Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1512164
the Osage in Gray Horse and Fairfax were living in the early 1920s. I now doubted that they lived in mansions and drove Pierce-Arrows, as was commonly thought. That came later. We met many Osage who invited us into their modest homes and shared photos and knowledge of their ancestors. I witnessed the importance of spirituality in the Osage life when Addie Roanhorse took us to the roundhouse in Hominy and described the dances and rituals performed there. I saw the toll of the 'reign of terror,' when countless Osage were killed, at the Gray Horse cemetery, and I found a photograph of William Hale (played by Robert De Niro) and his cronies clowning around in a photo studio in the old bank building in Fairfax. In Marianne's research, I found testimony from Mollie in the records of the 1921 probate hearing for her mother Lizzie Q. Mollie states that she didn't own a home and that she lived with her mother in the house she grew up in. The house was described in Lizzie's will as being on reservation land, with five rooms and a value of $2,000. Lizzie left her home to her two grandchildren, James and Elizabeth, the kids of Mollie and Ernest Burkhart (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). David Grann writes in his terrific 2017 book, Killers of the Flower Moon, that he met James Burkhart's daughter Maggie at an Osage dance in Gray Horse and that Maggie asked him if he would like to see the house she grew up in. Grann saw it and described it as being more a cabin than a house. I believe he was seeing Lizzie's house one hundred years after her death. Lizzie had left the home to James and his sister, and I suspect that after his mother died and his father was in prison, James lived in that house with his daughter Maggie and other Burkharts. This was confirmed by the neighbors who went to school with Maggie. I may have found the house, but it wouldn't work for the film. It was small and had changed over the years with parts rebuilt or altered in unflattering ways. I reported my findings to Marty and even sent him a picture of the small unimpressive house. He made two comments. "You mean, I will never get A. MOLLIE'S HOUSE IN PROGRESS. THIS HOUSE ENABLED THE CREW TO SHOOT INTERIORS AND EXTERIORS ON LOCATION. WE ALSO SHOT IN MOLLIE'S BEDROOM ON THE SECOND FLOOR OF THE HOUSE. IT WAS ALL PRACTICAL. SET PHOTO. B. MOLLIE'S HOUSE WHERE SHE LIVED WITH HER MOTHER, ERNEST AND THEIR CHILDREN. PRODUCTION STILL. A B C D