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Texas Jack Pete Sherayko on Dead Man’s Hand, Val Kilmer & Tombstone
[0:03] Welcome: Texas Jack Pete Sherayko Joins Gunslingers
The show opens with the crew welcoming Pete Sherayko, the actor who played Texas Jack Vermillion in the 1993 film Tombstone. Jeff calls him a legend without hedging, and the descriptor fits. Sherayko brings firsthand knowledge of the Old West film world, Western history, and the single action revolver that few working actors can match. The conversation covers ground from Deadwood, South Dakota in 1876 to a movie set in the early 1990s, and it moves fast.
[0:24] Wild Bill Hickok’s Dead Man’s Hand: Aces and Eights or a Much Later Legend?
Jeff opens with the question that has floated around saloons and card tables for a hundred and fifty years: what was in Wild Bill Hickok’s hand when Jack McCall shot him from behind on August 2nd, 1876? Sherayko gives the standard answer first. The hand has always been reported as aces and eights. The fifth card, the one nobody saw, has been called a jack, a queen, and a nine depending on who is doing the telling. No one ever established it with certainty because the cards scattered when Hickok hit the floor.
Then Sherayko drops a different read on the whole story. He says nobody in the historical record actually talks about aces and eights as a meaningful combination until the 1920s. What he points to is the shooting of Joe Masseria, a Prohibition-era mob boss killed in 1931 while playing cards. There is a well-known photograph of Masseria’s body with an ace of spades held between his fingers, placed there after the shooting for the newspaper camera. Sherayko argues that image, and the mythology around it, is what gave aces and eights their sinister weight, and that the connection back to Hickok was constructed later. He invites listeners to check it out themselves. It is the kind of revisionist historical argument that is hard to dismiss entirely, and he makes it cleanly.
He also points out the anachronism problem that shows up in Western films constantly. Any movie set before August 2nd, 1876 that has a character call aces and eights a dead man’s hand is getting the history wrong, because that phrase did not exist until after Hickok was killed. The dead man’s hand is not a timeless poker term. It has a birthday.
[2:25] Joseph Rosa and Wild Bill Hickok’s Reflexes at the Moment of Death
Sherayko mentions historian Joseph Rosa as probably the most thorough authority on Wild Bill Hickok in print. Rosa, an Englishman who devoted much of his scholarly life to Hickok, wrote multiple books that remain the foundation of serious research on the subject. One detail Rosa documented is that when Hickok was shot in the back of the head at the Nuttal and Mann’s Saloon in Deadwood, his hands went to his guns even as he was dying. His reflexes, built over a lifetime of survival, fired one last time before his body understood what had happened. Sherayko says he believes it. So does Jeff. It is the kind of detail that does not get invented.
[2:59] Val Kilmer: Three Movies, One Broken Single Action, and No Hard Feelings
Jeff asks for a Val Kilmer story and Sherayko corrects the premise immediately: he worked with Kilmer in three films, not just Tombstone. The second was Wyatt’s Revenge in 2012, where Kilmer played Wyatt Earp. The third was Soldier’s Revenge in 2018, where Sherayko was the producer and hired Kilmer himself to play the father of the main character.
The Tombstone story he tells is the one that establishes everything about how Kilmer operated on set. Before shooting began, the entire cast was warned about Kilmer. He had a reputation for being difficult, for staying deep in character, for not tolerating interruptions. People were keeping their distance. On the first day of shooting the vendetta ride sequence, Sherayko looked over and noticed Kilmer’s single action revolver was riding half-cocked in the holster. That is a problem. A single action carried at half-cock is not properly secured, and if the hammer snaps down it can fire. It can also damage the action.
Sherayko rode his horse over and told Kilmer straight: your gun is half-cocked, and if somebody on this set sees that, they are going to know you do not know how to handle a single action. Kilmer’s response was to look at him and say he finds that people who break the rules get ahead. Sherayko decided not to argue with Val Kilmer. Within five minutes he looked over and Kilmer had a different revolver in the holster. He rode to the armorer, who confirmed that Kilmer had broken the original gun, specifically the sear, the small part on the hammer that engages the trigger notch. Sherayko rode back over, noted the new gun, and Kilmer looked at him and said, quietly, that he had broken it. No heat. From that point on they got along fine, because Kilmer knew that Sherayko knew what he was talking about when it came to firearms.
[6:42] Drinking Whiskey Between Takes: The Scene Where Turkey Creek and Texas Jack Come Out of the Saloon
Sherayko describes the scene in Tombstone where Turkey Creek Jack Johnson and Texas Jack Vermillion come staggering out of a saloon after a night of drinking and end up killing a man. His logic on the set was simple: he was supposed to be drunk, so he might as well be. Every take, he went back inside and took another drink of actual whiskey. By the time they shot the scene where his character crosses paths with Doc Holliday, Morgan, Virgil, and Wyatt Earp, he was, in his own words, a little lightheaded. Kilmer spent part of the day looking at him with what Sherayko describes as a knowing look, and later in the afternoon called him over and asked flat out if he had been drunk in that scene. Sherayko looked at Kilmer and threw his own line back at him: he finds that people who break the rules get ahead. That closed the book on it between them.
