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True Grit at 50: the throwback western that gave John Wayne his only Oscar

The year 1969 was a true inflection point for the American western, a once-dominant genre that had become a casualty of the culture, particularly when Vietnam had rendered the moral clarity of white hats and black hats obsolete. A handful of westerns were released by major studios that year, including forgettable or regrettable star vehicles for Burt Reynolds (Sam Whiskey) and Clint Eastwood (Paint Your Wagon), who were trying to revitalize the genre with a touch of whimsy. But 50 years later, three very different films have endured: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Wild Bunch and True Grit. Together, they represented the past, present and future of the western.

MIDNIGHT COWBOY [US 1969] JON VOIGHT AND DUSTIN HOFFMAN A JEROME HELLMAN PRODUCTION

Midnight Cowboy at 50: why the X-rated best picture winner endures

In the present, there was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the year’s runaway box-office smash, grossing more than the counterculture duo of Midnight Cowboy and Easy Rider, the second- and third-place finishers, combined. George Roy Hill’s hip western-comedy, scripted by William Goldman and starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, turned a story of outlaw bank robbers into a knowing and cheerfully sardonic entertainment that felt attuned to modern sensibilities. Sam Peckinpah’s Wild Bunch predicted a future of revisionist westerns, full of grizzled antiheroes, great spasms of stylized violence, and the messy inevitability of unhappy endings. A whiff of death from a genre in decline.

By contrast, True Grit looks like it could have been released 10, 20 or 30 years earlier, and with many of the same people working behind and in front of the camera. Its legendary producer, Hal B Wallis, was the driving force behind such Golden Age classics as Casablanca and The Adventures of Robin Hood, and his director, Henry Hathaway, cut his teeth as Cecil B DeMille’s assistant on 1923’s Ben Hur before spending decades making studio westerns, including a 1932 debut (Heritage of the Desert) that gave Randolph Scott his start and seven films with Gary Cooper. And then, of course, there’s John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn, stretching himself enough to win his only Oscar for best actor, but drawing heavily on his own pre-established iconography. It was, for him, a well-earned victory lap.
True Grit may be defiantly old-fashioned and stodgy when considered against the films of the day, but it’s also an example of how durable the genre actually was – and how it would be again in 2010, when the Coen brothers took their own crack at Charles Portis’s 1968 novel and produced the biggest hit of their careers. What would be more escapist than ducking into a movie theater in the summer of ’69 and stepping into a time machine where John Wayne is a big star, answering a call to adventure across a beautiful Technicolor expanse of mountains and prairies? The film has much more sophistication than the average throwback, but the search for justice across Indian Territory is uncomplicated and righteous, and the half-contentious/half-sentimental relationship between a plucky teenager and an irascible old coot grounds it in the tried-and-true. The defiant message here is: this can still work!

