Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were an outlaw couple who became notorious during the Great Depression for a two-year crime spree across the central United States, robbing small banks, gas stations, and stores, and killing at least nine police officers and several civilians along the way. They ran with a loose gang that included Clyde’s brother Buck Barrow and others.
In April 1933, police raided an apartment hideout in Joplin, Missouri, after a shootout in which the gang killed two officers. Inside, they found a roll of undeveloped film. When developed, it contained a series of playful, staged snapshots the couple had taken of themselves and gang members — guns, cigars, and mock-tough poses.
The most iconic image shows Bonnie Parker posing with a pistol in one hand and a cigar clenched in her teeth, foot up on a car bumper. The photos were published by newspapers across the country and turned Bonnie and Clyde into media sensations — glamorous outlaw celebrities in the public imagination, even as they continued committing violent crimes. The cigar photo in particular gave rise to an inaccurate but persistent image of Bonnie as a cigar-smoking gun moll (she reportedly disliked cigars and was using one as a prop).
The couple’s fame from these photos actually worked against them, making them more recognizable to law enforcement. They were killed in a police ambush in Louisiana in May 1934.