Movie makeovers given to historical characters had some of us doubting what we learned about them in the classroom.  For the record:  

Custer was a colonel despised by many, not a general admired by all.

Jesse James was a vicious killer, not a rip-snortin' buckaroo.

Calamity Jane was a tough ugly gal, not a hot looking babe.

Not every town tamer used a gun.  Not every lawman served the law. And Jack McCall did not go free after killing Wild Bill Hickok.  After a jury found him innocent, he was still taken out and hanged.

According to Nino Cochise, great grandson of the famed Apache leader, our matinee movies were "way off" in portraying Geronimo as a fierce warrior.

"Geronimo was a drunk who sold photographs of himself to buy whiskey.  His own people laughed at him.  And if that wasn't bad enough, he was a lousy shot.  He couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a rifle bullet if he fired from inside the door!"

Only one movie gave us the truth about his great grandfather, Nino said --- "Broken Arrow," starring James Stewart.

Cochise made peace with the US Army and kept it.  He died of what was believed to be cancer and quietly laid to rest in a place undisturbed to this day.

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