undefined Photograph: Paramount/Kobal/Rex/Shutterstock

And boy does it ever. Kim Darby didn’t get much of a career boost for playing Mattie Ross, a fiercely determined and morally upstanding tomboy on the hunt for her father’s killer, but every bit of energy and urgency the film needs comes from her. When Mattie’s father is shot by Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey), a hired hand on their ranch near Fort Smith, Arkansas, she takes it upon herself to make sure he’s caught and dragged before the hanging judge. Whatever emotion she feels about the loss is set aside, limited to a brief crying jag in the privacy of a hotel bedroom, and she’s all business the rest of the time. When the Fort Smith sheriff doesn’t seem sufficiently motivated, she seeks out US marshal Cogburn (Wayne), a one-eyed whiskey guzzler who lives alone with a Chinese shopkeep and a cat he calls General Sterling Price.
The odd man out in their posse is a Texas ranger named La Boeuf (Glen Campbell), which Wayne and everyone else pronounce as “La Beef”, as part of his instinctual disrespect for Texans – and, really, anyone who fought for the Confederacy during the civil war. (La Boeuf makes a point of saying he fought for General Kirby Smith, rather than the south, which suggests a sense of shame that stands out in our current age of tiki-torch monument protests.) The chemistry between the three is terrific, despite Campbell’s limitations as an actor, because it’s constantly changing: Rooster and La Boeuf are sometimes aligned as mercenaries who see Chaney as a chance to take money from Mattie and from the family of a Texas state senator that the scoundrel also shot. Rooster comes to Mattie’s defense when Le Boeuf treats her like a wayward child and whips her with a switch, but the tables turn on that, too, when Rooster’s protective side holds her back.
Wayne called Marguerite Roberts’ script the best he’d ever read – she was on the Hollywood blacklist, which made them odd political bedfellows – and True Grit has nearly as much pop in the dialogue as the showier Butch Cassidy. Mattie gets to turn her father’s oversized pistol on Chaney, but language is her weapon of choice, delivered in such an intellectual fusillade that her adversaries tend to surrender quickly. (A running joke about the lawyer she intends to sic on them has a wonderful payoff.) The three leads exchange playful barbs and colorful stories, too, with Rooster ragging on La Boeuf’s marksmanship (“This is the famous horse killer from El Paso”) or spending the downtime before an ambush sharing the troubled events from his life that have gotten him to this place.
There’s a degree to which True Grit is a victory lap for Wayne, who gets one of his last – and certainly one of his best – opportunities to pay off a career in westerns. Yet Wayne genuinely lets down his guard in key moments and allows real pain and vulnerability to seep through, enough to complicate his tough-guy persona without demolishing it altogether. It may not have the gravitas of Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, but it’s the same type of performance, the reckoning of a western gunslinger who’s seen and done terrible things, lost the people he loved, and seems intent on living out his remaining days alone. Without the redemptive power of Mattie’s kindness and decency, True Grit is about a man left to drink himself to death.

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John Wayne

‘The Sons of Katie Elder’: John Wayne ‘Exploded in Rage’ When a Photographer Caught Him Using His Oxygen Mask

John Wayne wasn’t always able to keep his anger under control. However, he did often own up to situations where he felt the anger wasn’t justified. A photographer was on the other end of that rage when he took a photograph of Wayne using an oxygen mask on the set of The Sons of Katie Elder.

John Wayne played John Elder in ‘The Sons of Katie Elder’

The Sons of Katie Elder follows four sons who reunite in their old Texas hometown to attend their mother’s funeral, including John (Wayne) and Tom (Dean Martin). However, they learn that things are a lot worse than they could have imagined. Their father gambled away their family ranch, which ultimately resulted in his murder.

The four brothers decide to avenge their father’s death at all costs. They plan to win back their family ranch, but they’re way in over their heads. The situation suddenly escalates with the local sheriff and the violent conflict with the rival Hastings clan. The critics praised Wayne for his performance in The Sons of Katie Elder, as well as the remainder of the cast.

John Wayne ‘exploded in rage’ when a photographer took a picture of him using his oxygen mask on the set

Randy Roberts’ John Wayne: American explores Wayne’s career, including his time on the set of The Sons of Katie Elder. The actor was battling his cancer diagnosis at the time, which is why he initially recommended Kirk Douglas for the role. However, director Henry Hathaway fought to get Wayne in The Sons of Katie Elder.

As a result of his health, Wayne had an oxygen tank on the set in Durango, Mexico. It was 6,000 feet above sea level, making it difficult for the actor to breathe. However, he “exploded in rage” when a photographer named Gene Sysco from The Globe took a picture of him using the oxygen mask.

“You goddamned son of a b****!,” Wayne shouted. “Give me that f***ing film!”

Sysco obeyed and gave the film to the actor. As a result, the entire set fell silent in an uncomfortable exchange.

However, Wayne ultimately realized that he overreacted on the set of The Sons of Katie Elder. The actor approached the photographer in the motel dining room to apologize.

“I’m a grown man,” Wayne said. “I ought to be able to control myself better than I did today. I’m sorry.”

The legendary Western star was terrified that making the oxygen mask public would destroy his persona as a tough cowboy.

