Defenders of the poor or cold-blooded killers? The True Story of Bonnie and Clyde. Who are Bonnie and Clyde? What they looked like and what they are known for: the story of life, love and crimes of Bonnie and Clyde who is a girl

The gangster story of love and crimes of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow began in the era of the Great Depression, when freedom-loving impudent natures did not want to drag out a miserable existence, but took up arms and went to the gangster business. In addition to the famous love couple, the gang included another half dozen people, including Clyde's older brother Buck and his wife Blanche. All members of the gang were killed or arrested, but it was Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow who lasted the longest.

Interesting facts about the life of Bonnie and Clyde

1. The first time, Barrow was arrested for failing to return a rental car on time. It happened in 1926, when a young man rented a car to visit his girlfriend, and overstayed the contract. The rental agency dropped the theft charges, but a criminal case against Clyde Chesnut Barrow had already been filed. Soon his folder will be thick and soaked with blood.

Photo Clyde Barrow (Clyde Barrow) from the police station

2. Instead of a malicious bandit, America could have received a heroic sailor, but the fleet refused a promising recruit because of the malaria he suffered in childhood, although the young man had already managed to fill himself with a tattoo “USN” - (United States Navy) and subsequently was very worried that he was rejected for military service.

3. The mistress also had health problems after the bandits got into a serious accident on one of the back roads of Texas. The driver did not notice the sign about the repair of the bridge, only at the last moment leaving the collision and flying at a speed of over 100 km / h into a river ravine. Parker, who was sitting in the passenger seat, suffered the most when the acid ate away parts of her right leg right down to the bone. After the accident, the bandit moved with great difficulty and lameness. Although here they looked like the perfect couple, because in his youth in prison, Clyde cut off two of his toes in order to evade labor service. After his release, the former prisoner continued to limp.

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4. The famous raiders were very short - 150 cm (woman) and 162 cm (man).

5. Bonnie/Clyde are considered bank robbers in popular memory, although in fact they raided large financial institutions a limited number of times. The main business of the bandits was gas stations and small grocery stores, whose cash register was only $ 5-10.

6. Bullet-riddled with 150 bullets, the Ford V-8 in which the lovers died became a cult item and is still on display as a historical landmark in a Nevada casino.

7. The lovers wanted to be buried together, but their parents separated them after death. The mother did not approve of her daughter's relationship with the hardened raider and categorically forbade burying Bonnie and Clyde side by side.

Photos of Bonnie and Clyde

In the spring of 1933, the police covered the Barrow gang in a rented apartment in the city of Joplin. After a fierce shootout, the criminals managed to escape, but the apartment retained a huge collection of photos of Bonnie and Clyde, which the criminal lovers took at every opportunity. WITH early childhood the future criminal showed love for arts, poetry and acting profession. Photography was a real passion for Parker, who loved to take theatrical poses in front of the camera alone, along with her beloved man and next to the car. The police found many such photographs in the apartment of the robbers and, by and large, this find became a key element in the hunt for robbers, because the whole country recognized their faces - a large-scale raid on the gang began, which now had to spend the night in cars, an open field or a dense forest and not on soft hotel bedspreads.

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Death of Bonnie and Clyde

Paying tribute to the experience of the Rangers, the main reason for the death of Bonnie and Clyde are strong family ties and love for parents, which the criminals kept until their death. Even after several years of robbery on the highway, the criminal couple constantly visited their parents, driving back and forth along the roads of Oklahoma, Missouri, Minnesota, Indiana, Louisiana, but always returning to their native Texas. It was on this that the gangsters got burned, because a team of Texas Rangers under the command of a seasoned captain Frank Hamer (17 of their own wounds and 53 confirmed kills of criminals in the career of a bandit hunter) figured out their route and ambushed them on a country road near the town of Bienville, Louisiana. On May 23, 1934, Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed by four Texas Rangers and two Louisiana police officers. Back in 1933, the authorities announced a reward not for the living persons of the raiders, but for their corpses, so the lawyers did not stand on ceremony. In two minutes, 167 bullets were fired into the criminals' car, 110 of which hit human targets, 60 hit a woman, and 50 hit a man. Thus ended the story of the most famous American crime duo of the 1930s.

Citizenship:

USA

Date of death:

Clyde Barrow
Clyde Barrow
Name at birth:	Clyde "Champion" Chestnut Barrow
Occupation:	American bank robber, criminal
Date of Birth:
Citizenship:	USA
Date of death:

Bonnie Parker And Clyde Barrow(English) Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow listen)) are famous American robbers active during the Great Depression. The expression "Bonnie and Clyde" has become a household word for lovers involved in criminal activities. Killed by Texas Rangers and Louisiana State Police.

Bonnie Parker

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (Bonnie Elizabeth Parker listen)) was born October 1, 1910 in Rowena, Texas. When Bonnie was four years old, her father, a bricklayer by profession, died, and her mother moved to the suburbs of Dallas with three children. Despite the fact that her family lived in poverty, Bonnie did well in school - she was an excellent student with a rich imagination, with a penchant for acting and improvisation. She loved to dress fashionably. At the age of 15, she dropped out of school, falling in love with a certain Roy Thornton, and on September 25, 1926, an attractive miniature girl (with a height of 150 cm, she weighed 36 kg) married him.

In 1927, Bonnie began working as a waitress at Marco's Cafe in East Dallas, but two years later the Great Depression hit and the cafe closed.

Relations between the spouses did not work out. A year after the marriage, the husband began to regularly disappear for long weeks, and already in January 1929 they broke up. Shortly after the breakup (there was no official divorce, and Bonnie wore a wedding ring to her death), Thornton went to prison for five years.

