The American bison, commonly known as the American buffalo, or simply buffalo, is a species of bison that is endemic to North America. It is one of two extant species of bison, along with the European bison. Its historical range circa 9000 BC is referred to as the great bison belt, a tract of rich grassland spanning from Alaska south to the Gulf of Mexico, and east to the Atlantic Seaboard, as far north as New York, south to Georgia, and according to some sources, further south to northern Florida, with sightings in North Carolina near Buffalo Ford on the Catawba River as late as 1750.
Young Bess is a 1953 Technicolor biographical film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer about the early life of Elizabeth I, from her turbulent childhood to the eve of her accession to the throne of England. It stars Jean Simmons as Elizabeth and Stewart Granger as Thomas Seymour, with Charles Laughton as Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, a part he had played 20 years before in The Private Life of Henry VIII. The film was directed by George Sidney and produced by Sidney Franklin, from a screenplay by Jan Lustig and Arthur Wimperis based on the novel of the same title by Margaret Irwin (1944).
Stewart Granger was a British film actor, mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. He was a popular leading man from the 1940s to the early 1960s, rising to fame through his appearances in the Gainsborough melodramas.
Russell Irving Tamblyn, also known as Rusty Tamblyn, is an American film and television actor and dancer.
Jeff Chandler was an American actor. He was best known for his portrayal of Cochise in Broken Arrow (1950), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was one of Universal Pictures' more popular male stars of the 1950s. His other credits include Sword in the Desert (1948), Deported (1950), Female on the Beach (1955), and Away All Boats (1956). He also performed as a radio actor and as a singer.
Plains Indians or Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies are the Native American tribes and First Nation band governments who have historically lived on the Interior Plains of North America. While hunting-farming cultures have lived on the Great Plains for centuries prior to European contact, the region is known for the horse cultures that flourished from the 17th century through the late 19th century. Their historic nomadism and armed resistance to domination by the government and military forces of Canada and the United States have made the Plains Indian culture groups an archetype in literature and art for Native Americans everywhere.
Ann Marie Blyth is an American retired actress and singer. For her performance as Veda in the 1945 Michael Curtiz film Mildred Pierce, Blyth was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She is one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema, and became the oldest acting Academy Award nominee upon the death of Angela Lansbury in 2022.
Debra Paget is an American retired actress and entertainer. She is perhaps best known for her performances in Cecil B. DeMille's epic The Ten Commandments (1956) and in Elvis Presley's film debut, Love Me Tender (1956), as well as for the risqué snake dance scene in The Indian Tomb (1959).
Edmund Anthony Cutlar Purdom was an English actor, voice artist, and director. He worked first on stage in Britain, performing various works by Shakespeare, then in America on Broadway and in Hollywood, and eventually in Italy. He is perhaps best known for his starring role in 1954's historical epic The Egyptian.
George Bird Grinnell was an American anthropologist, historian, naturalist, and writer. Originally specializing in zoology, he became a prominent early conservationist and student of Native American life. Grinnell has been recognized for his influence on public opinion and work on legislation to preserve the American bison. Mount Grinnell in Glacier National Park in Montana is named after him.
Custer State Park is a South Dakota State Park and wildlife reserve in the Black Hills of the United States. Located in Custer County, the park is South Dakota's first and largest state park, named after Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. The park covers an area of over 71,000 acres (287 km2) of varied terrain including rolling prairie grasslands and rugged mountains.
The plains bison is one of two subspecies/ecotypes of the American bison, the other being the wood bison. A natural population of plains bison survives in Yellowstone National Park and multiple smaller reintroduced herds of bison in many places in the United States as well as southern portions of the Canadian Prairies.
Moonfleet is a 1955 Eastman Color swashbuckler film shot in CinemaScope directed by Fritz Lang. It was inspired by the 1898 novel Moonfleet by J. Meade Falkner, although significant alterations were made in the characters and plot.
The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm is a 1962 American biographical fantasy film directed by Henry Levin and George Pal. The latter was the producer and also in charge of the stop motion animation. The film was one of the highest-grossing films of 1962. It won one Oscar and was nominated for three additional Academy Awards. The cast included several prominent actors—including Laurence Harvey, Karlheinz Böhm, Jim Backus, Barbara Eden and Buddy Hackett.
Beau Brummell is a 1954 British historical film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by Curtis Bernhardt and produced by Sam Zimbalist from a screenplay by Karl Tunberg, based on the 1890 play Beau Brummell by Clyde Fitch. The play was previously adapted as a silent film made in 1924 and starring John Barrymore as Beau Brummell, Mary Astor, and Willard Louis as the Prince of Wales.
The King's Thief is a 1955 swashbuckling CinemaScope adventure film directed by Robert Z. Leonard, who replaced Hugo Fregonese during filming. Released on August 5, 1955, the film takes place in London at the time of Charles II and stars Ann Blyth, Edmund Purdom, David Niven, George Sanders and Roger Moore.
Bison hunting was an activity fundamental to the economy and society of the Plains Indians peoples who inhabited the vast grasslands on the Interior Plains of North America, before the animal's near-extinction in the late 19th century following US expansion into the West. Bison hunting was an important spiritual practice and source of material for these groups, especially after the European introduction of the horse in the 16th through 19th centuries enabled new hunting techniques. The species' dramatic decline was the result of habitat loss due to the expansion of ranching and farming in western North America, industrial-scale hunting practiced by non-Indigenous hunters increased Indigenous hunting pressure due to non-Indigenous demand for bison hides and meat, and cases of a deliberate policy by settler governments to destroy the food source of the Indigenous peoples during times of conflict.
Swordsman of Siena is a 1962 French-Italian adventure film directed by Étienne Périer and Baccio Bandini and starring Stewart Granger, Sylva Koscina and Christine Kaufmann. The film is set in Spanish-controlled Italy during the sixteenth century.
The Antelope Island bison herd is a semi–free-ranging population of American bison in Antelope Island State Park in Great Salt Lake, Utah. Bison were introduced to Antelope Island in 1893. The herd is significant because it is one of the largest and oldest publicly owned bison herds in the nation. The Antelope Island bison herd currently numbers between 550 and 700 individuals. Though the bison on Antelope Island are plains bison, which was the most common bison subspecies in North America, the bison have a distinct genetic heritage from many of the other bison herds in the United States and they are considered to be desirable as part of the breeding and foundation stock for other bison herds, because of their separate genetic heritage and some of the distinct genetic markers that are found in the population.
Métis buffalo hunting began on the North American plains in the late 1700s and continued until 1878. The great buffalo hunts were subsistence, political, economic, and military operations for Métis families and communities living in the region. At the height of the buffalo hunt era, there were two major hunt seasons: summer and autumn. These hunts were highly organized, with an elected council to lead the expedition. This made sure the process was fair and all families were well-fed and provided for throughout the year.
