what gunfight is wyatt earp most famous for?
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
contradiction
 The gunfight was not well known to the American public until 1931 , when Stuart Lake published an initially well @-@ received biography , Wyatt Earp : Frontier Marshal , two years after Earp 's death . The book was the basis for the 1946 film My Darling Clementine , directed by John Ford , and the 1957 film Gunfight at the O.K. Corral , after which the shootout became known by that name . Since then , the conflict has been portrayed with varying degrees of accuracy in numerous Western films and books . 

entailment
 The gunfight in Tombstone lasted only 30 seconds , but it would end up defining Earp for the rest of his life . After Wyatt killed Frank Stilwell in Tucson , his movements received national press coverage and he became a known commodity in Western folklore . 

entailment
 Earp 's modern @-@ day reputation is that of the Old West 's " toughest and deadliest gunman of his day " . He is " a cultural icon , a man of law and order , a mythic figure of a West where social control and order were notably absent " . Due to Lake 's fanciful biography and because Wyatt outlived all of his brothers , his name became famous and he is the source of many movies , TV shows , biographies and works of fiction . 

neutral
 Stories about the fight and Earp 's contested decision were distributed nationwide to a public that until that time knew little of Wyatt Earp . Earp was parodied in editorial cartoon caricatures and vilified in newspaper stories across the United States . 

neutral
 The incident has become a fixture in American history due to the personal nature of the feud between the Earps and the McLaury and Clanton brothers and the symbolism of the fight between lawmen and the outlaw Cowboys . When the Cowboys maimed Virgil and murdered Morgan , but escaped prosecution , Wyatt 's extra @-@ legal campaign for revenge captured people 's attention . The gunfight and its aftermath stand for the change overcoming America as the Western frontier ceased to exist , between a modern nation that was rapidly industrializing , pushing out what had been a largely agrarian economy . 
