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'''why does this not mention anything of his death!!!!!!!!!!(February 3, 1904 – October 22, 1934) was an [[United States|American]] [[bank robbery|bank robber]] and alleged killer, romanticized by the press and by folk singer [[Woody Guthrie]] in his song "Pretty Boy Floyd".
Pretty Boy Floyd (February 3, 1904 – October 22, 1934) was an [[United States|American]] [[bank robbery|bank robber]] and alleged killer, romanticized by the press and by folk singer [[Woody Guthrie]] in his song "Pretty Boy Floyd".


==Life of crime==
==Life of crime==

Revision as of 08:47, 11 March 2009

For other uses, see Pretty Boy Floyd (disambiguation).
Pretty Boy Floyd
StatusDeceased
Occupation(s)gangster, bank robber

Pretty Boy Floyd (February 3, 1904 – October 22, 1934) was an American bank robber and alleged killer, romanticized by the press and by folk singer Woody Guthrie in his song "Pretty Boy Floyd".

Life of crime

The Time magazine of 22 October 1922, mentions a robbery of $3.50 in pennies from a local post office as his first known crime. He was eighteen years old at the time. Three years later he was arrested for a payroll robbery in St. Louis, Missouri and served five years in prison.[1]

  • Arrested September 16, 1925, in St. Louis, Missouri # 22318; received December 18, 1925 State Penn. Jefferson City, Missouri # 29078-5 years

When paroled, he vowed that he would never see the inside of another prison. Entering into partnerships with more established criminals in the Kansas City underworld, he committed a series of bank robberies over the next several years; it was during this period that he earned the nickname "Pretty Boy." When the payroll master at one robbery first described the three perpetrators to the police, he referred to Floyd as "a mere boy — a pretty boy with apple cheeks." Like his contemporary Baby Face Nelson, Floyd hated his nickname.[1]

  • March 9, 1929 # 16950 arrested in Kansas City, Missouri - charge investigation.
  • May 6, 1929 # 3999 arrested in Kansas City, Missouri - charge vagrancy and suspicion of Highway robbery-released May 7, 1929
  • May 9, 1929 # 887 arrested in Pueblo City, Colorado - charge vagrancy; fined $50.00 and 60 days in jail
  • November 1929 Floyd returns to Oklahoma for funeral of his father killed by a neighbor Jim Mills; Mills is acquitted but "vanished".
  • March 8, 1930 # 19983 alias "Frank Mitchell" - arrested in Akron, Ohio - charged in the investigation of the murder of an Akron police officer,[2] who was killed March 9, 1930 during a Floyd Gang Robbery.
  • May 20, 1930 # 21458 arrested in Toledo, Ohio

Legacy

Video clips of Depression era gangsters, including Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson and Machine Gun Kelly

Floyd got his nickname from the paymaster's description of him at his first major robbery: "a pretty boy." Though he hated the name, it had staying power.[3]

In music

In March 1939, five years after Floyd's death, Woody Guthrie, a native of Oklahoma, wrote a song romanticizing Floyd's life, called "The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd." The song has the form of a Scottish "come-all-ye" ballad opening with the lines

"If you'll gather 'round me, children, a story I will tell
'Bout Pretty Boy Floyd, an Outlaw, Oklahoma knew him well."

The lyrics play up Floyd's generosity to the poor, and contain the very famous line:

"Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen."

This song has been performed by many of the great figures in country and folk music, including Joan Baez, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Bob Dylan (on the Smithsonian's tribute to Guthrie in 1988), The Byrds (on their album Sweetheart of the Rodeo), Wall of Voodoo, the folk-punk band Ghost Mice, Alastair Moock, Guthrie's son Arlo Guthrie (on his album Precious Friend with Pete Seeger), the Canadian folk-rock/bluegrass group The Duhks (on their debut album Your Daughters & Your Sons), Dana Cooper, Irish folk singer Christy Moore (on his album Live in Dublin with Donal Lunny), James Taylor, and Jimmy Faulkner.

Pretty Boy Floyd is mentioned in Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five's "The Message" at 05:27:

"Now you're unemployed, all null an' void;
Walkin' round like you're Pretty Boy Floyd."

There were also two glam metal bands called Pretty Boy Floyd, a Canadian band that has broken up and an American band that is still together.

"Pretty Boy Floyd" is also a song by the band Therefore I Am.

The song "Pretty Boy Floyd", featured in the film "Blow" (2001).

In comics

It has been suggested that Flattop Jones, a villain from the Dick Tracy comic strip, was modeled on Floyd. Like the real-life figure, Flattop hailed from Oklahoma's Cookson Hills.

Floyd features front and center in Image Comic's 2008 mini-series " Pretty, Baby, Machine" that teams Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson and Machine Gun Kelly together. PBM is by Clark Westerman and Kody Chamberlain.


In film

A film, Pretty Boy Floyd, was made in 1960 by Herbert J. Leder, starring John Ericson.

Another film, A Bullet for Pretty Boy, was released in 1970, starring Fabian.

Floyd was played by Steve Kanaly in the 1973 film Dillinger.

Martin Sheen took the title role in the 1974 TV movie, The Story of Pretty Boy Floyd.

Floyd was portrayed by Bo Hopkins in the 1975 TV-movie, The Kansas City Massacre

Floyd will be portrayed by Channing Tatum in the upcoming film Public Enemies (2009 film), starring Christian Bale and Johnny Depp

In literature

Many books have been written about Pretty Boy Floyd or contain mentions of him.

Floyd was mentioned in the novel The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, in which Ma Joad claims that she knew Floyd's mother and that Pretty Boy Floyd was a good man who just got backed into a corner. When her son Tom sets out on his own, she reminds him of Floyd and is afraid that even though he is trying to help people, he might be similarly driven and cut down by the police.

A semi-fictionalized biography about Floyd was written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana in 1994. In this work, Floyd is sympathetically portrayed as a good-natured man and a reluctant killer, popular with women but devoted to his family. He is more a victim of the poor social conditions of the time than a cold-blooded criminal.

Notes

  1. ^ a b King, Jeffrey. The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd
  2. ^ Harland Manes
  3. ^ Page 2 - "Charles Arthur Floyd: 'Pretty Boy' from Cookson Hills" @ crimelibrary.com

References

  • Time, 22 October 1934
  • "Sister of infamous gunslinger 'Pretty Boy Floyd' recalls a kindly brother," Associated Press; May 14, 2002
  • King, Jeffrey, "The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd" Atlas Books, 1998; ISBN 0-87338-582-9
  • McMurtry, Larry and Ossana, Diana , "Pretty Boy Floyd," Simon & Schuster; ISBN 0-671-89167-7
  • Michael Wallis, "Pretty Boy, the Life and Times of Charles Arthur Floyd" St. Martin's Press, New York, 1992; ISBN 0-312-07071-3
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