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Here is the translation of what Doc and Johnny Ringo are saying to one another in Latin: Doc Holliday: In vino veritas. (In wine there is truth.) Johnny Ringo: Age quod agis. (Do what you do.) Doc Holliday: Credat Judaeus Apella, non ego. (Let Apella the Jew believe, not I.) Johnny Ringo: Juventus stultorum magister. (Youth is the teacher of fools.) Doc Holliday: In pace requiescat. (Rest in peace.) The line "Credat Judaeus Apella, non ego" (Let Apella the Jew believe, not I) was confusing to viewers; scholarly papers showed that Romans used the phrase to show contempt for Judaism's belief that divine power was involved in everyday life.
The line quoted by Doc at the end of the fight at the O.K. Corral is historically true, and was reported in the Tombstone papers reporting the fight. When confronted by one of the cowboys at point blank range, the cowboy reportedly said, "I got you now Doc, you son of a bitch!", to which Doc gleefully retorted, "You're a daisy if you do!"
Some years after the death of Doc Holliday, Wyatt was quoted in an interview as saying, "Doc was a dentist, not a lawman or an assassin, whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a frontier vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long lean ash-blond fellow nearly dead with consumption, and at the same time the most skillful gambler and the nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun that I ever knew."
According to Val Kilmer, screenwriter Kevin Jarre insisted the actors wear real wool costumes, in accordance with the time period. In the Birdcage Theater scene, Kilmer says a thermometer on the set read 134 degrees Fahrenheit (56 degrees Celsius). Kilmer suggested jokingly that was the reason Doc Holliday killed so many people. "It's just, like, he wore wool in the summer, in the Arizona territory, and that made him mad."
Doc Holliday's wink to Billy Clanton just before the culmination of the O.K. Corral gun fight was completely improvised by Val Kilmer.
Val Kilmer practiced for a long time on his quick-draw speed, and gave his character a Southern Aristocrat accent. The southern accent is an authentic touch, as Holliday was a cousin (several generations removed) of Margaret Mitchell, author of "Gone With the Wind".
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