[8:33] Val Kilmer in 2018: Soldier’s Revenge, Throat Cancer, and a Piece of Artwork
By the time Sherayko hired Kilmer for Soldier’s Revenge in 2018, Kilmer had lost most of his speaking voice to throat cancer. They sat together in the motor home between takes and talked, Kilmer communicating through effort and gesture and the occasional hit on the shoulder. He gave Sherayko one of his pieces of original artwork during that production. Sherayko speaks about the man with obvious warmth. He says Kilmer was centered in a way that made him hard to beat at anything requiring sustained concentration. They played darts regularly and Sherayko, who was good at it, could not get the better of him. His read on Kilmer is simple: a good man, fully committed to whatever he put his mind to, which is exactly what made him one of the best screen actors of his generation.
[8:58] Tombstone, Arizona: August 8-10 Val Kilmer Memorial Walkdown and New Book and CD
Sherayko mentions that Tombstone, Arizona will be holding a memorial walkdown for Val Kilmer on August 8th through the 10th, timed to coincide with the Doc Holliday Days event that has been held annually around that date. Sherayko will be there. He will be signing both his previous book and his new book, titled Prove It Safe, along with a new CD released under the title Tombstone. Jeff promises to get his contact information posted online and says they need to get Sherayko and his colleague Frank on together for a future segment. Sherayko agrees without hesitation. They are, in his words, a good team.
Frequently Asked Questions
What cards made up Wild Bill Hickok’s dead man’s hand?
The hand has been reported as two black aces and two black eights, which became known as the dead man’s hand after Wild Bill Hickok was shot from behind by Jack McCall on August 2nd, 1876 in Deadwood. The fifth card was never positively identified and has been called a jack, a queen, and a nine by different sources over the years. Some historians, including Pete Sherayko, have argued that the dead man’s hand legend as commonly understood did not take firm hold in the popular record until the 1920s, well after Hickok’s death, and may owe more to mob-era imagery than to the actual events at Nuttal and Mann’s Saloon.
Why is it dangerous to carry a single action revolver at half-cock?
On a traditional single action revolver, the half-cock position was originally intended as a loading notch, not a safe carry position. If the sear, the small part of the hammer that engages the trigger notch, is worn or the action is under stress, the hammer can slip from half-cock and fall on a live round, causing an unintended discharge. Carrying a single action at half-cock in a holster also puts mechanical stress on the action and can result in damage to the hammer notch or sear, exactly what happened on the Tombstone set when Val Kilmer broke his revolver. Properly trained handlers of single action firearms carry on an empty chamber under the hammer or use the full-cock safety position of period-correct actions.
Who was Texas Jack Vermillion and what was his role in the Tombstone vendetta ride?
Texas Jack Vermillion was a real historical figure who rode with Wyatt Earp’s vendetta posse following the ambush of Virgil Earp and the murder of Morgan Earp in 1882. He and Turkey Creek Jack Johnson were among the men who accompanied Wyatt during the period of extrajudicial violence that followed Morgan’s death. In the 1993 film Tombstone, Pete Sherayko portrayed Texas Jack Vermillion alongside Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp and Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday. Sherayko is also a recognized Western firearms expert and horseman who brought significant historical and technical credibility to the role.
What is the best historical reference on Wild Bill Hickok?
Joseph Rosa is widely regarded as the most thorough scholarly authority on Wild Bill Hickok. Rosa, an English historian, wrote multiple books on Hickok that remain foundational references for serious researchers. His work covers Hickok’s life, his documented gunfights, the circumstances of his death in Deadwood on August 2nd, 1876, and the historical record surrounding events like the cards in his hand at the time of his shooting. Pete Sherayko cited Rosa’s work during this interview as the source for the detail about Hickok’s hands going to his guns by reflex even after the fatal shot.
What films did Val Kilmer and Pete Sherayko make together?
Pete Sherayko worked with Val Kilmer in three productions. The first was Tombstone in 1993, where Sherayko played Texas Jack Vermillion and Kilmer played Doc Holliday. The second was Wyatt’s Revenge in 2012, where Kilmer played Wyatt Earp. The third was Soldier’s Revenge in 2018, a production on which Sherayko served as producer and hired Kilmer to play the father of the main character. Kilmer was dealing with the effects of throat cancer during the 2018 production but completed his work on the film.
Sources, Credibility, and Continuing the Conversation
Pete Sherayko’s account of Wild Bill Hickok’s dead man’s hand reflects his deep familiarity with Old West history and the work of historians like Joseph Rosa, whose books on Hickok remain the most thorough in print. The on-set firearms details from Tombstone come from direct personal experience handling single action revolvers in a professional film context. Sherayko’s book Prove It Safe and his Tombstone CD are available at appearances including the Val Kilmer memorial walkdown in Tombstone, Arizona, August 8 through 10. Listeners who want to dig into the Hickok and dead man’s hand questions are encouraged to start with Rosa’s published works and draw their own conclusions from the primary record.