Fact Behind the Legend in "The Pirates Lafitte"

The Pirates Lafitte: The Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf, William C. Davis, Harcourt, Inc., hardcover, 706pp, notes, index, photo insert. $28.00 Amazon: $18.48. Also available in paperback.

One of my favorite late Golden Age adventures was The Buccaneer starring Yul Brynner with hair as Jean Lafitte, the privateer who fought with Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans. Supposedly, first-time director Anthony Quinn did such a bad job of it that his movie mogul father-in-law never let him direct again, so Quinn had to settle for the acting life and a future Academy Award.

I don't know what the problems were. I always liked it and it was a fun movie. Pirates, Charlton Heston growling through his role as Andrew Jackson, intrigue, colorful battle scenes, redemption, Inger Stevens at her loveliest, the good guys beat the bad guys. What's not to like?

But in "The Pirates Lafitte," author William C. Davis makes clear this wasn't the truth. And you can't entirely blame Hollywood. The truth of the Lafittes is pretty murky, due to circumstances including a lack of records and the Lafittes' own talents at making themselves look good.

Lafittes? Plural? Yes. Almost ignored in legend is Pierre Lafitte, Jean's older brother, and as implied by Davis's story, the dominant of the two. Of course, since Pierre, due to illness, was reduced to handling the business end of the brothers' activities in New Orleans while Jean was at the pirate retreat at Barataria, south of the city, the older brother was bound to leave more of a paper trail for author Davis to pick up on. At the same time, Jean, in his role, was likely end up the more colorful of the two.

But they worked together like Chang and Ing, P.T. Barnum's Siamese twins.

One clear message Davis gets across is that the brothers and their contemporaries were dedicated, calculating, manipulating crooks who profited not nearly as much as one might expect.