Outlaw Lovers: 15 Fascinating Facts About Bonnie and Clyde

1. They met in Dallas in January 1930.

Bonnie Parker, 19, and Clyde Barrow, 20, met at a friend's house in Dallas, Texas, in January 1930. Within weeks, Clyde was arrested for burglary and sent to jail. Bonnie smuggled a gun to him, and he briefly escaped before being caught again and sent to prison.

2. Bonnie was still married to another man when she died.

At 15, Bonnie married a high school classmate named Roy Thornton. The marriage quickly fell apart, and Thornton ended up in prison for robbery, but the couple never divorced. Bonnie was still wearing his wedding ring when she was killed, and she had a tattoo of two hearts with the names "Bonnie" and "Roy" on her right thigh.

3. She was an honor student who wrote poetry.

Bonnie was a bright student who won spelling and writing contests in school and dreamed of becoming a performer. While on the run, she wrote poems about the gang's life. One of them, "The Trail's End," predicted that she and Clyde would one day die together, and it was printed in newspapers after their deaths.

4. Clyde committed his first killing in prison.

Clyde was sent to the brutal Eastham Prison Farm in Texas, where he was repeatedly assaulted by another inmate, Ed Crowder. In 1931, Clyde beat him to death with a lead pipe. Another prisoner who was already serving a life sentence took the blame. Clyde's sister later said he came out of prison a changed and hardened man.

5. He cut off two of his toes to escape hard labor.

Desperate to avoid the punishing field work at Eastham, Clyde either cut off two of his toes with an axe or had another inmate do it in early 1932. The cruel irony was that he was paroled only days later. He walked with a limp for the rest of his life and often drove in his socks.

6. Most of their robberies were small-time.

Despite their legend as bank robbers, Bonnie, Clyde and the Barrow Gang mainly held up gas stations, small grocery stores and rural banks, often getting away with very little money. They spent much of their time sleeping in stolen cars and camping in the countryside to avoid the police.

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7. Bonnie may never have fired a gun during a shootout.

Bonnie was often portrayed in the press as a gun-toting killer. However, gang member W.D. Jones later said he never saw her fire a weapon during the gang's gun battles with police. Historians still debate how active a role she played, but she was clearly a loyal and willing companion.

8. The famous cigar photo was just a joke.

In April 1933, police raided the gang's hideout in Joplin, Missouri. The outlaws escaped, but they left behind a camera with undeveloped film. One of the photos showed Bonnie posing with a pistol and a cigar in her mouth. Newspapers published it nationwide, and the image of a "cigar-smoking gun moll" stuck. Bonnie, who smoked cigarettes, reportedly hated it.

9. Clyde may have written a fan letter to Henry Ford.

Clyde loved fast cars, especially Ford V8s, which could outrun most police vehicles. In 1934, Henry Ford received a letter signed "Clyde Champion Barrow" praising the car's speed. The letter is now held by The Henry Ford museum in Michigan, though historians still argue over whether Clyde actually wrote it.

10. Bonnie was badly burned in a car crash.

In June 1933, Clyde missed a detour sign near Wellington, Texas, and the car plunged into a dry riverbed and caught fire. Battery acid severely burned Bonnie's right leg. The injury was so serious that she had trouble walking for the rest of her life and sometimes had to be carried by Clyde.

11. The gang killed at least nine law enforcement officers.

The romantic image of Bonnie and Clyde hides a deadly reality. The Barrow Gang is believed to have killed at least nine police officers and several civilians. The killing of two young highway patrolmen near Grapevine, Texas, on Easter Sunday 1934 turned public opinion firmly against the couple.

12. A prison break led to their downfall.

In January 1934, Clyde raided Eastham Prison Farm to free several inmates, including his friend Raymond Hamilton. A guard was mortally wounded in the escape. The furious head of the Texas prison system hired Frank Hamer, a legendary former Texas Ranger, to hunt the couple down. Hamer tracked them for 102 days.

13. Their killers fired around 130 rounds in the final ambush.

On the morning of May 23, 1934, six lawmen led by Hamer hid by a rural road near Gibsland, Louisiana. When Bonnie and Clyde drove up in a stolen Ford, the officers opened fire without warning, shooting around 130 rounds. Both were killed instantly. Bonnie was 23, and Clyde was 25. Souvenir hunters soon swarmed the car, cutting off locks of Bonnie's hair and pieces of her dress.

14. Their bullet-riddled "death car" is on display in Nevada.

The 1934 Ford V8 sedan in which the couple died had been stolen from a woman in Topeka, Kansas. After the ambush, she got it back and later sold it. It was exhibited at carnivals and fairs for decades, and the bullet-riddled car is now displayed at a casino resort in Primm, Nevada.

15. They wanted to be buried together, but Bonnie's mother refused.

Bonnie wished to be buried beside Clyde, but her mother would not allow it. They lie in separate cemeteries in Dallas. Thousands of people came to their funerals. Their legend was revived in 1967 by the film Bonnie and Clyde starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, which earned 10 Academy Award nominations.