals who traveled the Central United States during the Great Depression. Their exploits were known nationwide. They captured the attention of the American press and its readership during what is sometimes referred to as the "public enemy era" between 1931 and 1935. Although this couple and their gang were notorious for their bank robberies, Barrow, who preferred to rob small stores or gas stations, was believed to have killed, or been a party to killing, at least nine police officers, among several other murders.
Though the public at the time believed Parker to be a full partner in the gang, and thus its crimes, her role in the Barrow Gang crimes has long been a source of controversy. Gang members W. D. Jones and Ralph Fults testified that they never saw Bonnie fire a gun, and described her role as logistical. Writing with Phillip Steele in The Family Story of Bonnie and Clyde, Marie Barrow, Clyde's youngest sister, made the same claim: "Bonnie never fired a shot. She just followed my brother no matter where he went." In his interview with Playboy magazine, W. D. Jones said of Bonnie: "As far as I know, Bonnie never packed a gun. Maybe she'd help carry what we'd in the car into a tourist-court room. But during the five big gun battles I was with them, she never fired a gun. But I'll say she was a hell of a loader."
Writer Joseph Geringer, in his article Bonnie and Clyde: Romeo and Juliet in a Getaway Car, explained part of their appeal to the public then, and their enduring legend now, by saying "Americans thrilled to their 'Robin Hood' adventures. The presence of a female, Bonnie, escalated the sincerity of their intentions to make them something unique and individual - even at times heroic."

Beginnings

Bonnie Parker

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker was born October 1, 1910, in Rowena, Texas, the second of three children. Her father, Charles Parker (? - c.1914), a bricklayer, died when Bonnie was four, prompting her mother, Emma Krause Parker (c.1886 - 1946), to move with the children to West Dallas, where they lived in poverty. An honor roll student in high school where she excelled in creative writing, she won a County League contest in literary arts, for Cement City School, and even gave introductory speeches for local politicians. Described as intelligent and personable yet strong willed, she was an attractive young woman, small at 4 ft 11 in (150 cm) and weighing only 90 pounds (41 kg).
   On September 25, 1926, less than a week before her sixteenth birthday, Parker married Roy Thornton. The marriage was short-lived, and in January 1929 they separated but never divorced; Parker was wearing Thornton's wedding ring when she died.
   There are a number of versions of the story describing Bonnie and Clyde's first meeting, but the most credible version indicates that Bonnie Parker met Clyde Barrow in January 1930 at a friend's house. Bonnie was out of work and was staying in West Dallas to assist a girlfriend with a broken arm. Clyde dropped by the girl's house while she was visiting at a friend's home, and Bonnie was supposedly in the kitchen making hot chocolate. They didn't meet, as legend has it, while she was a waitress.
   When they met, both were smitten immediately and most historians believe Bonnie joined Clyde because she was in love. She remained a loyal companion to him as they carried out their crime spree and awaited the violent deaths they viewed as inevitable. Her fondness for creative writing and the arts found expression in poems such as "Suicide Sal" and "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde".

Clyde Barrow

Clyde Barrow was born March 24, 1909 in Ellis County, Texas, near Telico just south of Dallas. He was the sixth child of either seven or eight children, in a poor farming family. Clyde was first arrested in late 1926, after running when police confronted him over a rental car he'd failed to return on time. His second arrest, with brother Marvin "Buck" Barrow, came soon after, this time for possession of stolen goods (turkeys). Despite holding down "square" jobs during the period 1927 through 1929, he also cracked safes, robbed stores, and stole cars. Known primarily for robbing banks, he focused on smaller jobs, robbing grocery stores and filling stations at a rate far outpacing the ten to fifteen bank robberies attributed to him and the Barrow Gang. According to John Neal Phillips, Clyde's goal in life wasn't to gain fame and fortune from robbing banks, but to seek revenge against the Texas prison system for the abuses he suffered while serving time.

