Pop culture and Hollywood glamourised Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, but the reality of their 1930s crime spree was much grittier, desperate, and less successful than most people realise.
They Were Petty Thieves, Not Masterminds. They rarely robbed big banks. They mostly targeted small grocery stores and gas stations. Their robberies often netted as little as $5 or $10.
They were frequently broke and hungry. They did not stay in fancy hotels. They slept in stolen cars or the woods. They went weeks without washing clothes or bathing. Clyde walked with a permanent limp after cutting off two of his own toes in prison. Bonnie suffered horrific third-degree leg burns from a car battery explosion during a crash, forcing Clyde to carry her everywhere.
Their "badass" reputation largely came from a roll of undeveloped film they abandoned at a safehouse. The media published playful, staged photos of Bonnie holding a shotgun and smoking a cigar. Bonnie wrote poems and sent them to newspapers, which fueled the romantic "star-crossed lovers" narrative.
The Barrow Gang killed at least nine police officers and several civilians. Most killings were panicky reactions to avoid getting caught, not calculated movie-style showdowns. The public initially saw them as anti-hero rebels fighting the system during the Great Depression.
This sympathy vanished when they brutally executed two young highway patrolmen in Texas.In the end, their run lasted only about two years before they were ambushed and killed in a hail of 167 bullets in Louisiana.
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I don't like pirates or thieving bands. Thank you, Louisiana. There are plenty more to be eliminated.
ReplyDeleteMy father was a boy in Haskell, Texas, when Bonnie & Clyde were active. He said that walking home from school with his friends they would talk about what they'd do if they came around a bend in the country road they walked and saw Bonnie & Clyde hiding in the mesquite tree clumps.
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