Clyde Barrow

Clyde "Champion" Chestnut Barrow (Clyde «Champion» Chestnut Barrow) was born on March 24, 1909 near Telico, Texas. He was the fifth child in a family of seven or eight children, his parents were poor farmers. The police first arrested Clyde for carjacking in 1926. Soon a second arrest followed - after Clyde, along with his brother Marvin, nicknamed Buck, committed the theft of turkeys. He was subsequently arrested several times in 1928 and 1929, and in 1930 imprisoned in Eastham Prison in Texas. In 1932 he was released early. It is believed that Bonnie and Clyde met as early as 1930 and started dating again after Clyde's release from prison.

Joint crimes

After being released from prison, Clyde continues to commit petty theft without thinking about the consequences, but Bonnie, who "generated" most of the criminal ideas, devises a plan to rob a record store. Bonnie's friend, Raymond Hamilton, also joins the case. April 27, 1932, during a store robbery, the owner tries to resist the criminals, for which he receives a bullet in the heart. After this incident, the gang becomes more and more aggressive. After 5 months, Hamilton and Clyde, being in a drunken stupor, shot the sheriff and his deputies in a bar in Oklahoma. Later, Bonnie said that it was time to stop playing with toys and start doing serious things. And robberies, murders, car thefts began. As a result of all this, Hamilton was caught and sentenced to 264 years. “After the arrest of Hamilton, Bonnie learned to shoot,” writes the biographer of the criminal couple John Chevy, “showing a real passion for firearms. Their car turned into an excellent arsenal: several machine guns, rifles and hunting rifles, a dozen revolvers and pistols, thousands of rounds of ammunition. With the help of Bonnie, Clyde masters the art of drawing a rifle from a pocket specially sewn along the leg in a matter of seconds. This kind of virtuosity is very entertaining for both. They develop their own elegant killing style. In all this, Bonnie is attracted primarily by the romantic-heroic side of the matter. She understands that she chose death. But this is more pleasant for her than the boredom experienced earlier. The monotony of the measured life of those around her is finished forever. She will be famous in her own way. At least they'll talk about it."

From now on, Bonnie and Clyde commit murders with amazing ease. The next victim of Clyde was the sheriff, who asked him for documents. Clyde simply "cut" him in half with a machine gun burst.

The “method” of the robbery was always the same: Bonnie was sitting in the car, and the guys flew into the building shouting “Robbery!”, After which they robbed and disappeared.

But sooner or later all luck comes to an end. The flexible structure of the newly created FBI allows federal agents to track criminals, regardless, as before, of borders between states. The ring around Bonnie, Clyde and Jones (William Daniel ("W.D.", "Dub", "Deacon") Jones, another member of the gang) is shrinking - this is an FBI effort. They are forced to lay low. It was then that Clyde's brother Ivan, nicknamed Buck, and his wife Blanche join the gang.

As a temporary hideout, the Barrow Brothers choose the town of Jeplin, Missouri, where gangsters traditionally hid in the late 1920s. The place is very convenient, it is easy to hide from here: there are mountains nearby, not a single good road. They live in a three-room apartment above the garage. We got up late and took a lot of pictures. In many pictures, Bonnie is captured in theatrical poses. The photographs show Bonnie and Clyde's desire to look elegant by copying promotional shots.

Bonnie and Clyde

The attention of neighbors is attracted not only by the strange behavior of the tenants of the apartment, but also by the fact that their cars are registered in another state - Texas. Suspecting something is wrong, Barrow's neighbor goes to the Missouri Road Police Station. Brigadier J.B. Koehler assumes that the suspicious company is bootleggers and decides to organize a roundup. On April 13, 1933, at 4:00 p.m., two police cars approach Barrow's apartment. Clyde and Jones are standing on the porch as the first car pulls up. Instantly they hide in the garage, slamming the door behind them. A second police car blocks the road, blocking the exit from the garage. Clyde and Jones fire from the garage. This is a signal for those who are in the apartment. Already after the first shots, the police suffer losses: one is mortally wounded, the second is killed. Koehler sends for reinforcements. Under the cover of machine gun fire from Clyde and Buck, Jones rushes to the police car, which is still blocking the road. He is trying to get the car off the handbrake when a bullet hits him in the head. Staggering, he returns to the house. Buck also tries to clear the passage and succeeds. He releases the police car's brakes and, using it as a shield, pushes it towards the highway and back into the house. The car leaves the garage and disappears.

When examining the apartment in which the Barrow gang lived, a large number of photographs of Bonnie and Clyde were found. These photographs were the first reliable images of criminals. Photos of criminals are sent to neighboring states. After this "feat", the Barrows are included in the FBI lists, where the most dangerous criminals are listed, who must be caught or destroyed on the spot.

Death

After many setbacks, Sheriff Frank Hamer managed to set up an ambush on a back road in Louisiana, where Bonnie and Clyde were driving for groceries. On May 23, 1934, their Ford V8 was ambushed by six police officers, four of whom were Texas Rangers and two were Louisiana Rangers. 167 bullets pierced the car, of which more than 50 hit the bandits.

Later, Frank Hamer will tell reporters: “It’s a pity that I killed the girl. But it was like this: either we them, or they us.

Despite Bonnie's prediction, expressed in her poems, they were buried in different cemeteries, and an obelisk was erected at the site of the ambush, fairly crumpled by souvenir lovers.

An inscription left by her mother was preserved on Bonnie's grave: “As the flowers are all made sweeter by the sunshine and the dew, so this old world is made brighter by the lives of folks like you” (How all flowers become more fragrant from sunlight and dew, so this old world becomes brighter from lives like yours).

All that remains of Bonnie Parker is her poem The Story of Bonnie and Clyde, which ends like this:

And if you ever have to die,
To lie to us, of course, in the grave of one.
And the mother will cry, and the bastards will laugh.
There will be peace for Bonnie and Clyde.