The Spree

Buck joins the gang

During Buck Barrow's time in jail, Clyde had been the driver in a store robbery in which a man was shot and killed. The wife of the murder victim, when shown photos, picked Clyde Barrow as one of the shooters. On August 5 1932, while Parker was visiting her mother, Barrow and two associates were drinking alcohol at a dance in Stringtown, Oklahoma (illegal under Prohibition). When they were approached by sheriff C.G. Maxwell and his deputy, Barrow opened fire, killing deputy Eugene C. Moore. That was the first killing of a lawman by what was later known as the Barrow Gang, a total which would eventually amount to nine slain officers.
   On March 22 1933, Buck Barrow was granted a full pardon and released from prison. By April, he and his wife, Blanche, were living with W.D. Jones, Clyde, and Parker in a temporary hideout in Joplin, Missouri. According to some accounts, the Buck Barrows were there merely to visit and attempt to talk Clyde into giving himself up. As was common with Bonnie and Clyde, their next brush with the law arose from their generally suspicious behavior, not because their identities were discovered.
   Not knowing what awaited them, local lawmen assembled only a two-car force to confront the suspected bootleggers living in the rented apartment over a garage. Though caught by surprise, Clyde, noted for remaining cool under fire, was gaining far more experience in gun battles than most lawmen. He and W.D. Jones quickly killed one lawman and fatally wounded another. The survivors later testified that their side had fired only fourteen rounds in the conflict.
   Between 1932 and 1934, there were several incidents in which the Barrow Gang kidnapped lawmen or robbery victims, usually releasing them far from home, sometimes with money to help them get back.

Platte City

In June 1933, while driving with W.D. Jones and Bonnie, Clyde missed some construction signs, dropping the car into a ravine. south of Platte City, Missouri (now within the city limits of Kansas City, Missouri across I-29 from Kansas City International Airport). The courts consisted of two brick cabins joined by two single-car garages, where the gang rented two cabins. But in a pitched gunfight at considerable distances, the submachine guns proved no match for the Browning Automatic Rifles of the Barrows, who had recently robbed an armory. (The B.A.R. was reportedly Clyde's favorite weapon.) (by another escapee, Joe Palmer) brought the full power of the Texas and federal governments to bear on the manhunt for Bonnie and Clyde, ultimately resulting in their deaths. As the officer, Major Joe Crowson, lay dying, Lee Simmons of the Texas Department of Corrections reportedly promised him that the persons involved in the breakout would be hunted down and killed. He accepted the assignment immediately, as a Texas Highway Patrol officer seconded to the prison system as a special investigator, tasked specifically to hunt down Bonnie and Clyde, and the Barrow Gang. Clyde and Henry Methvin killed two young highway patrolmen in what is now Southlake, Texas, on April 1 1934; an eyewitness account stated that Methvin fired the lethal shots. John Treherne exhaustively investigated this shooting, and found that Methvin fired the first shot, after assuming Clyde wanted them killed (though Treherne found, and Methvin later admitted Barrow didn't intend to kill them, but had been preparing to capture them and take them on one of his famous rides, and that Bonnie approached the dying officers to try to help them). Having little choice once Methvin had begun a gun battle with law officers, Barrow then fired at the second officer. Methvin, however, is believed to have been the primary killer of both. (Ted Hinton's son states that Parker was actually asleep in the back seat when Methvin started the gun battle and took no part in it; it's notable that in accepting a pardon for these killings, Methvin admitted to both.) Methvin confessed in open court to being the sole killer in both killings. which further soured public sentiment.

