Summary

• Doc Holliday, the outlaw, dentist, and gunslinger, has been a mainstay in Western movies for decades.
• Famous actors like Kirk Douglas and Val Kilmer brought Holliday to life on screen with memorable performances.
• Shows like "Wynonna Earp" took a unique approach to Doc Holliday, adding supernatural elements to the legend.

The cowboy outlaw Doc Holiday has been played by dozens of famous actors in Western movies and television series over the last 100 years of filmmaking. The dentist, gunfighter, and gambler Holliday has appeared in Western movies and shows since the earliest days of American cinema and has been a mainstay in the Western genre for decades due to Holliday's longstanding association with the Wild West lawman Wyatt Earp. From classic Western adventures, acclaimed films by directors like John Ford, and even supernatural television series, Holliday has been one of the Western genres' most enduring real-life characters.

As an outlaw best known for his involvement in the notorious Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Holliday had a reputation for killing dozens of men and has been portrayed as a brutal and unpredictable gunslinger by everyone from Adam West to Val Kilmer. With iconic appearances in Tombstone and the horror series Wynonna Earp, the popularity of Holliday as a Western anti-hero has never faltered as he continued to appear across Western media for generations. Through a mix of real history and fictional mythmaking, the famous actors who played Holiday have transformed him into an icon of the Wild West.

10 Harvey Clark

Law for Tombstone (1937)

Clark played Holliday in Law for Tombstone.

In one of the earliest portrays of the dentist and outlaw Doc Holliday on film he was portrayed by prolific Hollywood actor Harvey Clark. In one of his final roles, Clark played Holliday in Law for Tombstone, a Buck Jones-led Western movie that followed a string of gold shipment robberies during the Old West era of stagecoaches and buckboards. Clark was a mainstay of early American cinema and appeared in more than 200 movies between 1915 and 1938 and Law for Tombstone acted as a fitting swansong to Clark’s acclaimed career.

9 Victor Mature

My Darling Clementine (1946)

My Darling Clementine was directed by iconic Western filmmaker John Ford and featured Victor Mature as the infamous Doc Holliday. A classic Western that explored the lead-up to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, My Darling Clementine starred Henry Ford as Holliday’s associate and close friend Wyatt Earp. Mature was a major leading man in Hollywood during the 1940s and 1950s and led fantasy movies like One Million B.C. and film noirs like Kiss of Death. My Darling Clementine was an important movie that stood as former President Harry Truman’s favorite film of all time (via EW.)

8 James Griffith

Masterson of Kansas (1954)

Masterson of Kansan focused on three Wild West gunslingers coming together with James Griffith as Doc Holliday, Bruce Cowling as the lawman Wyatt Earp, and George Montgomery as the cowboy Bat Masterson. A classic Western team-up movie, Masterson of Kansas saw the notorious gunmen protecting a land exchange between an honest ranger and an Indian chief from a crooked land baron. Griffith was a noted character actor who also played other real-life figures of the Wild West such as Pat Garrett in The Law vs. Billy the Kid and John Wesley Hardin in an episode of Maverick with Clint Eastwood.

7 Kirk Douglas

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

As one of the greatest stars of the classic Hollywood era, it’s no surprise that Kirk Douglas had also tackled the role of Doc Holliday as in between classic parts in Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory and Spartacus he also made time for a starring role in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. ed by other major actors such as Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp and Lee Van Cleef as Ed Bailey, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was star-studded and made more impressive through strong direction by John Sturges. An enjoyable Western, Douglas shined in the meaty role as Holliday.

6 Adam West

Lawman, Sugarfoot, and Colt .45 (1959)

Before he donned the suit of the Caped Crusader and became Batman in the 1960s campy television series, Adam West played the notorious gunman Doc Holliday on no less than three television series in 1959. First West was Doc on Lawman, Episode 37 “The Wayfarer”, which was a Western series about Marshal Dan Troop and his deputy Johnny McKay. Next, West showed up as Holliday on the Sugarfoot third season premiere episode “Trial of the Canary Kid.” Finally, with a chance of forever being typecast as Doc, West played Holliday on Colt. 45 Season 3, Episode 3 “The Devil’s Godson.”

5 Martin Landau

Tales of Wells Fargo: Season 3, Episode 34 “Doc Holiday” (1959)

Martin Landau was known for roles in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, television series like Mission: Impossible, and later in his career an acclaimed performance as Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood. Among all these lauded roles, Landau also played Doc Holliday in the Tales of Well Fargo television series in 1959. An enjoyable episode about a stagecoach holdup that Jim Hardie’s wife Amy believed Doc staged, Doc’s episode of Tales of Wells Fargo was a fictional Western windup that used to legacy of Holliday’s life in a 30-minute farce which showcased Landau’s star power at the time.

4 Willie Nelson

Stagecoach (1986)

The country music supergroup The Highwaymen transferred their skills to the world of movies for the made-for-television film Stagecoach, which starred Willie Nelson as Doc Holiday. With a ing cast of other country music stars Kris Kristofferson as Ringo Kid, Johnny Cash as Marshal Curly Wilcox, and Waylon Jennings as Hatfield, Stagecoach was a star-studded remake that sadly could not live up to the original 1939 version of Stagecoach, which was a Western classic. Interestingly, the real outlaw Doc Holliday was added to this remake as the original instead featured the fictional character of Doc Boone.

3 Val Kilmer

Tombstone (1993)

Perhaps the most well-known portrayal of Doc Holliday was by Val Kilmer in the cult classic Western movie Tombstone. Kilmer starred opposite Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp, and perfectly captured the hard-drinking dentist in a performance Kilmer’s very best performances.

“The definitive saloon cowboy of our time.”

2 Dennis Quaid

Wyatt Earp (1994)

After the impressive spectacle of Tombstone, the epic biographical Western Wyatt Earp was released just six months later and disappointingly it paled in comparison. With Dennis Quaid as Doc Holliday and Kevin Costner as Wyatt Earp, despite the stunning production values of Wyatt Earp it was overlong, and Quaid’s performance lacked the unpredictable bite of Val Kilmer in the same role just months before. Unfortunately, despite the grand ambition of Wyatt Earp it dealt with an often-retold narrative and lacked the unique perspective to make the story of Earp and Holiday compelling enough for a more than three-hour-long movie.

1 Tim Rozon

Wynonna Earp (2016 – 2021)

The Western horror series Wynonna Earp provided a unique take on the legacy of Doc Holliday, as the great-granddaughter of Wyatt Earp encountered Doc still living in the modern-day after he was cursed with immortality by the Stone Witch. Tim Rozon gave a fiercely committed performance as Doc, the immortal gunslinger fighting by Wynonna’s side in the Syfy television series based on comic books by Beau Smith. An interesting take on the legend of Holliday, the supernatural elements of Wynonna Earp allowed the series to deviate from the historical Doc Holliday and play with the character in new and exciting ways.

Sources: EW, Roger Ebert