Hide Article Text (OCR)
Taking Billy the Kid to heartNOW - JULY 13 m»3otSoteil CenterA PERFECTMUSICALCOMEDY”DAILY NEWSA DELIGHTFUL EVENTNEW YORK POSTStop by pick up your complimentary copy of The Intelligencer at the fitness desk,“TVAiU MpfitiC'i (tut!Billy the Kid vowed to avenge Tunstall’s murder and became part of a group called the Regulators, who were deputized by Lincoln County’s justice of the peace.Over the next several years, the group found itself on both sides of the law, as legal authority ping-ponged, a new governor was appointed, sheriffs went in and out of power and even the U.S. Army stepped in, despite a mandate to stay out of domestic power struggles.Ultimately, it’s believed Billy the Kid was killed at the age of 22 in a shootout with Sheriff Pat Garrett.It’s that back-and-forth, good-vs.-evil, that makes Billy the Kid’s story so compelling — and where Maddalo Dixon has a very decided viewpoint.“He was villainized,” she says.It wasn’t until theA.late-1990s when author Frederick Nolan — who shares Maddalo Dixon’s publisher — started doing research and writing articles and books that put the folk hero in a more-favorable light, she says.“Then you understood the poor kid — that they wanted to use him for their own gain,” she says.Maddalo Dixon is already working on a sequel to “Ban-dita Bonita” — which picks up in September 1878, a few months after the Lincoln County War.“The second book portrays more of a sympathetic side of Billy,” she says. “In book one, he’s very respectful, but he’s a soldier and a warrior. In the second book is where he tries to clear his name despite being a wanted outlaw.” Maddalo Dixon is an employee in the classified advertising department of Calkins Media.There’s a lot of my own feelings that come through.” says Calkins Media employee Nicole Maddalo Dixon of her first novel “Bandita Bonita: Romancing Billy the Kid.”KIM WEIMER STAFF PHOTOGFIAPHERFOR TICKETS VISIT:WalnutStreetTheatre.org ticketmast,OR CALL 215-574-3550 or 800-982-2787A '1, UKIIUS MOW 1NUIK MMMlMU'S MSI WVLU MUtU COMMITw WALMT STREET THEATREnOUUIIMf 135 Woliiui Slrart • VIM « Walnui»rMTh«atF«.e.aA Southampton author hopes her latest fictionalized account of Billy the Kid helps set the record straight about one of America’s notorious folk heroes.By LIZ JOHNSONCORRESPONDENTWhen Nicole Maddalo Dixon was 13, like many girls her age, she became infatuated with the ultimate bad boy.The relationship was impossible, fraught with obstacles, the least of which was that he’d been dead nearly 100 years.Nicole went on to get married — to a nice guy — and settle down.But she never forgot her first love.In 2009, she was watching the movie “Young Guns” and her old flame for William Henry McCarty Jr., aka William Bonney, aka Henry Antrim, aka Billy the Kid, was rekindled.“1 started buying books about him and started reading,” says the Southampton author who has recently penned the novel “Bandita Bonita: Romancing Billy the Kid.”At first, she thought she’d write a biography. In 2010, she put pen to paper and found a maternal instinct kicked in along with “an affection for him,” she says. “He was charismatic.”Maddalo Dixon isn’t the first to fall for one of America’s infamous folk heroes.Aaron Copland, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Jon Bon Jovi, Tom Petty and Charlie Daniels have all written songs about him.Paul Newman, Roy Rogers, Marlon Brando, Kris Kristofferson and Emilio Estevez have all played him on-screen.And Hollywood has gone on to rewrite his story, paring him with supernaturals such as Dracula (in “Billy the Kidvs. Dracula”) and last year’s “1313: Billy the Kid, where supernaturals haunt him as he recuperates from wounds from a shootout.As it turns out, Maddalo Dixon’s publisher, New Mexico-based Sunstone Press, has an entire division devoted to fiction about Billy the Kid.She says her txxk is “historically accurate” even though she admits to having taken a very sympathetic view to Billy the Kid, who killed anywhere from five to two dozen men in his short life.Born in New York City at the start of the Civil War, William Henry McCarty Jr. was the son of Irish immigrants. He was raised by his mother who moved the family out West and died in New Mexico when he was 14. McCarty started out working on ranches, but soon resorted to stealing horses.In 1877, he was hired by English cattle rancher John Tunstall as a guard.And in 1878, he took part in the Lincoln County War, a conflict between Tunstall and rival businessmen over cattle and trade.It’s that conflict the tale of “Bandita Bonita” centers on, offering a fictionalized first-pefson account by a 16-vear-old girl, daughter of a lumber tycoon who is betrothed to Tunstall to secure a larger family fortune. Tunstall dies in the skirmish before the two marry, and in the aftermath, she falls for Billy the Kid.“You’re understanding (Billy the Kid) through her. She has to deal with girls fighting over him, but she understands he’s a young man,” says Maddalo Dixon.“There’s a lot of my own feelings that come through. Besides, she was meant to mam- a man she didn’t love and comes from a life where men have mistresses. She tolerates it because she wants her own freedom and being with him means her own freedom.”Life stream Pharmacy@ The Health Wellness Center847 Easton Rd., Warrington 215-491-0999 • www.lifestreamrx.com
Newspaper Details
Doylestown Intelligencer
Doylestown, Pennsylvania, US
Sun, May 11, 2014
Page 34
Full Page
Clipped by
Rich R.
USA 09 Mar 2024
Other Publications Near Doylestown, Pennsylvania
Doylestown Intelligencer
Intelligencer
Doylestown Daily Intelligencer
