Polly Pry

Mrs. Leonel Campbell Ross O'Bryan (1857-1938), under the pen name Polly Pry, was a controversial reporter for the Denver Post and later as a freelancer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She is best remembered for her connection to the case of Alferd Packer as an investigative reporter.

At one point during the trial, her skirts saved her publishers' lives by slowing down bullets from the gun of W.W. "Plughat" Anderson, who had attacked them in an unrelated matter.

When union workers boycotted the Post for her stance on labor issues and immigration, she founded her own paper, Polly Pry. This brought further attacks from gunmen on her, this time in her home rather than her workplace.

She was a strong advocate of free speech, and came to the aid of French war orphans during World War I.

Two film versions of the Alferd Packer story have included Polly Pry. In Jim Roberson's The Legend of Alfred Packer (1980), she was portrayed by Cynthia Nessin. The incident with Anderson (who was not named, and called "Gunman" in the credits) was included, but after she begins telling Packer's story, she does not appear again in the film, involved or otherwise, and the shooting is not mentioned again. She is depicted as a hard-drinking and forceful person. Trey Parker's Cannibal! The Musical featured Toddy Walters in the role, which went more deeply into her involvement with the case, though ignored the fact that she was married in order to make her a love interest for Packer.

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