{"id":7096,"date":"2025-02-01T07:42:07","date_gmt":"2025-02-01T07:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=7096"},"modified":"2025-02-01T07:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-02-01T07:42:07","slug":"walt-willey-returns-to-wild-bill-role-for-mendota-shows-may-25-26-shaw-local-news-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=7096","title":{"rendered":"Walt Willey returns to Wild Bill role for Mendota shows May 25-26 – Shaw Local News Network"},"content":{"rendered":"


\u201cWild Bill! An Afternoon with James Butler Hickok,\u201d a one-man show from actor\/writer Walt Willey, will be performed Saturday, May 25, and Sunday, May 26, at the Hume-Carnegie Museum, 901 Washington St., Mendota, in conjunction with Wild Bill Hickok Day. <\/span>(Shaw Local News Network)
\u201cWild Bill! An Afternoon with James Butler Hickok,\u201d a one-man show from actor\/writer Walt Willey, will be performed Saturday, May 25, and Sunday, May 26, at the Hume-Carnegie Museum, 901 Washington St., Mendota<\/a>, in conjunction with Wild Bill Hickok Day.
Performances are scheduled for noon, 1:30 and 3 p.m.
Willey will be performing the \u201cSpecial Edition,\u201d emphasizing Hickok\u2019s time in Mendota, Troy Grove and Utica<\/a> areas. The first-person narration follows Hickok\u2019s life from his birth in 1837 and adventures in Illinois as a youth to his return to the area in 1869.
Willey, a La Salle County<\/a> native (born in Ottawa<\/a>) who played Jackson Montgomery on \u201cAll My Children\u201d for almost 25 years, had been looking for a one-man show to take on tour.
\u201cAnd here was this legend, right in my own backyard,\u201d Willey said in a news release. \u201cI began to research this man\u2019s life and I was fascinated. Even with the myth and fable surrounding him stripped away, his life is as exciting as any of the fiction written about him. And he was six-foot two, blonde and blue, so it wasn\u2019t much of a stretch.\u201d
\u201cThis is a man who was, in his lifetime, a farmer, a teamster, a trapper, a scout, a spy, a marshal, a sheriff, a gunfighter, an actor and a gambler \u2013 and a legend in his own time. And he died at thirty-nine! In Western movies, when we see gunfighters step into the street for a showdown, it\u2019s because Wild Bill did!\u201d
Willey performs Hickok\u2019s life story from the legend\u2019s own words.
\u201cThe sources I\u2019ve used are the ones that lean on provable truth,\u201d Willey said. \u201cNow whether Hickok could separate his truth from legend … well, that\u2019s part of the journey.\u201d
Copyright \u00a9 2023 Shaw Local News Network
Copyright \u00a9 2023 Shaw Local News Network<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWild Bill! An Afternoon with James Butler Hickok,\u201d a one-man show from actor\/writer Walt Willey, will be performed Saturday, May 25, and Sunday, May 26, at the Hume-Carnegie Museum, 901 Washington St., Mendota, in conjunction with Wild Bill Hickok Day. (Shaw Local News Network)\u201cWild Bill! An Afternoon with James Butler Hickok,\u201d a one-man show from actor\/writer Walt Willey, will be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t