Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (film) Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (film) Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is a 1957 American western film starring Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp and Kirk Douglas as Doc Holliday, loosely based on the actual event which took place on October 26, 1881. The picture was directed by John Sturges from a screenplay written by novelist Leon Uris. The shootout was portrayed in the movie as a protracted, heavily armed firefight that took place at medium range. The actual event began in a narrow wide empty lot between the Harwood house and C. S. Fly's 12-room boarding house and photography studio.
Wyatt Earp a western screenwriter for years to come. It also established the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in the public consciousness and Earp as a fearless lawman in the American Old West. The book "is now regarded more as fiction than fact", "an imaginative hoax, a fabrication mixed with just enough fact to give it credibility". Josephine Earp worked hard to create an image of Wyatt as a teetotaler, but as a saloon owner and gambler, he drank occasionally as well. When Flood and Lake wrote their biographies, Prohibition was in force. Among the other facts Josephine wanted scrubbed from Earp's