Jim Bridger - in Modern Culture

In Modern Culture

• Van Heflin played the character Jim Bridger in the 1951 film Tomahawk.

• In the late 1950s Johnny Horton recorded a song called Jim Bridger about the life of Jim Bridger. Lyrics include the injunction "..Let's drink to old Jim Bridger yes, lift your glasses high - As long as there's a USA don't let his memory die -That he was making history never once occurred to him - But I doubt if we'd have been here if it weren't for men like Jim..."

• Karl Swenson played Bridger in the episode "The Jim Bridger Story" of NBC's Wagon Train, broadcast on May 10, 1961.

• Jim Bridger is also briefly mentioned in Sydney Pollack's 1972 film Jeremiah Johnson, in which Will Geer's character introduces himself as, "Bear Claw Chris Lapp, blood kin to the grizz (grizzly bear) that bit Jim Bridger's ass."

• Bridger was portrayed on television by the western actor Gregg Palmer in the 1977 episode "Kit Carson and the Mountain Man" of NBC's Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. Christopher Connelly portrayed Kit Carson, and Robert Reed played John C. Fremont.

• In the 1982 novel Flashman and the Redskins, lead character Harry Paget Flashman is interviewed by Bridger just before heading west with his prostitute-laden wagon train.

• In the 1984 motion picture Red Dawn, Patrick Swayze's character of Jed Smith says he used to read of the exploits of both Jim Bridger and Jedediah Smith, for whom he says he was named.

• In Bushcraft, the 2005 televised series hosted by Ray Mears, Ray traveled along the same trails Jim Bridger pioneered.

• In the 2009 movie Inglourious Basterds, lead character Lt. Aldo Raine (portrayed by actor Brad Pitt) states: "Now, I am the direct descendant of the mountain man Jim Bridger. That means I got a little Injun in me. And our battle plan will be that of an Apache resistance." Conversely, his nickname in the movie is "Aldo the Apache."