Filmography

• Bonnie and Clyde: true story(Bonnie & Clyde: The True Story), film, USA (1992)
• The Bonnie Parker Story (1958)
• Shelter / Hide, USA (2008)

Bonnie and Clyde at work

• Lana Del Rey - song "Live or Die".
• Theory of a Deadman - song "Me & my girl" (album "Gasoline").
• Reflex - song "Like Bonnie and Clyde" (album "Blondes 126").
• Spleen group - 1997 album "Lantern under the eye" song "Bonnie and Clyde".
• group Night snipers - album "Bonnie & Clyde", Bonnie & Clyde song.
• group Bad Balance - the song "Bonnie and Clyde".
• band Scapegoat - song "Bonnie and Clyde".
• group Korsika - the song "On the front page" from the single of the same name.
• the Korol i Shut group - the song "Two Against All" from the album Shadow of the Clown.
• artist MC Solaar - song "la Nouvelle Genese".
• Tupac Shakur - song "Me and My Girlfriend".
• Eminem - song "97" Bonnie & Clyde.
• Marilyn Manson - song "Putting holes in happiness".
• Beyoncé and Jay-Z - "Bonnie and Clyde" (song and video).
• Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot - the song "Bonnie and Clyde"; album "Bonnie and Clyde" (1968).
• Martina Sorbara - song "Bonnie & Clyde".
• Frank Wildhorn - Bonnie & Clyde musical (2009 demo).
• Artist Carter - song "Bonnie and Clyde".
• Artist Al K-Pote and Amel - song "Bonnie and Clyde" (French German).
• Scarlett Johansson and Lulu Gainsbourg - Bonnie and Clyde.
• Andrey Kovalev - Clyde and Bonnie.
• Kaponz & Spinoza - Bonnie aime Clyde.
• group Roman_Rain song "Boni and Clyde"
• Claudia Brucken feat. The Real Tuesday Weld - Guilty (L.A. Noire Original Soundtrack)
• Dmitry Chernus - Bonnie and Clyde
• Rihanna and Lonely Island recorded a parody song called "Shy Ronnie"
• Jane Air - Bonnie & Clyde (2007)
• Mentioned in the song Desmond Dekker "a Israelites

see also

Links

Categories:

• Personalities in alphabetical order
• October 1
• Born in 1910
• May 23 dead
• Deceased in 1934
• March 24
• Born in 1909
• bank robbers
• US Criminals

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Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were famous American robbers active during the Great Depression. The expression "Bonnie and Clyde" has become a household word for lovers involved in criminal activities. Killed by FBI agents.

The names of Bonnie and Clyde are probably as famous today as they were 70 years ago. Their criminal history to this day remains one of the most tragic and romantic. What brought them to such an end?

Bonnie Parker was born in 1910 in the small Texas town of Rowina. At school, Bonnie was an excellent student, with a rich imagination, a penchant for acting and improvisation. She loved to dress fashionably. At the age of 16, she dropped out of school, and, having fallen in love with a certain Roy Thornton, Bonnie married him.

In 1927, Bonnie got a job as a waitress in a cafe, but two years later the great economic depression began and the cafe closed.

Clyde Chestnut Barrow is also a native of Texas. He was born in 1909 to an illiterate farmer with seven children and lived on the farm until the age of 13. He rarely appeared at school, preferring to play with wooden pistols, wander around the district, enviously looking at the cars of wealthy citizens. In 1922, the Barrow family went bankrupt and Clyde's father moved to West Dallas. Like Bonnie, having reached the age of 16, Clyde dropped out of school and went to work. Another Bonnie analogy is that Clyde also liked to dress elegantly.

One day at the end of 1929 they met. The little red-haired girl struck Clyde at first sight. And when Clyde is arrested for an armed raid, Bonnie helps him escape from prison by handing over weapons during a date. A week later, the police again seized Clyde, and the court “sold” him 14 years in prison. In protest, Clyde cuts off two of his toes, but it doesn't help. Then, on the contrary, he turns into a model prisoner and in 1932 earns parole.

Once free, Clyde continued petty robberies and thefts. The catches are negligible, and Bonnie is indignant. Once the seller refused to open the cash register, resisted, and he had to be shot.

This was the first murder of Clyde Barrow. He ceased to be afraid of anything, because death penalty in case of capture already earned.

Bonnie soon learned to shoot, - writes the biographer of the criminal couple John Chevy, - showing a real passion for firearms. Their car turned into an excellent arsenal: several machine guns, rifles and hunting rifles, a dozen revolvers and pistols, thousands of rounds of ammunition. With the help of Bonnie, Clyde masters the art of drawing a rifle from a pocket specially sewn along the leg in a matter of seconds. This kind of virtuosity is very entertaining for both. They develop their own elegant killing style.

Real photo.

Film frame

In all this, Bonnie is attracted primarily by the romantic-heroic side of the matter. She understands that she chose death. But this is more pleasant for her than the boredom experienced earlier. The monotony of life is over for her forever. She knows what will be said about her. And she doesn't give a damn about morality, about the souls of the dead. Money, easy and short life of a one-day butterfly is her choice. You can work for a long time and earn a penny, or you can rob, kill and not think about anything.

The method of "work" of the gang was of the same type. Bonnie is sitting in the car with the engine running, and Bonnie breaks into the bank, yelling, "Robbery!" In most cases, weapons did not even have to be used.

It makes no sense to retell in detail all the numerous adventures of the gang, the incredible luck of Bonnie and Clyde, who many times got out of the most seemingly hopeless situations. Once, when the police almost caught the criminals, an unfinished manuscript of the poem "Dirty Murder" was found in their temporary shelter. Bonnie was the author.

