I’m hoping to correct an old Utah myth that’s been in the news a lot lately: that Butch and Sundance were killed in that gunfight in South America that ends the movie.
I can say with confidence that Butch Cassidy made it safely home to Utah a few years after that gunfight. Some of my grandmother’s family rode with Butch and Sundance before they fled to South America in 1901. My grandmother loved telling the story about the first automobile she ever saw. It was 1908. Southern Utah. She was 13. Heard a commotion outside her cabin. Went to see. She was very excited to see the new Ford Model T. The neighbors were jubilant to see the driver. It was Butch. Home at last. Big celebration. She got introduced to Butch. But her story wasn’t even about Butch. It was about the first car she ever saw. Butch just happened to be the guy driving it.
In the ’70s, I did the Playboy interview with Bob Redford. While they were filming, Butch’s youngest sister, Lula, spent time with them on the set. “After she got to know and trust us,” Redford told me, she told Newman and Redford the true story. Butch made it home safely, lived a long and quiet life and when he died in 1937, friends and family buried him in an unmarked grave to avoid notoriety. He’d always been chased, Lula said; now he could rest in peace.
The movie’s director George Roy Hill also got to know Lula. That’s why he froze the frame at the end, with Butch and Sundance still on their feet, firing.
Larry DuBois, Salt Lake City
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