Cochise in Popular Culture
The best-selling novel by Elliott Arnold in 1947 titled Blood Brother gives a fictionalized account of the latter part of this struggle and the friendship between Jeffords and Cochise.
In 1950, director Delmar Daves turned Arnold's novel into a movie re-titled Broken Arrow, featuring James Stewart as Jeffords and Jeff Chandler as Cochise. This was one of the first Hollywood movies to give a sympathetic picture of Native Americans in conflict with European Americans encroaching upon Indian land, and helped change the popular image of Native American people from negative to positive. The tall, handsome, deeply tanned Chandler, a Jewish actor born in Brooklyn, N.Y., portrayed Cochise as a noble, nearly tragic character forced to fight against the treacherous U.S. Army officers who led incursions into Apache territory. John Ford's representation of Cochise in the 1948 film Fort Apache was also positive to Native Americans. Broken Arrow (TV series) was a Western series which told a fictionalized account of the historical relationship between Indian agent Tom Jeffords (played by John Lupton) and the Chiricahua Apache chief Cochise (played by Michael Ansara). The show ran on ABC in prime time from 1956 through 1958 on Tuesdays at 9 PM Eastern time.
Cochise's grandson (Taza's son) played Cochise in the pilot episode of the classic 60s western series The High Chaparral despite being 92 years old and missing a leg (Cochise would not have yet have been 60 in 1870 when the series was set, and he remained bipedal throughout his life). Nino repeated the portrayal in episode 4 of the first series.
In the Lethal Weapon film franchise, Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson), calls Roger Murtagh (Danny Glover) "Cochise" at least once in each film. For example, in Lethal Weapon 2, during a scene where Murtagh has a bomb under his toilet and asks if they are going to jump on 3, Riggs replies, "Well, it's your ass, Cochise!"
One character in The Warriors goes by the name of Cochise.
The 1975 film Cooley High has a main character named Cochise, played by Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs.
In Friday the 13th a police officer tells one of the counselors to "can it Cochise!"
In "Sabotage", a 1994 Beastie Boys music video and action-show satire, one of the actors is credited as "Nathan Wind as Cochese".
In the 2005 comedy film Waiting... opens with Dean (Justin Long) saying "Thanks, Cochise" after he enters a house party and catches a beer tossed to him by Monty (Ryan Reynolds). Monty later calls Dean by the same nickname, as well as Mitch (John Francis Daley).
In the 2001 movie Zoolander, Owen Wilson (as Hansel) calls Ben Stiller (as Derek Zoolander) Cochise just before the "Walk Off" scene.
The Audioslave song Cochise is about the Native chief.
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