Calamity Jane

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Martha Jane Canary
Calamity Jane, c. 1880
Born	Martha Jane Cannary May 1, 1852 Princeton, Missouri, U.S.
Died	August 1, 1903 (aged 51) Terry, South Dakota, U.S.
Nationality	United States
Occupation	Explorer, performer, dance-hall girl, prostitute, frontier woman
Spouse(s)	Clinton Burke William P Steers
Children	2
Relatives	Five siblings

Martha Jane Canary or Cannary (May 1, 1852 – August 1, 1903), better known as Calamity Jane, was an American frontierswoman known for being an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok's. Late in her life, she appeared in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition. She is said to have exhibited compassion to others, especially to the sick and needy. This facet of her character contrasted with her daredevil ways and helped to make her a noted frontier figure.^[1] She was also known for her habit of wearing men's attire.^[2] Much of what she claimed to have witnessed and participated in could not be proven. She was an alcoholic and did not have a formal education.

Films

The Plainsman is a 1936 film starring Gary Cooper as Wild Bill Hickok and Jean Arthur as Calamity Jane. In Young Bill Hickok with Roy Rogers (1940), she was portrayed by Sally Payne. Marin Sais played her in the 1940 serial Deadwood Dick. Calamity Jane was played by Frances Farmer in the 1941 Western The Badlands of Dakota. Calamity Jane was played by Jane Russell in the 1948 comedy The Paleface. Calamity Jane and Sam Bass was a 1949 film; Calamity was played by Yvonne De Carlo, Sam Bass by Howard Duff, with both characters heavily fictionalized.

Calamity Jane is a 1953 musical-Western film from Warner Bros. starring Doris Day and Howard Keel as Wild Bill Hickok. The plot of the film is almost entirely fictional and bears little resemblance to the actual lives of the protagonists. It won the Best Song Oscar for "Secret Love", by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster.

In the 1984 made-for-TV film, Calamity Jane, she was portrayed by Jane Alexander. In the 1995 Disney movie Tall Tale: The Unbelievable Adventures of Pecos Bill she was portrayed by Catherine O'Hara as a mythic figure, acquainted with Paul Bunyan and John Henry, and as Pecos Bill's jilted sweetheart and as a sheriff or deputy of some sort.

In the 1995 film Wild Bill, Calamity Jane was portrayed by Ellen Barkin. In the 1995 film Buffalo Girls, Calamity Jane was portrayed by Anjelica Huston. In the 2009 French movie Lucky Luke, Jane was portrayed by Sylvie Testud.

Robin Weigert plays Calamity Jane in the HBO series Deadwood, for three seasons, as well as in the HBO movie Deadwood: The Movie, released in May 2019.

Documentary

Calamity Jane: Wild West Legend, directed by Gregory Monro (2014).

Games

In the Facebook application FrontierVille there is a suitlike outfit for female characters called the "Calamity Jane Outfit." She appeared as a side character in the computer RPG Worlds of Ultima: Martian Dreams (1991). In the KingsIsle Entertainment game Pirate 101 Calamity Jane is one of the Magnificent 7.^[24] A character named after Calamity Jane appeared as a side character in the videogame Wild Arms (1996).

Calamity Jane was data-mined before as a possible Archer-Class Servant in the 2015 Japanese mobile online game Fate/Grand Order. In October 2019, she is confirmed to be a playable limited Archer-Class Servant.

In the RPG game Fallout 3 Calamity Jane is referenced by the Lone Wanderer in a dialogue option when first talking to Megaton sheriff and mayor, Lucas Simms. A character in a card board game BANG! - Calamity Janet. In Season 6 of Fortnite Battle Royale, one of the main skins of the season is a gunslinger and cowgirl named "Calamity". The game "Calamity the Natural World", a line of educational games made in the 90's for the PlayStation by Lightspan Adventures, stars Calamity Jane.

Plays

Productions: Calamity Jane the Play by Catherine Ann Jones: Empire State Theatre, Albany, New York; Promenade Theatre, New York, NY, with Estelle Parsons; Santa Paula Theatre, Santa Paula, CA; Wimberley Players, Wimberley, Texas; Plaza Playhouse, Carpenteria, CA. Calamity Jane the Musical by Catherine Ann Jones: South Jersey Regional Theatre, Somers Point, New Jersey; Ojai Arts Theatre, Ojai, CA; Camino Real Theatre, San Juan Capistrano, CA; One Eyed Man Productions, a touring production (2017–18), Various Cities, Australia, with Virginia Gay.

Literature

Books

Calamity Jane was an important fictional character in the Deadwood Dick series of dime novels beginning with the first appearance of Deadwood Dick in Beadle's Half-Dime Library issue #1 in 1877. This series, written by Edward Wheeler, established her with a reputation as a Wild West heroine and probably did more to enhance her familiarity to the public than any of her real life exploits. (There is no evidence that she was consulted by Wheeler or approved the Deadwood Dick stories, so the character in the stories was entirely fictitious – as were the events described, but the fictional adventures were muddled in the public mind with the real Jane.^{[citation needed]}) Calamity Jane was the title character in a serial published in New York's Street & Smith's Weekly (1882) under the title, Calamity Jane: Queen of the Plains, by the author "Reckless Ralph".

The science fiction writer A. Bertram Chandler included a character named Calamity Jane Arlen in his far future novels set on the frontier Rim Worlds, a space analogue of the Old West.^[25]

A fictitious fight between Calamity Jane and an impostor is depicted in Thomas Berger's novel Little Big Man (1964). Jane is the central character in Larry McMurtry's book Buffalo Girls: A Novel (1990). Jane is a central character in Pete Dexter's novel Deadwood (1986).

