Pop-music star and Texana buff Phil Collins doesn’t care if Davy Crockett died in the thick of battle at the Alamo–or pleaded with the Mexican army to spare his life. “I don’t think any less of [Crockett] if he went down that way,” Collins, a major collector of Alamo memorabilia, said last night during a talk to the Dallas Historical Society at Fair Park. That’s actually sort of smart–“talk your way out of it and live to fight another day,” added Collins (pictured in photo by Jeanne Prejean).
The subject came up because the ex-Genesis star’s daughter, Lily Collins, recently had a role in The Blind Side movie, which was directed by John Lee Hancock, who also made a revisionist Alamo movie called The Alamo. Hancock’s Davy Crockett was portrayed by Billy Bob Thornton as a reluctant hero who really wanted to escape over the wall, and later died on his knees after the battle was over.
Collins said he “gravitated” toward the Alamo legend from the age of 5 or 6, when he used to watch the Davy Crockett TV show on his family’s black-and-white set growing up in London. Later, as a multiple-Grammy-winning singer and drummer, he was able to indulge his fascination and now has visited the San Antonio landmark more than 30 times.
He’s also acquired over the years a collection of nearly 1,000 Alamo-related objects, including what’s purported to be Crockett’s pouch, two powder-horns and some musketballs. They were said to have been given by Crockett, begging for his life, to Jose Enrique de la Pena, a Mexican officer who was at the Alamo during the battle.
It was de la Pena’s writings that famously contradicted Crockett’s heroic image, contending that Crockett didn’t go down fighting, as legend has it, but surrendered and was later executed.
The 59-year-old Collins, who has a collection of Motown cover songs coming out in September, said a spiritualist once explained his fascination with the Alamo by telling him: “You were there.” Collins, the spiritualist went on, is literally the reincarnation of John W. Smith, an Alamo scout and the first mayor of San Antonio.
During a reception following his talk, we asked Collins whether he believes the theory. “I don’t want to make [the spiritualist] sound dopey. I don’t want to make me sound dopey,” he replied. “I don’t believe or disbelieve it. [When the spiritualist said it,] I was just an innocent bystander!”
