The picture to the left is one produced of Teach in 1725, a few years after his death. In Captain Charles Johnson's 1724 book A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, Blackbeard's fearsome appearance is described as follows:
We've been watching quite a few of the old Disney live action movies lately, and this week it was Blackbeard's Ghost, the 1968 film starring Dean Jones and Peter Ustinov. Dean Jones is Steve Walker, a track and field coach who has arrived in the Maryland town of Goldolphin to train the local college's substandard track team. He is going to be boarding at Blackbeard's Inn, which is the former home of Edward Teach, the pirate Blackbeard. The Inn is run by the Daughters of the Buccaneers, a group of elderly descendants of the pirate's crew. They are in danger of losing their Inn- and only source of income- because the local crime boss wants the land to build a casino on and if they can't pay their mortgage within a short time, he will seize the property. Through a series of odd events, Walker becomes haunted by Blackbeard's ghost who is under a curse put upon him by one of his former wives. The curse can only be broken if he does a good deed of some sort. The ghost is a boozy, swaggering old reprobate who causes no end of trouble for Walker. This is compounded by the fact that no one else is able to see the ghost, so think that the coach is going crazy: talking -often shouting- to himself and doing eccentric things. Hoping to get rid of the old rummy, Walker convinces Blackbeard that he should help the Daughters of the Buccaneers save the Inn to break the curse. Unfortunately, the pirate attempts to do this by stealing the $900 raised in a charity auction for the cause and placing a bet with the local bookie that Walker's team will place first in the state track meet. Because the team is so bad the odds are 50 to 1, so winning the bet would save the inn; the problem is, well, they are so bad. Blackbeard next decides- to Walker's anger and dismay- that he must help the track team win the meet. Shenanigans ensue as Blackbeard attempts to sabotage the other teams and foil the schemes of the mobsters, dragging a reluctant Walker in his wake. Blackbeard's Ghost is from that era of Disney movies when it seemed like Dean Jones was in all of them: the Herbie films, That Darn Cat, The Shaggy D.A., etc. He's always the straight man in these comedies, a role he fulfills really well, and he does this in Blackbeard's Ghost as well. It's about on par with a lot of these films- remarkably silly and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. If you like Disney films from this time period, you're almost sure to enjoy Blackbeard's Ghost. Even if you're not generally a fan, it's worth it to see Sir Peter Ustinov gleefully playing a drunken pirate, doing everything from stealing a police motorcycle and careening through town to enthusiastically joining a cheer routine with pom pom girls. I must say, as far as pirate movies go, I enjoyed this more than any of the Pirates of the Caribbean films I've seen. Incidentally, Edward Teach, or Blackbeard, was a real person (and pirate) who lived from 1680 to 1718, when he came to a bad end in battle with British naval forces. Although obviously a criminal, he doesn't appear to have been a vicious one; he didn't mistreat or kill hostages, and seems to have mostly relied on his fierce appearance and reputation to intimidate his opponents. The picture to the left is one produced of Teach in 1725, a few years after his death. In Captain Charles Johnson's 1724 book A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, Blackbeard's fearsome appearance is described as follows: "So our Heroe, Captain Teach, assumed the Cognomen of Black-beard, from that large Quantity of Hair, which, like a frightful Meteor, covered his whole Face, and frightened America more than any Comet that has appeared there a long Time. This Beard was black, which he suffered to grow of an extravagant Length; as to Breadth, it came up to his Eyes; he was accustomed to twist it with Ribbons, in small Tails, after the Manner of our Ramilies Wiggs, and turn them about his Ears."
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