In January 1934, Clyde launched a daring attack on the prison farm, freeing his accomplice and several other prisoners. At the end of February, Clyde kills two policemen, in April another one. Thus, the total number of his victims approached a dozen and a half.

In May of that year, after many failures, Sheriff Frank Hamer, who had sworn to find and neutralize Bonnie and Clyde, managed to organize an ambush on a country road. On May 22, 1934, Clyde and Bonnie's Ford was ambushed by six police officers. 167 bullets pierced the car, 50 of them hit the bandits.

Frank Hamer told reporters: "It's a pity that I killed the girl. But it was like this: we are them, or they are us, or they are many others."
The car "Ford" in which they were shot in the museum.

Both Bonnie and Clyde knew what they had doomed themselves to, but the thirst for a bright life led them exactly where it was supposed to lead - to the same colorful and tragic ending.

Here is the sad end. Common grave. A trace of them remained in the bad memory of people who sometimes lost their relatives for the sake of a couple of hundred dollars, in a remote place of the cemetery. Several books have been written about the bottom, a film has been made. Was there love? But why blood?

A squad of policemen, led by Frank Hamer, a Texas Ranger, waited for the appearance of a Ford V8 car on the road, hiding in the bushes. A few minutes later, the car was already smoking on the side of the road, and inside lay the dead bodies that belonged to the most famous robber couple in the world, whose names were Clyde and Bonnie.

Origin of Bonnie Parker

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker is the daughter of a bricklayer from Roven, Texas. Her father died when she was not yet four years old. Together with her sister and mother, the girl moved to Dallas. She was not yet 16 years old when she married Roy Thornton, a petty crook. This marriage could hardly be called (especially considering subsequent events) a love story. Soon the husband disappeared into the criminal world, and after 1929 the newlyweds no longer crossed paths, although the girl did not take off her wedding ring until last day. Thornton learned in prison that his wife had died.

Meeting Bonnie and Clyde

The main characters of our story, Clyde and Bonnie, met when she was 19 and he was 21. According to some version, it happened in a diner where the girl worked as a waitress at that time, according to another, they first met at Bonnie's friend. The girl was just making hot chocolate when Clyde entered the house.

Clyde's past

The latter was already an avid gangster by the time of this fateful meeting. Together with Buck, his older brother, this son of the poor, originally from Dallas, has already committed a sufficient number of robberies of roadside cafes and shops. After Buck went to prison in 1928, Clyde, the younger Barrow, became the leader of a criminal gang.

The beginning of the story of two lovers

It is not known what he said to Bonnie when they met, but she moved in with him the very next day. The lovers did not part for a minute. Clyde was an excellent shot and carried a pistol with him at all times. The girl asked me to teach her how to shoot. Clyde soon began to take his girlfriend "on business": she usually sat in the car when he burst into filling station or in a cafe and robbed the cash register, threatening the staff with weapons. A few months later he was arrested, but Bonnie managed to arrange an escape by handing over the gun to his partner. Soon she herself went to jail, and then, for two years, Clyde again. Parker at that time wrote him letters in which she promised to wait.

Clyde's first murder

He was released from prison in 1932 as a completely different person. Barrow Marie, his sister, said that "something terrible" happened there. This "terrible" - the first murder of Clyde - he beat the prisoner who raped him to death.

A dark story is the love of these two people. According to some reports, she was platonic, since the young man was a homosexual. According to another version, they had sexual relations not only among themselves, but also with other members of the gang. Roy Hamilton, as you know, was the lover of both, and then he also brought his girlfriend, because of which relations within this "team" heated up to the limit.

However, everyone who met Clyde and Bonnie said that they truly love each other. For example, Emma Parker, the girl's mother, noted that she understood this as soon as Bonnie introduced her to her boyfriend. "I saw it in her eyes," she said.

Development of events

Soon Buck, Clyde's brother, and Blanche, his wife, joined the company. Together they committed murders and robberies with unjustified cruelty. 13 deaths are on the conscience of this gang.

The life of Bonnie and Clyde was the life of real vagabonds: they ate what they managed to get in the shops, slept on the street, drank themselves unconscious, as if foreseeing their future death, knowing that they would not survive. Bonnie, during her last meeting with her mother, asked her not to speak ill of Clyde when they were killed.

"Fighters for Justice"

They considered themselves fighters for justice. It seemed an honorable thing during the Great Depression to deprive those who had at least some money. Despite the fact that the crimes of these people were loud, their booty was very small: in May 1933, they stole 2.5 thousand dollars from a Minnesota bank, which was the most significant amount. John Dillinger, a famous contemporary of the couple, said at the time that Bonnie and Clyde "broke bank robbers to shame." The lovers in October 1930 shot the owner of a grocery store in Texas. His life was worth only $28.

The couple loved cars and weapons. Clyde, shortly before his death, even wrote a letter of gratitude to Henry Ford, in which he promised that he would only steal cars of this brand.

Robbers in Oklahoma took Percy Boyd, the sheriff, prisoner, then left him on the sidelines, telling his people goodbye that they were "not a gang of murderers", but ordinary people trying to survive the Depression. The undisputed leader, according to the surviving police officer, was Clyde. And he even liked Bonnie - according to the sheriff, she seemed like a stranger in this company. The policeman noted that they loved each other, and told a detail: the lovers had a rabbit in the car, which the girl was taking to her mother as a gift.

"PR campaign" hosted by Bonnie Parker

These two were always happy when they saw articles about themselves in the newspapers. Bonnie even developed a "PR campaign" on purpose: she sent staged photographs to the newspapers in front of a car, with weapons at the ready. She attached her poems to these pictures. The notebook, in which several poems were written down by hand, was sold in 2007 for $36,000 at a Bonhams auction.