Death

Bonnie and Clyde were killed May 23 1934, on a desolate road near their Bienville Parish, Louisiana hideout. Hamer studied the gang's movements and found they swung in a circle skirting the edges of five midwest states, exploiting the "state line" rule that prevented officers from one jurisdiction from pursuing a fugitive into another. Bonnie and Clyde were masters of that pre-FBI rule but consistent in their movements, allowing them to see their families and those of their gang members. It also allowed an experienced manhunter like Hamer to chart their path and predict where they'd go. They were due next to see Henry Methvin's family, which explained Hamer's meeting with them within a month of beginning the hunt. On May 21, 1934, the four posse members from Texas were in Shreveport, Louisiana when they learned that Barrow and Parker were to go there that evening with Methvin. Clyde had designated Methvin's parents' Bienville Parish house as a rendezvous in case they were later separated. Methvin was separated from Bonnie and Clyde in Shreveport, and the full posse, consisting of Capt. Hamer, Dallas County Sheriff's Deputies Bob Alcorn and Ted Hinton (who had met Clyde in the past), former Texas Ranger B.M. "Manny" Gault, Bienville Parish Sheriff Henderson Jordan, and his deputy Prentiss Oakley, set up an ambush at the rendezvous point along Highway 154, between Gibsland and Sailes. They were in place by 9:00 p.m. and waited through the next day (May 22) but saw no sign of Bonnie and Clyde. At approximately 9:00 a.m. on May 23, the posse, concealed in the bushes and almost ready to concede defeat, heard Clyde's stolen Ford V8 approaching. The posse's official report had Clyde stopping to speak with Henry Methvin's father, planted there with his truck that morning to distract Clyde and force him into the lane closest to the posse, the lawmen opened fire, killing Bonnie and Clyde while shooting a combined total of approximately 130 rounds. By 9:15, the couple were dead. The posse, under Hamer's direct orders, didn't call out a warning, The officers emptied the specially-ordered automatic rifle, as well as rifles, shotguns and pistols at the car. Some sources say Bonnie and Clyde were shot more than 50 times,
Bonnie and Clyde wished to be buried side by side, but the Parker family wouldn't allow it. Bonnie's mother had wanted to grant her daughter's final wish, which was to be brought home, but the mobs surrounding the Parker house made that impossible. Clyde Barrow is buried in the Western Heights Cemetery, and Bonnie Parker in the Crown Hill Memorial Park, both in Dallas, Texas. The following words (from a poem of Bonnie's) are inscribed on Bonnie's stone:

As the flowers are all made sweeter: by the sunshine and the dew,
So this old world is made brighter: by the lives of folks like you.
   H.D. Darby, a young undertaker who worked for the McClure Funeral Parlor in nearby Ruston, Louisiana, and Sophie Stone, a home demonstration agent also from Ruston, came to Arcadia to identify the bodies. then located on Forest Avenue in Dallas to conduct her funeral. Hubert "Buster" Parker accompanied his sister’s body back to Dallas in the McKamy-Campbell ambulance. Her services were held Saturday, May 26, at 2 p.m. in the funeral home, directed by Allen D. Campbell. The next year, services for Raymond Hamilton, a member of the Barrow Gang, who was executed May 10, 1935 by the State of Texas, were also held at the McKamy-Campbell Funeral Home. He was buried in Western Heights Cemetery in Dallas, next to his brother, Marvin. They share a single granite marker with their names on it and a four-word epitaph previously selected by Clyde: “Gone but not forgotten.”
   The bullet-riddled Ford in which the pair was killed, and the shirt Barrow wore the last day of his life, were, as of March 2008, on display at the Gold Ranch Casino in Verdi, Nevada.
   The life insurance policies for both Bonnie and Clyde were paid in full by American National of Galveston. Since then, the policy of pay-outs has changed to exclude pay-outs in cases of deaths caused by any criminal act by the insured.

Controversy and aftermath
Controversy lingers over certain aspects of the ambush, and the way Hamer conducted it. Historians and writers, such as E.R. Milner, Phillips, Treherne have turned up no warrants against Bonnie for any violent crimes. Posse member Bob Alcorn, the Dallas County Deputy Sheriff who identified Clyde on the road and cleared the way for the others to fire, was quoted in his deposition to Dr. Wade, who chaired the Coroner's Jury in Arcadia, LA., as claiming Bonnie had been indicted for murder. In addition to officially identifying the bodies of both Clyde and Bonnie, and stating that he knew them personally, the deposition claims that "he know[s] of his own knowledge that both were 2 [times] indicted on change of murder Case #5046&7 Criminal District Court Dallas Tex. November-28-1933." While this appears to be offered as some sort of "proof" that Bonnie had been indicted for murder, she hadn't yet been so charged. The only claim that Bonnie ever fired a weapon during one of the gang's crimes came from Blanche Barrow, and is backed by an article from the Lucerne, Indiana newspaper on May 13 1933.
   In the years after, Prentiss Oakley is reported to have been troubled by his actions. The coroner, arriving on the scene, saw the following: "nearly everyone had begun collecting souvenirs such as shell casings, slivers of glass from the shattered car windows, and bloody pieces of clothing from the garments of Bonnie and Clyde. One eager man had opened his pocket knife, and was reaching into the car to cut off Clyde's left ear." The coroner enlisted Hamer for help controlling the "circus-like atmosphere," and only then did people move away from the car.
The Bonnie and Clyde Festival
Every year near the anniversary of the ambush, a "Bonnie and Clyde Festival" is hosted in the town of Gibsland, Louisiana. The ambush location, still comparatively isolated on Louisiana Highway 154 south of Gibsland, is commemorated by a stone marker that has been defaced to near illegibility by souvenir hunters and gunshot. A small metal version was added to accompany the stone monument. It was stolen, as was its replacement.


