Annie Get Your Gun (musical) Annie Get Your Gun (musical) Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music by Irving Berlin and a book by Dorothy Fields and her brother Herbert Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley (1860–1926), a sharpshooter who starred in Buffalo Bill's Wild West, and her romance with sharpshooter Frank E. Butler (1847–1926). The 1946 Broadway production was a hit, and the musical had long runs in both New York (1,147 performances) and London, spawning revivals, a 1950 film version and television versions. Songs that became hits include "There's No Business Like
Annie Oakley they resided. Some people believe she took on the name because that was the name of the man who had paid her train fare when she was a child. They joined "Buffalo Bill's Wild West" in 1885. At five feet tall, Oakley was given the nickname of "Watanya Cicilla" by fellow performer Sitting Bull, rendered "Little Sure Shot" in the public advertisements. During her first engagement with the Buffalo Bill show, Oakley experienced a tense professional rivalry with rifle sharpshooter Lillian Smith. Smith was eleven years younger than Oakley, age 15 at the time she joined the show in 1886,