The glory of the robbers was growing. The best forces of the FBI and the police were thrown into their capture, they were promised a reward of $ 1,500. Note that well-known crime bosses also opposed the gang, for example, Handsome Floyd, who absolutely did not want to share with a bunch of visiting hooligans, the already small prey.

Ambush

In 1933, the gang was ambushed - Blanche Barrow was wounded in the leg, and Buck (her husband) was shot dead. Hamilton was arrested and then sent to the electric chair in April 1934. After that, Clyde and Bonnie went to Texas with the intention of sitting there with Bonnie's relatives. They found a haven, but the location of the beloved was betrayed by Henry Methvin, the father of one of the gang members, in exchange for the fact that his son was found not guilty. It was his supposedly broken car that served as a bait on that fateful day - May 23, 1934.

How does the story of Bonnie and Clyde end?

The end of this story was as follows. Clyde and Bonnie did not even have time to take weapons when a flurry of lead fell on their car: a lot of bullets stuck into the bodies of lovers. The evening papers immediately published reports of the deaths of these notorious robbers, with a front-page photo of their bodies riddled with bullets. Clyde's jacket, in which 40 bullet holes were counted, and his gun with 7 notches, one for each of those killed, were shown to the public.

However, this was not enough: the bodies of Clyde and Bonnie were put up in the morgue, and everyone could look at them for only a dollar for several days. This was done in Dallas by 40 thousand people who looked at Bonnie's body, and 30 thousand - at Clyde.

20 relatives, including friends and mothers of the couple, also appeared before the court for harboring, and the criminals themselves, against the wishes of Bonnie, were buried in different cemeteries. Such is the life and death of the robbers named Bonnie and Clyde, whose true story was told in this article.

Bonnie and Clyde Museum

There is a museum of this couple in Gibsland, located in the former cafe where the criminals bought their last meal. The son of Ted Hinton, a ranger involved in the shooting of the gang, works there as a caretaker. Every weekend leading up to May 23, this city hosts a festival dedicated to Bonnie and Clyde, during which a fatal ambush is staged.

Screen adaptations of the story

For all the couples of the underworld, the names of these robbers today have become common nouns. They are quoted in music, fashion, cinema. There are several adaptations of this story, including documentaries, but the most famous of them is the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde. The film is directed by Arthur Penn and produced by Warren Beatty who plays Clyde. For this film, they were looking for a female lead for a long time. Natalie Wood, Jane Fonda, Shirley MacLaine, Beatty's sister, and Leslie Caron, his then girlfriend (who dumped Warren when she was turned down) were considered for the role. Arthur Penn finally made up his mind - the choice fell on the actress Faye Dunaway, whom he saw in the film "The Incident", the debut for this girl, and immediately noted.

"Bonnie and Clyde" (film) tells the story of this famous couple from the moment they met until the fatal shootout. Clyde was presented as an ingenuous romantic who loves to talk about justice and suffers from impotence, which explains his supposedly platonic feelings for Bonnie. The latter was depicted as an enthusiastic young girl in love with her hero. She longs to escape from the gray everyday life American life, take risks, live to the limit and love no matter what.

After the release of the movie "Bonnie and Clyde" (the true life story of the robbers became very popular), women began to copy the style of the actress who played Bonnie Parker, and magazines began to publish various shootings with models whose image resembled the heroine - girls in midi skirts and blouses posed in front of cameras with weapons in their hands. Faye Dunaway initially wanted to act in slacks that were more comfortable for gunfights and chases. But Theadora van Runkle, the costume designer, came up with a more glamorous look with a beret, tight pencil skirt and heels. And I didn't guess. Modern Bonnies and Clydes have taken their idols as a model of style. The popularity of the picture was great.

"Bonnie and Clyde" (film) came out at a time when a huge wave of student protests swept the West. Therefore, the youth of the late 60s perceived these robbers as heroes. The film was nominated for an Oscar and received two statuettes - for the female supporting role (played by Blanche Barrow Estelle Parsons) and camera work.

This tape had a strong influence on further development American cinema. According to Quentin Tarantino, who quoted this story in his work "Natural Born Killers", this film began in Hollywood silver Age, which lasted until the early 1980s. Of course, for the actors, he also became a breakthrough. When Warren Beatty was honored at the 36th American Film Institute Awards in 2008, Faye Dunaway took the stage and delivered a touching Bonnie Parker-style verse speech, ending with "this is the end of the story" where Faye Dunaway is Bonnie and Warren Beatty is Clyde.

In 2013, the mini-series "Bonnie and Clyde" appeared. The film was a great success with the audience. Holliday Granger and Emile Hirsch (respectively Bonnie and Clyde) played the leading roles. Series 2, for example, tells us about how it all began (there are 20 episodes in total).

Many songs have also been created based on this story. The composition of the same name is in the groups "Spleen", "Night Snipers", Bad Balance, or, for example, we note the song performed by Kristina Si - "Bonnie and Clyde".

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow —
famous American robbers active during the Great Depression. At various times their gang included Buck Barrow, Clyde's older brother; Blanche Barrow, Buck's wife; Raymond Hamilton, W. D. Jones, Joe Palmer, Ralph Fults, and Henry Methvin. Although they are now known for about twelve bank robberies, Barrow preferred to rob small shops and gas stations. The gang is believed to have killed at least nine police officers and several civilians. Bonnie and Clyde themselves are killed by Texas Rangers and Louisiana State Police. Their fame was cemented in American pop folklore with the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde.