Selected references in popular culture
Bonnie and Clyde were among the first celebrity criminals of the modern era. Certainly Bonnie knew how to enhance the pair's popular appeal by manipulating the media, and newspapers were quick to publish her poem The Story of Bonnie and Clyde. Her other poetry, especially Suicide Sal, shows her flair for an underworld vernacular that owes much to the detective magazines she avidly read. According to Geringer, Bonnie appealed to the out of work and generally disenfranchised third of America shattered by the Depression, who saw the duo as a Robin Hood-like couple striking blows at an uncaring government.
Advertising
The advertising industry took note of the pair's appeal. When a letter signed "Clyde Champion Barrow" was sent to the Ford Motor Company, praising their "dandy car", Ford used it in car advertisements. Although the handwriting in this letter has never been authenticated, the same use was made of a similar letter Ford received around the same time from someone claiming to be John Dillinger.
Film

Hollywood has treated the pair's story several times, starting with You Only Live Once, a 1937 film loosely based on Bonnie and Clyde directed by Fritz Lang starring Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney.
Dorothy Provine starred in the 1958 movie The Bonnie Parker Story, directed by William Witney.
In 1967, Arthur Penn directed a romanticized film version of the tale. Bonnie and Clyde, which starred Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.
In the 1992 TV film,, Tracey Needham played Bonnie while Clyde was portrayed by Dana Ashbrook.
Music

In 1968, Georgie Fame released a single called The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde, whose lyrics tell of Bonnie and Clyde's exploits.
In 1967 Serge Gainsbourg recorded his song "Bonnie and Clyde" as a duet with Brigitte Bardot. The French lyrics are based on Bonnie Parker's poem "The Trail's End". This song would be covered in the 1990s by the bands Stereolab, Luna and MC Solaar. In 2006, pop singer Belinda Carlisle recorded a cover with Fiachna O'Braonain on her 2007 Voila CD.
In 1968, Merle Haggard had a hit single with his song "Legend of Bonnie and Clyde", and Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames had a hit on both sides of the Atlantic with "The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde."
In 1997 the Russian rock band Splean (Сплин) includes a song "Bonnie and Clyde" ("Бонни и Клайд") into their album "Black eye" ("Фонарь под глазом").
The German punk band Die Toten Hosen have a song entitled "Bonnie und Clyde" that details their exploits.
Musical theater
In 1999, Japan's Takarazuka Revue, building on the international popularity of the Bonnie and Clyde legend in print, broadcast, recording and film, became among the first to adapt the tale as a major musical. The first production was staged by the company's Snow Troupe, starring Tatsuki Kōju and Hitomi Tsukikage. The show was scheduled to be produced again in 2008 for the 30th anniversary celebration of Takarazuka Bow Hall. Once more the Snow Troupe will mount the production, this time with dual casts, one of which is to star Kaname Ouki as Clyde Barrow.
Conclusion
Through the decades, many historians have strugged to explain Bonnie and Clyde's enduring appeal to the public imagination. E.R. Milner, a historian, writer, and expert on Bonnie and Clyde and their era, put the duo's enduring appeal to the public, both during the depression and continuing on through the decades, into historical and cultural perspective. To those people who, as Milner says, "consider themselves outsiders, or oppose the existing system," Bonnie and Clyde represent the ultimate outsiders, revolting against an uncaring system. "The country’s money simply declined by 38 percent," explains Milner, author of The Lives and Times of Bonnie and Clyde. "Gaunt, dazed men roamed the city streets seeking jobs... Breadlines and soup kitchens became jammed. (In rural areas) foreclosures forced more than 38 percent of farmers from their lands (while simultaneously) a catastrophic drought struck the Great Plains... By the time Bonnie and Clyde became well known, many had felt the capitalistic system had been abused by big business and government officials... Now here were Bonnie and Clyde striking back."Further Information
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