Despite his decades-long career, Rooster Cogburn was the only time John Wayne appeared in a sequel. Wayne made his screen debut with an uncredited appearance in 1926’s Brown Of Harvard and ended his acting career 50 years later with Don Siegel’s The Shootist. Wayne appeared in many different kinds of genres during his long career, from bizarre romantic drama The Barbarian And The Geisha – where Wayne fought his director – to war movies like Sands of Iwo Jima.

Despite his success with other genres, Wayne is forever tied to Westerns. 1939’s Stagecoach was the film that made him a star, while he went on to appear in many classics of the genre, including The Searchers, Rio Bravo and 1969’s True Grit. While the success of Westerns waned during the late ’60s and ’70s, Wayne continued to headline in movies like Cahill U.S. Marshal and The Cowboys. His second last movie was 1975’s Rooster Cogburn, which saw him reprise the title character from True Grit.

Wayne won his only Oscar for playing Cogburn in True Grit, an aging, cantankerous U.S. Marshall hired by a teenage girl to track the man who killed her father. Rooster Cogburn arrived six years later and saw Wayne – who turned down a Clint Eastwood Western – titular’s character having been stripped of his badge for misconduct. He’s given a chance to redeem himself by chasing after a gang of bank robbers, and during the story, he’s joined by Hollywood legend Katharine Hepburn as a spinster who – just like True Grit’s Mattie Ross – wants to find her father’s killers. Rooster Cogburn is also notable for being the only time in Wayne’s career he made a sequel or reprised a character, with the team-up between him and Hepburn being the highlight of the movie.

Sadly, Rooster Cogburn is utterly inferior to True Grit despite its leads, and while it’s not Wayne’s worst Western, it’s far from his best either. Reviews for the sequel weren’t kind either, with critics feeling both Wayne – whose grandson Brendan is also an actor – and Hepburn were much too old to convincingly portray their characters. During this era in Hollywood, sequels and franchises were still more of the exception than the rule, and while many of Wayne’s Westerns were essentially variations on the same stories or characters, he may have wished to avoid direct follow-ups for the stigma attached to them at the time.

He had appeared in thematic trilogies like John Ford’s Cavalry Trilogy or thinly veiled remakes like Rio Bravo riff Rio Lobo, but Rooster Cogburn was his only direct sequel. It appears there were plans for a franchise had the movie being a success, with a third movie called Someday being developed. Rooster Cogburn proved to be a box-office disappointment, however, though a TV movie titled True Grit: A Further Adventure aired in 1978 with Warren Oates playing Cogburn.

Over the years, actors have not always used their real names onscreen. John Wayne happens to fall in that category. So, how did he get his name? After all, Marion Morrison wasn’t going to cut it in Hollywood or in movies. The decision to change that name actually happened through Wayne’s movie studio at the time, Fox Studios.

John Wayne Gets Help On Stage Name Thanks To His Movie Studio At The Time

The story goes that Fox Studios didn’t like his birth name. At first, director Raoul Walsh tossed out the name of a war general named Anthony Wayne. Studio exec Winfield Sheehan said nope, sounds “too Italian.” Then John Wayne gets tossed out there and everyone says yes.

Did they not think about using “Duke”? Not for his movie name. That nickname came from a childhood Airedale Terrier named Duke. People apparently would call Wayne “Big Duke” and his dog “Little Duke.” So, there you go. And yes, Wayne didn’t have any input about his new name. It was going to be that way and, thankfully, he would become a motion picture superstar for decades to come.

Over the years, Wayne played many different types of roles. Westerns, military movies, even a cop sometimes. What roles would he turn down in his career? “Anything mean and petty,” he said according to an article from Express. “I think I’ve established a character on a screen that may be rough, may be cruel, may have a different code than the average person, but it’s never been mean and petty or small.”

Actor Shares Some Of His Favorite Movies From His Career

That’s focusing on the type of role that he would turn down. Back in 1976, Wayne sat down in Chicago for an in-depth interview and questions from audience members with Phil Donahue. He was asked what were some of his favorite movies to appear in at that time.

“Well, you like different pictures for different reasons,” Wayne said. “I loved Stagecoach, naturally because I stepped on that stagecoach and it’s carried me a long way. I like Hatari! which was a picture we made in Africa because I had a three-month safari free. I mean rich men don’t get that, you know. And The Quiet Man because I got to work with all the Abbey Players and some forebears of my own family.”

John Wayne died in 1979 after battling cancer throughout his life. His movie legacy is broad, wide, and about as big as he was in life. The fact that Wayne remains a piece of American entertainment to this very day speaks volumes about the man and his fans.

John Wayne did establish himself as one of the greatest actors ever in Western films. But did you know that he invented a punch? The venerable actor did just that as he changed the narrative, so to speak. Before “The Duke” started duking it out with bad guys, the good guys usually were following the rules of fighting. Not with John Wayne.

John Wayne Always Packs A Punch For His Movie FansIn an interview, he once described how things changed with his mighty fists. “The hero could only knock the villain down politely and then wait until he rose,” Wayne says. “I changed all that. I threw chairs and lamps. (And) I fought hard, and I fought dirty. I fought to win.” He usually would come out on the winning end, too.

What about the punch? If you have seen him in The Searchers or Stagecoach, then you know he would fight to hold his ground. Wayne’s punches were in the form of a big arc or circle-like configuration. Doing so will send the puncher and the intended target off of their feet. They would look wobbly. John Wayne would make sure the moviegoers would see him in action. By doing this, they would get the full punching and fighting experience.

Martin Scorsese Remembers The First Time He Saw ‘The Searchers’Director Martin Scorsese, who has made a few good movies in his career, loves The Searchers. He once called seeing John Wayne in it “the greatest performance of a great American actor.” In an interview with the famed director, he recalled going to see the movie with some friends as a young man. Scorsese remembers seeing Ethan Edwards, Wayne’s character, for the first time.

“And, you sit there, and suddenly this character – this lonely character – comes out of the, out of the desert or something and he’s absolutely terrifying,” he says. “I mean he’s with all – well, he’s filled with – he just literally acts out the racism, the worst aspects of racism of our country, you know, and it’s right there. It’s right there. And you could see the hate. You could see it building. You could also understand how he could go that way. …”

When it comes to other actors loving this movie, put Sam Elliott in there, too. The venerable movie star and most recently cast member of 1883 was asked in an interview what were some of his favorite movies growing up. “Oh God, I’ve got a lot of them,” he said. “The Searchers was probably a favorite as I was growing up, along with Red River. And you know, I don’t just single out those two because John Wayne was in both of them.”