J. T. Edson features Calamity Jane as a character in a number of his books, as a stand-alone character (in Cold Deck, Hot Lead, Calamity Spells Trouble, Trouble Trail, The Bull Whip Breed, The Cow Thieves, The Whip And The War Lance and The Big Hunt) and as a romantic interest of the character Mark Counter (in The Wildcats, The Bad Bunch, Guns In The Night and others).

An alternative universe version of Jane is a character in the short story "Deadwood" in Corsets and Clockwork (2011), a steampunk anthology. The story also features Jesse James. In Calamity's Wake (2013), a novel of historical fiction written by Natalee Caple, Martha, or Calamity Jane, is one of two main narrators; the other is Jane's daughter Miette.^[26] Calamity Jane, légende de l'Ouest, written by Gregory Monro (2010), is the only French biography to this day. Calamity Jane appears in Michael Crichton's novel Dragon Teeth (2017).

Comics

Calamity Jane figures as a main character in an album of the same name of the Franco-Belgian comics series Lucky Luke, created by Morris and René Goscinny. Also, she features in the album Ghosthunt, created by Morris and Lo Hartog van Banda.

Graphic novel Calamity Jane - The Calamitous Life of Martha Jane Cannary, 1852-1903 (IDW Publishing, 2017) by Christian Perrissin [fr] and Matthieu Blanchin [fr] is a biography of Calamity Jane, mostly based on Calamity Jane's Letters to Her Daughter.

Music

Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok are featured in the song "Deadwood Mountain" by the country duo Big & Rich. Some of her purported letters were set to music in an art-song cycle by 20th-century composer Libby Larsen, called "Songs From Letters". Soprano Dora Ohrenstein commissioned five pieces compiled under the title Urban Diva, the second piece, Ben Johnston's Calamity Jane to Her Daughter is a theatrical setting of selected letters. "Calamity Jane" is a song by Grant-Lee Phillips on "Virginia Creeper" (2004). "Calamity Jane" is a song by Kiya Heartwood on Wishing Chair's Underdog CD (2005).

Alain Bashung, Chloé Mons, Rodolphe Burger released the album La Ballade de Calamity Jane (2006) based on Jane's letters to her daughter. "Kalamity Jane" is a song by Czech rock band Kabát. "Calamity Jane" is a song by Chris Anderson on his album "The Crown" (2004). The 1953 movie "Calamity Jane" with Doris Day and Howard Keel features the song, "My Secret Love" which won the 1954 Academy Award for "Best Music Original Song". Calamity Jane is mentioned in the 2016 song "The Lighter" by the French pop-rock band Superbus, from the album "Sixtape".

Television

The name "Calamity" is given to the children's character played by Nancy Gilbert in the 1955–1956 syndicated television series, Buffalo Bill, Jr., with Dick Jones as the fictitious Buffalo Bill, Jr., and Harry Cheshire as Judge Ben "Fair and Square" Wiley.

In the episode "Calamity" (December 13, 1959) of the ABC/Warner Brothers western series, Colt .45, Dody Heath is cast as Calamity Jane and Joan Taylor as a woman doctor, Ellen McGraw. In the story line, series character Christopher Colt, played by Wayde Preston, hires Calamity Jane to drive the stagecoach containing Dr. McGraw and the vaccine needed for the smallpox outbreak in Deadwood. Colt is unsure if Calamity can handle the job because miners and Indians seek to steal the valuable medication.^[27]

Season 5 of Have Gun, Will Travel included an episode called "The Cure" (first broadcast on May 20, 1961) with an alcoholic Jane (Norma Crane as "Martha Jane Conroy") seeking revenge on a promoter who had replaced the "real" Jane with a younger woman.

In an episode of Bonanza, "Calamity Over the Comstock" (1963), Stefanie Powers plays Calamity Jane, who visits Virginia City along with Doc Holliday. In this primarily comedic episode, she is rescued by Little Joe, who at first thinks she is a male. She becomes infatuated with him, and he receives threats from Doc, who covets Jane for himself. At her urging (and threat), Doc demurs from facing down Joe, and Jane and Doc exit town. No official or unofficial documentation exists suggesting that Doc Holliday and Jane ever met during their lifetimes. It is highly unlikely that they met considering the geographical distances between them during their lives.

In an episode of the television show Death Valley Days, "A Calamity Named Jane", Fay Spain plays Calamity Jane as she joins Wild Bill Hickok's (Rhodes Reasons) show. Her uncouth behavior causes Bill to think he made a mistake, and when Bill tells her she should "act like a lady" he soon realizes he made a bigger mistake.

In the 1966 Batman series, one of the villains in season three was named "Calamity Jan" (played by Dina Merrill).

The television movie Calamity Jane (1984) featured her life story, including her alleged marriage to Wild Bill Hickok and the daughter she purportedly gave up. Actress Jane Alexander portrayed Calamity and was nominated for an Emmy in 1985 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Special. The show also featured an early performance of Sara Gilbert as Calamity's daughter, Jean, at age 7.

Jane is the central character in Larry McMurtry's book Buffalo Girls: A Novel (1990), and in the 1995 TV adaptation of the same name, Jane is played by Anjelica Huston, with Sam Elliott as Wild Bill Hickok.

In 1997 a cartoon series on Kids' WB, The Legend of Calamity Jane, depicted a young Jane (voiced by Barbara Weber Scaff).

Robin Weigert portrayed Calamity Jane in the HBO series Deadwood (2004-2006) and in the HBO sequel Deadwood: The Movie (2019).