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January 29, 2012

Expert to examine real West and ‘reel’ West

Dalton Daily Citizen

On Tuesday, Feb. 7, the Northwest Georgia Regional Library Davison Lecture Series presents Jim Dunham at the Dalton-Whitfield Public Library in Dalton. His topic will be “The Real West and the Reel West,” an entertaining program of how Hollywood has depicted (or misrepresented) the Western experience in America.

The Davison Lecture Series was named in memory of former Dalton resident Bob Davison.  The series is designed to provide residents with quality local and regional authors and lecturers as well as offer an opportunity for an evening of pure enjoyment. The presenters in the Davison Lecture Series gear their programs primarily to adult and young adult audiences.

Dunham has spent most of his life pursuing his love of the American West. Although born in Illinois, Dunham grew up influenced by the art of Charles M. Russell, Frederick Remington and the books of Will James. He was a boy when the Westerns dominated both TV and the movies. As a teenager he was active in the sport of fast draw and became accomplished at gun spinning and fancy gun handling. He studied acting and fine arts at the University of Colorado and began performing a show about the “Gunfighters of the Old West” for service clubs and church groups.                                                              

In 1967 he took his act to Hollywood and was hired by 20th Century Fox Film Corp. to perform in their Studio Tour Stunt Shows. During the next few decades he would teach gun tricks and fast draw to movie actors, speak at conventions, work as a performer in the Chuckwagon Supper Show business, appear as a guest on national TV talk shows and perform at the Winter Olympics.  

Currently he can be seen as a Western historian on four episodes of the series “Tales of the Gun” on the History Channel, and he was on the 2010 season of PBS TV’s “The American Experience: Wyatt Earp.”

The 2010 issue of True West magazine’s “Best of the West” Source Book honored Dunham as the “Best Living Single Action Shooter.” He has been a consultant or actor on the HBO movie “Blind Justice,” “Tombstone,” “Letter to Plum Creek,” and TV/Universal Studios’ “Quantum Leap.” He has appeared on CBS’ “Merv Griffin Show,” NBC’s “Art Linkletter Show,” and NBC’s “It Takes Two.”

Dunham is the director of special projects and historian for the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville. He has recently combined his art skills with his acting ability to create a program where he paints a watercolor painting and tells humorous stories from C.M. Russell’s book “Trails Plowed Under.”

A reception in honor of Dunham will begin at 6:30 p.m. The program will begin at 6:45 p.m. The reception is sponsored by the Friends of the Dalton-Whitfield Public Library. The program is presented free of charge by the library.  

For further information, please call (706) 876-1379.

 

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