the Youngers in Missouri and renewed her acquaintance with them
when the family moved to Texas after a Union attack on Carthage in 1864. Her brother,
Bud, was a guerrilla, killed in late ’64.

In 1866 May
Shirley married the disreputable Jim Reed, after having had a crush on him as a
teenager. Two years later, she gave birth to her first child, Rosie Lee
(nicknamed Pearl). You won’t find any of this in the movie. But she was a crack
shot, and while participating in her husband’s criminal career she used to ride
sidesaddle dressed in a black velvet riding habit and a plumed hat, carrying
two pistols, with cartridge belts across her hips, and Hollywood went for that
part.

Husband No. 1, Jim Reed

The Reeds fell
in with the Starr clan, a Cherokee Indian family notorious for whiskey,cattle,
and horse stealing in the Indian Territory, as well as May's old friends the
James and Younger gangs.It seems to
have been love between May, now known as Belle, and Sam Starr (there were also
rumors of a liaison with Cole Younger) and they were married in 1880. Sam was
hardly the gallant and gentlemanly Confederate officer impersonated by Randolph
Scott, but never mind.

Sam Starr with Belle

In 1883, Belle
and Sam were arrested by the great Bass Reeves, charged with horse theft and
tried before the (in)famous Judge Isaac Parker in Fort Smith, Arkansas; she
was found guilty and served nine months at the Detroit House of Corrections in Detroit,
Michigan. She proved to be a model prisoner, winning the respect of the prison
matron, while Sam was incorrigible and assigned to hard labor.

In 1886 Sam Starr was