1977: Gary Gilmore

On this date in 1977, Gary Gilmore uttered the last words “Let’s do it” and was shot by a five-person firing squad in Utah as the curtain raised on a “modern” death penalty era in the United States.

Famous for volunteering for death — he had nothing but disdain for his outside advocates and angrily prevented his own lawyers pursuing last-minute appeals — Gilmore rocketed through the justice system at a pace now unthinkable.

Mere days after courts blessed the resumption of executions in 1976, the career criminal — just paroled from a decade mostly behind bars in Oregon — murdered two people in the Provo, Utah, area. He was convicted in a three-day trial in October 1976 … and dead little more than three months later.

Owing to his milestone status and the unfamiliar public persona he cut insisting on his own death, Gilmore left a trail of cultural artifacts far surpassing his personal stature as small-time crook.

He was lampooned in an early episode of Saturday Night Live. His public desire to donate his eyes (the wish was granted) inspired a top-20 punk hit:

Norman Mailer wrote a book about Gilmore (The Executioner’s Song) and adapted it into an award-winning television movie. Gary’s brother Mikal published his own memoir (Shot in the Heart), later made into an HBO movie.

In a weirder vein, Gilmore is the touchstone for the surrealistic film Cremaster 2, in which magician Harry Houdini — who might have been Gilmore’s grandfather — is portrayed by Norman Mailer.

Gary Gilmore’s was the first execution of any kind in the United States since June 2, 1967. According to the Espy file, it was also the first firing squad execution since James Rodgers was shot in Utah March 30, 1960; only one of the other 1,098 men and women put to death since Gilmore — John Taylor in 1996, also in Utah — faced a firing squad. (Update: After this post was published, another Utah condemned man also opted for a firing squad execution: Ronnie Lee Gardner, shot in 2010.)

Both Gilmore and Taylor chose to be shot in preference to hanging. The firing squad is all but extinct in the U.S., though it still remains on the books in some form in Idaho, Oklahoma and (for prisoners convicted before 2004) Utah.

Part of the Themed Set: The Spectacle of Private Execution in America.

On this day..

22 thoughts on “1977: Gary Gilmore

  1. Gilmore was executed around 8 am. After partying all night with family and friends. Steak, pizza and Jack Daniels and hugging and dancing the night away. I wonder what Max Jensen and Bennie Bushnell would have done just for a chance to say goodbye to their family and friends. Thanks to Gary Gilmore they never will. All the lives that scumbag destroyed and you people worship him like he’s your hero. How would you like your boy if that would have been your son, brother, husband or father he murdered for 50 or 60 bucks ? Different story huh ? RIP Bennie Bushnell RIP Max Jensen

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  6. I was also interested after reading and studying Executioners Song that I sought the internet for anything I could find on Gary Gilmore and mainly Nicole. While searching for the 100th time the other day I came across this video on youtube which depicts a biography of gary gilmore including most of the real life characters that feature in the book: brenda, vern, Neilson and Nicole!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC7kdfNoW-Q

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  13. Thanks KYGB. It’s been about 6 weeks since I asked the question of the name of the song in the movie “The Executioner’s song”,
    sung by Waylon Jennings. I just now checked back after reading some of my own articles. I had forgotten I asked for it, and I didn’t think anybody would even bother to tell me. Thanks again!

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  15. It’s called “Defying Gravity”

    Good video of clips from the movie as Waylon it sings here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuQDyGjuTbs

    “The Executioners Song” is still one of the greatest network TV movies of all time. If the networks still made movies that good, people might watch their programming.

  16. I’d like to know the name of the song in the picture the “Executioner’s song” that is sung by the late, great Waylon Jennings. It is absolutely beautiful. That’s a heck of a thing to say when you’re watching an execution.

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  18. Hate to be a nag, but gilmore’s last words weren’t “let’s do it”, they were “there’ll always be a meersman”. If you do a google search for: “The Law: After Gilmore, Who’s Next to Die? – TIME” you’ll see the whole story.

    As for nicole baker pictures, look up “A&E Biography gary gilmore” on youtube. There are pictures of her, and she’s interviewed!

    The executioner’s song is my all time favorite book. I loved it.

    • And pay a subscription to Time for useless information ? LOL Who cares what their version is ? They weren’t even there.

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  20. I just finished reading “Executioner’s Song” by Norman Mailer. It was an excellent read. Then I got interested in the other characters in the book, namely Gary Gilmore’s girlfriend, Nicole. This curiosity brought me to the internet, but there were no photos of her. I wanted to put a face to this personality, instead I found a blog she had written some time ago. She mentions that Mr. Mailer did not do her’s and Gary’s story justice and that the movie version also missed the mark.
    Nicole, tell us your story and get it right for posterity.

  21. if you don’t know about the Executioner’s Song collections, you should. This volume includes a performance of “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes” by Deano of the Waco Brothers. I saw the ensemble at Double Door performing a bunch of these songs when Volumes 2+3 came out. Very good stuff.

    Gary Gilmore. Total enigma, to me, I admit.

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