Paul Newman & Katharine Ross.

Judging by the amount of radio interviews I’ve been doing, people really care about the Sundance Kid.

Ever since news got out that Utah filmmaker Marilyn Grace and physical anthropologist John McCullough had unearthed the remains of one William Henry Long, wireless hosts from coast to coast have been asking me for my opinion. I guess they figure it’s worth something because of all the research I did for ETTA.

Do I think, they ask, that this Bill Long could actually be the Kid? What do I think of the photo comparisons between the two men? Can DNA evidence prove that they’re one and the same?

I answer the questions as well as I can – after all I’ve got a novel to sell – but I don’t flatter myself that all this interest is a tribute to me or ETTA or even the intrepid souls digging up that body in Duchesne, Utah.

It’s actually a tribute to George Roy Hill, William Goldman, Paul Newman and Robert Redford: the team responsible for the great film, Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid.

Does anyone really think that there would be enough interest in Sundance for radio guys to call me if it hadn’t been for this classic movie? Believe me, nobody outside of western nuts would care if Grace and McCullough had found Marion Hedgepeth (who?).

It was Hill’s direction, Goldman’s script and the star power of Redford and Newman that made the two outlaws real to us. For most people Paul and Bob are Butch and Sundance and will be forever more. Photos of the real guy or not, most people will picture Redford when the DNA results are finally announced.

Truth may be stranger than fiction, but it’s nowhere near as powerful. Two screen legends were responsible for creating a western legend so strong that it’s lasted 40 years…and can still get radio types from Minneapolis to Portland to call an author in Philadelphia just to see if he’s got anything new to say about it.

Sundance, seated left, Butch, seated right

It’s hard to believe, but 2009 marks the fortieth anniversary of the classic film, Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid. The picture, released on October 24, 1969, has indelibly etched stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford as the two outlaws, but the truth about Robert Leroy Parker (Butch) and Harry Longbaugh (Sundance) is actually more fascinating than any movie could be. Here are five things you probably never knew about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

 . They really were western robin hoods. Butch, Sundance and the members of their gang, The Wild Bunch, were among the most efficient and effective bandits of their era. But while they often robbed trains and banks of enormous amounts, they seldom stole from ordinary people. In fact, they were known for giving money to individuals and families down on their luck. In one instance, Butch once rode a horse over three states to bring medicine to a woman he had never even met.

 . Etta Place may be the most mysterious figure in American history. The Kid’s girlfriend, Etta Place (played by Katharine Ross in the movie) probably has fewer facts known about her than any other famous person in the history of the United States. Although theories about Etta abound, nobody knows where she came from, what her real name was, who her parents were or what she did for a living. Historians aren’t even sure she was Sundance’s lover. Etta disappeared in 1909, aged somewhat less than thirty, and was never seen again.

 .The Sundance Kid wasn’t from the West. Harry Alonzo Longbaugh was born in 1867 near Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, a mere 27 miles from Philadelphia. His parents were Josiah and Annie Longbaugh (or Longabaugh) and were probably farmers. He emigrated to the west with his uncle and aunt, George and Mary Longenbaugh (yet another spelling!), and settled in Durango, Colorado. Harry got his name when he was arrested and thrown into the jail at Sundance, Wyoming for horse theft.

 .They could have gotten off scott free. In the spring of 1900, Judge Orlando W. Powers offered a general amnesty to Butch and Sundance if they’d promise to stop robbing Union Pacific Trains. At that point the pair and their companions had already relieved the train line of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Their answer to the offer was pure Old West outlaw: on August 29, 1900 they blew up the baggage car of a Union Pacific train in Table Rock, Wyoming and got away with $55,000.

. Butch and Sundance may have lived into the 1930’s. In the final shot of the film, the two outlaws are cut down by Bolivian fedrales in a hail of gunfire; for the past 100 years, this has pretty much been the accepted version of their fate. But in May of 2009, a forensic anthropologist named John M. McCullough unearthed the remains of a rancher named William Henry Long in Duchesne, Utah. McCullough, of the University of Utah, believes that those remains are actually those of Harry Longbaugh, the Sundance Kid. Long, whose headstone gives his birthdate as 1860, lived in the town with a widow with five children and was well known for telling tales of his outlaw days right up until his suicide in 1936.

 If Dr. McCullough is correct, we may soon discover many more things we never knew about the West’s most charming and charismatic owlhoots.

Harry Longbaugh in 1902 ; William Long-when?

I’ve been writing the past few days about how a well known forensic anthropologist and a documentary filmmaker have dug up the grave of one William Henry Long of Duchesne, Utah and believe the remains are those of Harry Longbaugh (or Longabaugh or Longenbaugh), the outlaw known as the Sundance Kid and the hero of my novel, Etta: a fictionalized account of the life and times of Etta Place, the Kid’s alleged girlfriend.

It could very well be that ol’ Bill is actually the Kid; and that Sundance didn’t die with Butch in Bolivia in 1909. It certainly would have been to the Bolivian federales advantage to lie and say they had killed the famed bandits.

I’ve stated that I think Dr. John McCullough has a good case for Sundance being William.

Still, a few things bother me about all this.

According to a 1901 Pinkerton Detective Agency profile of Sundance, his eyes were “black.” The photo of Sundance taken at DeYoung’s in New York City (left) seems to bear this out. But the eyes of William Long (right) seem light, likely gray or blue: not the Kid’s color according to those whose job it was to know.

Then, there’s the question of style. The photo of Long looks like it was taken within a few years of the New York portrait, a man still young, maybe even younger than the man on the left. But Long looks a mess. His clothes are rumpled and his hat is shapeless and askew. This wasn’t the way Harry liked to be depicted and in all photos of him I’ve ever seen, he’s immaculate. You could cut yourself on his creases.

Finally, according to his headstone, Long was born in 1860. That would make him seven years older than the historical Harry Longbaugh. Why lie about your age (and make yourself older) after you’ve joined the choir invisible and are well beyond the reach of the law?

Harry Longbaugh in 1902 & William Long-when?

Legend says that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were both killed by Bolivian federales in 1908; and up until now there’s been plenty of evidence to back that upBut now, documentary film maker Marilyn Grace and  forensic anthropologist Dr. John McCullough, say they may have found the body of Harry Longbaugh, the Sundance Kid, in a grave in Duchesne, Utah.Three months ago, they dug up a grave in the Duchesne City Cemetery.

According to the headstone, the remains are those of William Henry Long, a rancher long dead. Local people claim Long had a shady past and was rumored to have been an outlaw. He lived with a woman with six kids from around 1894 until he died in 1936. If he wasHarry, that would have made him 69 years old when he headed for the last roundup. Because of all the research I had to do for my novel, Etta (Ballantine Books), I was skeptical. All of the evidence seemed to point to Bolivia as the place of death for both of my heroes.But the photo above made me wonder. I’ve been looking at the gent on the left for the past decade (it’s a detail of the double portrait with Etta Place that serves as the frontispiece for Etta), and I think the two shots are remarkably similar, down to the cleft on the chin. And the name, William Henry Long, is similar enough to Harry Longbaugh so that that Sundance couldn’t easily get tripped up.

My biggest problem is that from what I know about old photos, the pictures seem to have been taken around the same period of time – the early 1900’s. Grace and McCullough say they will be trying a DNA match with one of Harry Longbaugh’s descendants to prove their theory.

It’ll be interesting to see what comes up, especially since the last page of my book leaves Harry’s fate open to question.

Maybe I was right.