The Poster Memorabilia blog

Reuniting with the Earp Brothers Through the Years

A photographer, his best friend, and a decade-long hunt for the Earp brothers' signatures.

By an anonymous Hollywood insider

Do you have that one movie that touches you so much, just seeing its stars makes you emotional? I do, and I'm not ashamed to say that it's Tombstone from 1993. It's an awesome, early-90s western movie based on the real-life 19th-century Earp Vendetta Ride in Arizona.

I've actually met all three of the Earp brothers in person through the years. I encountered the leads—Kurt Russell, Bill Paxton, and Sam Elliott—in my time working as a celebrity photographer.

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The first one I met was Kurt Russell, Wyatt Earp himself. I remember fighting tooth and nail to get the assignment of covering the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival because I knew his film, Poseidon, would premiere there. It was my best chance to see him in person and get his autograph.

With my luck, I got the assignment, and Russell did show up. He was only a few meters away from the photo pen, but I could feel his charisma seeping out of that megawatt smile. It had been over a decade since he made Tombstone, but there stood the righteous and quietly confident Wyatt Earp in front of my very eyes (or camera).

I know it's a cliché to marvel at how celebrities still look the same years later, but Russell looked practically unchanged from 1993. And yeah, I'll admit it: I almost cried through my camera lens. When I screamed at him to look my way to get my shot, his look pierced my soul. I'm not gay, but if someone could turn me, it'd be Kurt Russell.

Since I was working, I took my friend with me and got him into the fan pit to ask for Russell's autograph. He's actually gay, and when I saw him turn as red as a tomato during their interaction, I knew I wasn't the only one who felt that way.

“I got the access, he got the autographs.”

When that worked, I brought the same friend along to almost all of my assignments. We became a sort of autograph-hounding duo—I got the access, he got the autographs. It was a win-win situation, especially since we got the rest of the cast of Tombstone to sign our poster over the years.

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A decade later, we met Bill Paxton, or Morgan Earp, at San Diego Comic-Con, of all places. He was there to attend the 30th anniversary panel for Aliens.

Seeing his gentle demeanor in person really dawned on me how perfectly cast he was. Paxton was Morgan Earp on and off the screen. He was such a nice guy that my friend later told me that he was the easiest to ask for an autograph. He didn't feel as intimidated as with the other cast members. And when we heard the actor passed away just months later, we both cried like babies.

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In that same year, 2017, I covered the Sundance Film Festival in January, where Sam Elliott was promoting his latest film at the time, The Hero. This was when we finally met the third Earp Brother and got his autograph. As if Virgil Earp himself stepped out of the screen, Elliott was every bit the stately town marshal as he stood on that stage.

I'm even surprised that my friend managed to ask him to sign our poster. I could tell Elliott was the kind of man he'd cower from, so I was worried about how their encounter would go. Later that day, he told me that he almost shit his pants with how nervous he was talking to the famously stoic, mustachioed star.

Kurt Russell, Bill Paxton, and Sam Elliott went on to make other, equally amazing films since Tombstone in 1993. Other fans probably know them for their other roles, and good for them. But for me, these three actors will always be the Earp Brothers, and though Morgan (Bill) is gone, I'm sure the other two are still laying down the law somewhere in the wild, wild west.

Some things you watch. This one you keep.

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