Even during their lives, the image that the couple was given in the press was very different from theirs. real life especially in the case of Bonnie. Although she was present at more than a hundred crimes in two years, she was not the cartoonish, machine-gun-shooting killer portrayed in the newspapers, newsreels, and tabloid detective stories of her day. W. D. Jones was not at all sure that he had ever seen her shoot officers at all. Her reputation as a cigar-smoking gangster's mistress was based on a playful snapshot found by police in an abandoned gang hideout in the city of Joplin, which was released to the press. Parker did smoke a lot, but not cigars, but Camel cigarettes.

Historian Jeff Geen credits these photos for the Bonnie and Clyde legend: “John Dillinger had the looks of a woman’s favorite, handsome Floyd got the best nickname you could think of, and these photos created new criminal superstars under the most exciting brand name— illicit sex. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were wild and young and no doubt slept with each other. If not for Bonnie, the media most likely would never have noticed Clyde. The saucy photographs of Bonnie provided a sex appeal, a charm that allowed them to gain far more fame than they deserved for their little thefts and unnecessary murders that made up their entire criminal career.

Bonnie Parker

Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910 – May 23, 1934) was born in Rowena, Texas, the middle of three sisters. Her father, bricklayer Charles Parker, died when Bonnie was four. Her mother, Emma Krause, moved with her children to her parents' home in Cement City, an industrial suburb of Dallas, where she worked as a seamstress. Her maternal great-grandfather, Frank Krause, immigrated from Germany. Despite the fact that her family lived in poverty, Bonnie did well in school - she was one of the best students in school, with a rich imagination, with a penchant for acting and improvisation. She loved to dress fashionably. Her writing ability later found expression in poems such as "The Story of Suicidal Sal", "The End of the Trail" (known as "The Story of Bonnie and Clyde"). At 15, Bonnie met Roy Thornton. Together they dropped out of school. On September 25, 1926, an attractive petite girl (with a height of 150 cm, she weighed 44 kg) married him. In 1927, Bonnie took a job as a waitress at Marco's Cafe in East Dallas, but two years later the Great Depression hit and the cafe closed.

Relations between the spouses did not work out. A year after the marriage, the husband began to regularly disappear for long weeks, and already in January 1929 they broke up. Shortly after the breakup (there was no official divorce, and Bonnie wore a wedding ring to her death), Thornton went to prison for five years. When he learned of Bonnie's death, he said, "I'm glad they had so much fun. It's much better than being caught."

In 1929, after the breakup of her marriage but before meeting Clyde Barrow, Parker lived with her mother and worked as a waitress in Dallas. One of the café's regular customers, postal worker Ted Hinton, would take part in the ambush of Bonnie and Clyde in 1934. In her diary, which she kept in early 1929, she wrote of her loneliness and her love for sound films.

Clyde Barrow

Clyde Chestnut Barrow (March 24, 1909 - May 23, 1934) was born in Ellis County, Texas, near Dallas. He was the fifth of seven children of Henry Basil Barrow (1874-1957) and Keumey T. Walker (1874-1943). His family were poor farmers. Clyde was first arrested in late 1926 when he failed to return a rented car on time. Soon he and his brother Marvin "Buck" Barrow were arrested again for stealing turkeys. Despite having a legitimate job, between 1927 and 1929 he cracked safes, robbed stores, and stole cars. After several arrests in 1928 and 1929, he was sent to Eastham Prison in Texas in April 1930. While serving his sentence, he beat another prisoner to death, who repeatedly raped him. This was Clyde's first murder.

In 1932 he was released early. He came out of prison even more hardened and cruel criminal. His sister Mary said, "Something terrible must have happened to him in prison, because he was never the same." Ralph Fults, who served his sentence at the same time as Clyde, said that before his eyes he turned from a schoolboy into a rattlesnake.

First meeting

There are several versions of how Bonnie and Clyde first met. The most plausible is the one according to which Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow met in January 1932 at a friend's house.

They took an immediate liking to each other; most historians believe that Bonnie joined Clyde because she was in love with him. She remained his faithful companion during his criminal revelry, and expected a violent death, which, in their opinion, was inevitable.

Joint crimes

1932: The first robberies and murders

In February 1932, Clyde was released from prison, and he and Ralph Fults began robbing shops and gas stations. Their goal was to accumulate enough money and weapons to stage a mass breakout from Eastham Prison. On April 19, Parker and Fults were arrested during a botched store robbery. household appliances. Bonnie was released a few months later, and Fults left the gang for good. On April 30, during a store robbery, the owner tried to resist the criminals, for which he was shot in the heart.

After this incident, the gang becomes more and more aggressive. On August 5, while Parker was visiting her mother, Hamilton and Clyde, while intoxicated, gunned down a sheriff and his deputies at a bar in Stringtown, Oklahoma. The next murder took place on October 11 in Sherman, Texas. The victim was store owner Howard Hall. The gang took $28 in cash and some groceries from the store. Later, Bonnie said that it was time to stop playing with toys and start doing serious things. And robberies, murders, car thefts began. As a result of all this, Hamilton was caught and sentenced to 60 years in prison.

“After Hamilton's arrest, Bonnie learned to shoot,” writes the biographer of the criminal couple John Chevy, “showing a real passion for firearms. Their car turned into an excellent arsenal: several machine guns, rifles and hunting rifles, a dozen revolvers and pistols, thousands of rounds of ammunition. With Bonnie's help, Clyde masters the art of drawing a rifle from a specially sewn-in pocket along his leg in a matter of seconds. This kind of virtuosity is very entertaining for both. They develop their own elegant killing style. In all this, Bonnie is attracted primarily by the romantic-heroic side of the matter. She understands that she chose death. But this is more pleasant for her than the boredom experienced earlier. The monotony of the measured life of those around her is finished forever. She will be famous in her own way. At least they'll talk about it."

