JENNINGS, Al

(1863–1961)

   The last of the old-time outlaws, Al Jennings was born Alfonso Jackson Jennings in Tazewell County, Virginia, but spent his early adult life in El Reno, Oklahoma, as an attorney who eventually went bad and formed his own outlaw gang, the Jennings gang. For a short time Jennings and his gang developed a reputation as train robbers, and Jennings himself, despite his fivefoot-one-inch frame, became a notorious gunfighter, killing 18 men (“I always shot ’em in the throat so they could not talk back”) and even standing down Jesse James at one time. At least, these are the legends Jennings cultivated through the years. After serving his prison term and receiving a presidential pardon, Jennings entered the film business when it was in its most primitive state. In 1908 Jennings the reformed outlaw collaborated with legendary sheriff Bill Tilgman in making A Bank Robbery, filmed on location in Cache, Oklahoma, a town that still had the classic old West look. The 19-minute film, with no story boards, shows the outlaw gang planning their holdup, then riding into town, entering the bank, shooting it up (we see the scene only from the outside), coming out, and riding down the street out of town. As they ride down the street, the camera pans the townspeople on the street. Several are waving at the camera.

   The film was the beginning of an attempt by Jennings and Tilgman to establish the film industry in Oklahoma as New York was becoming impractical, especially for filming Westerns. In 1918 Jennings established his own production company, the Al Jennings Company, located in Tucson, Arizona. Thereafter, he had a long career in Hollywood, being associated with over 100 films, including nonWesterns, in various phases of the industry. Two film biographies of him were made, Beating Back (1914), starring Jennings as himself, and Al Jennings of Oklahoma (1951), starring Dan Duryea and Gale Storm. Jennings died at 98 in Tarzana, California, the last survivor from the old West.

   Jennings’s Hollywood career, as with the Hollywood career of Wyatt Earp, brings up the interesting question: How much of what Hollywood saw as the authentic West truly was historic? While most of Jennings’s claims to gunfighter notoriety have been shown false, much of what early Westerns relied on for authentic detail was based solely on the testimony of Jennings and others who claimed to have lived through the legendary days of old.

   See also HISTORICAL AUTHENTICITY.