Local Lore Talk: There’s No Business like Show Business

Step into the spotlight with one of America’s greatest showmen—and one of the nation’s leading Western historians!
Paul Andrew Hutton, PhD, interim curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum at the Center of the West, is an American cultural and military historian, award-winning author, documentary writer, and television personality. He is also a Distinguished Professor of History at the University of New Mexico, former executive director of the Western History Association, and past president of the Western Writers of America. Hutton is a six-time winner of both the Western Writers of America Spur Award and the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. He earned his BA, MA, and PhD from Indiana University.

In this engaging talk, Hutton explores how Buffalo Bill Cody—the first actor to play himself—helped shape his own legend on stage and screen. As Cody’s Wild West show began to fade in the early 20th century, a new medium took center stage: the motion picture. Though Cody’s own cinematic ventures struggled, Hollywood took up his story with gusto, from the Technicolor spectacle of Buffalo Bill starring Joel McCrea to the musical hit Annie Get Your Gun with Betty Hutton (no relation).
Join us for an entertaining and insightful journey through the many on-screen portrayals of Buffalo Bill and discover how film helped transform a frontier icon into an enduring piece of American myth and memory.