Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).

Vitals

Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy, exiled American outlaw in Bolivia

Bolivia, November 1908

Film: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Release Date: October 24, 1969
Director: George Roy Hill
Costume Designer: Edith Head

Background

105 years ago today, a group of scared and confused law officers surrounded a small boarding house in San Vincente, Bolivia. Inside the house were two tired American men, believed responsible for a score of robberies throughout South America over the past three years. Outside the house stood the police chief, the mayor, city officials, and three soldiers – one of whom was dead.

At 2:00 a.m., the officials heard a man screaming from inside the house. A single shot ended the screaming, soon followed by one final gunshot. These were the last shots fired in a daylong gun battle that had raged for nearly 12 hours. Under the light of the morning, the officials cautiously entered the house and found the two men dead, one of a bullet wound in the forehead and the other with a bullet wound in his temple.

There remains some doubt as to who the two men really were, but they were believed to be the thieves of a mining payroll stolen five days earlier. These thieves were better known to history, and film, as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Continue reading →