W. D. Jones has been a friend of the Barrow family since childhood. Although he was only 16 years old on Christmas Eve 1932, he persuaded Bonnie and Clyde, who were leaving Dallas, to take him with them. Jones committed his first murder the very next day. He and Clyde killed the owner of the car they were trying to steal. Less than two weeks later, on January 6, 1933, Barrow shot another sheriff when he, Parker, and Jones fell into a trap intended for another criminal.

1933

Brigadier J. B. Koehler assumes that the suspicious company is bootleggers and decides to organize a raid. On April 13, 1933, at 4:00 p.m., two police cars approach Barrow's apartment. Clyde and Jones are standing on the porch as the first car pulls up. Instantly they hide in the garage, slamming the door behind them. A second police car blocks the road, blocking the exit from the garage. Clyde and Jones fire from the garage. This is a signal for those who are in the apartment. Already after the first shots, the police suffer losses: one is wounded, the second is killed. Koehler sends for reinforcements. Under the cover of machine gun fire from Clyde and Buck, Jones rushes to the police car, which is still blocking the road. He is trying to get the car off the handbrake when a bullet hits him in the head. Staggering, he returns to the house. Buck also tries to clear the passage and succeeds. He releases the police car's brakes and, using it as a shield, pushes it towards the highway and back into the house. The car leaves the garage and disappears.

When examining the apartment in which the Barrow gang lived, a large number of photographs of Bonnie and Clyde were found, as well as Bonnie's poems. These photographs were the first reliable images of criminals. Photos of criminals are sent to neighboring states.

Sixteen-year-old W.D. Jones committed two murders in the first two weeks after joining Clyde Barrow.

For the next three months, they drove from Texas as far north as Minnesota. In May, they attempted to rob a bank in Lucerne, Indiana and robbed a bank in Okabina, Minnesota. Earlier in the course of stealing a car belonging to Dillard Darby, they kidnapped him and Sophia Stone in Ruston, Louisiana. This was one of five kidnappings they committed between 1932 and 1934. In addition to Dillard and Sophia, they kidnapped Joe Jones on August 14, 1932, Officer Thomas Purcell in January 1933, Sheriff George Corrie and Police Chief Paul Hardy on June 10, 1933, and Percy Boyd on April 6, 1934. Usually they released their victims far from home. Sometimes they gave them money so they could come back.

Although the pictures in the newspapers portrayed Bonnie and Clyde's beautiful and romantic life, Blanche says they were desperate. She wrote in her book that when they left Joplin, all her hopes and dreams were shattered. Fame added to their problems. More hotels and restaurants were not a viable option. They slept in the woods by the fire and bathed in the cold rivers. Quarrels broke out among the two couples and Jones's "fifth wheel". Jones was so unpleasant to be in this company that he used a car stolen from Darby to get away from them. He returned June 8th.

On June 10, Parker, Barrow and Jones were in a car accident - Clyde did not notice the sign about the repair of the bridge, and the car flew into a ravine. Bonnie received a third-degree burn on her right leg. The reason is not known for certain - either the car caught fire due to a gasoline leak, or acid from the car battery. Toward the end of her life, Bonnie had difficulty walking - she either hopped on her good leg or was carried by Clyde. They received first aid from a family of local farmers. After meeting up with Buck and Blanche, they traveled to Fort Smith, Arkansas, where they treated Bonnie's wounds. A little later, Clyde killed City Marshal Henry Humphrey in Alma, Arkansas. Because of this, they again had to flee, despite the deplorable state of Bonnie.

On June 18, 1933, they checked into the Red Crown Motel in Arkansas. It consisted of only two rooms connected by garages. The gang rented both. They immediately attracted undue attention. The owner noticed that Blanche had registered three people when he saw five getting out of the car. It also seemed suspicious to him that Clyde drove into the garage in reverse, "gangster style", to make it easier to escape. Blanche bought food and drink for five people. She was dressed in trousers, which was unusual for women of that time and place. They covered the windows of their room with newspapers. All this was enough for the owner to tell Captain William Baxter about the suspicious company. When Clyde and Jones went to the nearest town to get food and medicine for Bonnie, the druggist called Sheriff Holt Coffey, who put the cabins under surveillance. At 11 p.m., the sheriff and a group of armed officers attacked the motel; they managed to escape, but Jones was hit in the head and Blanche was nearly blinded by shrapnel.

Five days later, the gang stopped at an abandoned amusement park near Dexter, Iowa. Buck's wound was so severe that Bonnie and Clyde even dug a grave for him. The locals noticed the bloodied bandages and realized that the campers were the Barrow gang. Soon they were under fire again in the presence of more than a hundred spectators. Bonnie, Clyde and Jones have escaped. Buck was shot again, this time in the back, and he and his wife were arrested. Buck died five days later in the hospital due to complications from surgery.

Parker, Barrow, and Jones spent the next six weeks far from their usual places and tried not to stand out, committing only petty robberies to get money for everyday needs. On August 20, they robbed an ammunition store in Plattville, Illinois. They replenished their arsenal with Browning machine guns, pistols and a large number of cartridges.

In early September, they ventured back to Dallas to see their family, and then drove to Houston, where Jones' mother had moved. There he was arrested.

On November 22, Parker and Barrow were nearly arrested again in the now deserted town of Sowers, Texas while trying to see their family again. Dallas Sheriff Smoot Schmid and two of his subordinates ambushed them. Clyde sensed a trap and drove past the car in which his family was sitting. Then the sheriff and his deputies opened fire. Family members were not hurt. Bonnie and Clyde fled the city that same night.

1934

On January 16, 1934, Clyde finally carried out his long-planned raid on Eastham Gaol. As a result, Raymond Hamilton, Henry Methvin and a number of other criminals fled from there. The public was outraged, the Texas penitentiary system received a lot of criticism, and Clyde finally fulfilled what Phillips called the passion of his life: he got revenge on the Texas Department of Corrections.

