Old Man Clanton actually died prior to the gunfight and probably never met any of the Earps. Doc was a dentist, not a surgeon, and survived the shootout. James Earp, who was portrayed as the youngest brother and the first to die in the story, actually was the eldest brother and lived until 1926. The key women in Wyatt's and Doc's lives—Wyatt's common law wife Josephine and Doc's common-law wife Big Nose Kate—were not present in Lake's original story and were kept out of the movie as well. The film gives the date of the gunfight as 1882 when it actually occurred in 1881.