During a prison break, Joe Palmer shot Officer Joe Crowson. This incident forced Texas and the federal authorities to throw all their efforts into capturing Bonnie and Clyde.

Former Texas Ranger Captain Frank A. Hamer was hired to capture Bonnie and Clyde. Tall, stout, secretive and taciturn, he always "obeyed the law without question, or what he considered the law." For twenty years, he inspired fear and admiration in the entire Lone Star State. He earned his reputation by making some spectacular arrests and shooting many Texas outlaws. He is credited with 53 murders; he himself was wounded 17 times.

Since February 10, he has become the shadow of Bonnie and Clyde. On April 1, 1934, Barrow and Methvin killed two highway patrolmen, H. D. Murphy and Edward Bryant Wheeler. This case was widely reported in the newspaper. True, then the newspapers erroneously wrote that Murphy killed Bonnie, in particular, due to the fact that a cigar stub was allegedly found at the crime scene with marks of tiny teeth that could only belong to Bonnie. Patrol Chief L. G. Fairs placed a $1,000 bounty on the bodies of the assassins; not for their capture, but only for the corpses ..

Public hostility increased when, five days later, Barrow and Methvin killed 60-year-old constable and single father William "Cal" Campbell near Commerce, Oklahoma. Then they kidnapped Commerce Police Chief Percy Boyd, crossed the Kansas border with him, and then released him in a clean shirt, a few dollars and asking Bonnie to tell the world that she did not smoke cigars.

Death

Bonnie and Clyde car. The shooting was so loud that Heimer's squad suffered from temporary deafness all day.

Barrow and Parker were ambushed and killed on May 23, 1934, on a rural road in Bienville, Louisiana. Their Ford V8 was ambushed by four Texas Rangers (Frank Hamer, B. M. "Manny" Gault, Bob Alcorn, and Ted Hinton) and two Louisiana officers (Henderson Jordan and Prentiss Morle Oakley). 167 bullets pierced the car, of which more than 110 hit the bandits: Bonnie - about 60, Clyde - about 50.

Hamer was able to achieve this by studying the criminals' movement patterns. They constantly crossed the borders of the five states of the Midwest, taking advantage of the fact that the officers of one state had no jurisdiction in another, and the FBI was not yet as influential as it is today. Barrow was a master of this technique, however, unlike John Dillinger, who was active throughout the Midwest, Clyde was more consistent in his movements so that an experienced hunter like Hamer was able to chart their intended route.

Later, Frank Hamer will tell reporters: “It’s a pity that I killed the girl. I liked her so much. We even had an affair ... However, it was initially doomed to a sad outcome "

Funeral

Bonnie and Clyde wanted to be buried together, but Bonnie's family didn't let that happen. Bonnie was originally buried in Fishtrap Cemetery in Dallas, but was moved to Crown Hill Memorial Park in 1945. Over twenty thousand people attended Bonnie's funeral. On her grave there is an inscription left by her mother:

"As all flowers become more fragrant with sunlight and dew, so this old world becomes more brilliant with lives like yours."

Clyde was buried in Western Heights Cemetery in Dallas next to his brother Marvin.

Bonnie and Clyde's insurance premiums have been paid in full. Since then, the policy of payments has changed: they were no longer paid if the insured died as a result of a crime.

Further fate of the participants in the events

Immediately after the shooting of Bonnie and Clyde's car, the squad began to investigate their belongings; of these, Hamer appropriated to himself an "impressive" arsenal of stolen weapons and ammunition and a box of fishing tackle. Alcorn took Clyde's saxophone, but later, ashamed, returned it to the Barrow family. Other personal items, such as Bonnie's clothes, were also taken from the scene of death, and when the Parker family asked for them back, they were denied. Later, these things were sold as souvenirs. According to rumors, a suitcase full of cash that was in the car was appropriated by Sheriff Jordan. He also tried to keep the car itself, but the owner of the car, Ruth Warren, sued him. By court order, Jordan returned the car to Mrs. Warren.

In February 1934, twenty people, family members and friends of Bonnie and Clyde, were arrested on charges of harboring and helping criminals. All twenty were found guilty. Both mothers were sentenced to 30 days in prison; others were sentenced from an hour in jail for Clyde's teenage sister Mary Barrow to two years in prison for Raymond Hamilton's brother Floyd. Other defendants included Blanche Barrow, W. D. Jones, Henry Methvin, and Bonnie's sister Billy.

Blanche spent the rest of the 1930s in prison. When she was arrested, she weighed only 37 kg.

Blanche Barrow was blinded in her left eye as a result of a shrapnel wound. After her arrest at Dexfield Park, she was sentenced to ten years in prison, but was released for good behavior in 1939. She left her criminal past behind and returned to Dallas, where she cared for her disabled father. She married Eddie Frazier in 1940; she also worked as a taxi dispatcher and beautician. They lived together with her husband until his death in 1969. She died in 1988 at the age of 77.

Raymond Hamilton and Joe Palmer were caught and charged with murder. They were executed in the electric chair on the same day: May 10, 1935.

W. D. Jones first found work in Houston, but was soon discovered and arrested. He gave evidence that shed light on sex life gangs. This set off a wave of rumors about Clyde's indeterminate orientation. Jones was charged with the murder of Doyle Johnson and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was killed in 1974 by George Arthur Jones, the jealous boyfriend of the woman he was trying to help. George Jones later committed suicide with the same shotgun he used to shoot W. D. Jones.

Henry Methvin was charged with the murder of PC Campbell at Commerce. He was released early in 1942. In 1948, he died under a train. It is believed that he fell asleep on the rails while intoxicated. Bonnie Parker's husband Roy Thornton was killed by guards during the Eastham prison break in 1937.