The actor didn’t allow his health to affect his performance in ‘The Sons of Katie Elder’

John Wayne: American explained that the Western actor’s co-star, George Kennedy, talked about his behavior in The Sons of Katie Elder. He continued using the oxygen tank and even stopped smoking cigarettes, but he still enjoyed having cigars. He only had one lung, although he wasn’t ready to completely give up that pleasure.

Nevertheless, Wayne did some of his own stunts in The Sons of Katie Elder. The actor wanted to prove that he wasn’t going to allow his diagnosis to defeat him. He completed a scene where he had to be dragged down a river. He also almost caught pneumonia, but he was insistent on keeping up his persona at all costs.

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A Heart Breaking Story of John Wayne and co-star Lauren Bacall

In her final letter to John Wayne, Lauren Bacall said she needed to tell him something. It was something she couldn’t work up the nerve to tell The Duke when they last worked together.

The estate of John Wayne released that letter on Instagram recently. Bacall sent it to him only a few months before he died of stomach cancer in 1979.

“Duke and Lauren Bacall appeared in two films together. Today, we’re sharing a letter from Bacall to Duke towards the end of his battle with cancer from the #JohnWayneArchive,” the caption says.

Dear Duke,

This has been on its way to you for months. You have been so very much in my thoughts. I never have been able to tell you how much you’re standing up for me in ‘Blood Alley’ days meant to me. I wanted to say it on ‘The Shootist’ — never could somehow. — know how difficult that film was for you. You have the guts of a lion — I do admire you more than I can say. It was so great to see you Academy Award nite. I’m being inarticulate — I want you to know how terrific you are and how really glad I am to know you. You give more than [you] know — I send you much love — constant thoughts

Betty.

Letter from Lauren “Betty” Bacall to John Wayne in 1979

Lauren Bacall’s birth name is Betty Joan Perske.

The two made two films together — Blood Alley and John Wayne’s final film, The Shootist.

John Wayne Stands up For Lauren Bacall in Casting Choice

The 1955 production of Blood Alley was a troubled one. John Wayne, who was originally only set to produce the film, ended up having to step in as the star after he fired Robert Mitchum.

He knew he needed a strong female lead so he went with one of the most popular actresses of her era, Lauren Bacall. However, she wasn’t everyone’s first choice.

Gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, who had issued with Bacall over the years, was a co-producer on the picture. Hopper didn’t want Bacall in the movie. Wayne made it clear, her opinion was noted, but it was his movie.

“Don’t tell me how to cast my picture,” he supposedly told her. Bacall stayed in the film.

They remained friends for the rest of Wayne’s life. And when Bacall’s husband, Hollywood legend Humphrey Bogart was diagnosed with cancer, John Wayne was the first to send flowers. Even though he didn’t know Bogart well.

Bacall died in 2014. But in a 2007 interview, she joked that she didn’t think and Wayne would be friends. Bacall was a staunch liberal Democrat and Wayne was a well-known conservative Republican.

“Duke Wayne and I got along really well, considering that we didn’t agree about anything!” she said then. “It was quite amazing. He was great to work with. He really liked me, and I really liked him. We had great chemistry together.”

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The Uncredited John Wayne TV Role You’ve Probably Never Seen

When John Wayne showed up on television, he was usually playing himself in a showbiz cameo, like his “I Love Lucy” guest appearance. As one of the century’s biggest movie stars, he didn’t exactly need exposure.

But Ward Bond, Wayne’s co-star in many of legendary director John Ford’s movies, struggled over whether or not he should make a move to television. When Ford discussed it with Bond, he got blunt. According to Joseph McBride’s book “Searching for John Ford,” the director called his friend a “dumb Irishman” and asked, “Don’t you act for a living?” Bond listened, and took a leading role in “Wagon Train,” a major TV western of the ’50s and ’60s. The show was once the highest-rated western on television, even beating out its regular competition, “Gunsmoke.” And Bond was far from the only movie star to appear in it.

The show began in 1958, and owed a great deal to John Ford’s vision of the American West. Every one of its many episodes focused on a unique character, either somebody in the wagon train or somebody the wagon train encountered, which made the show particularly supple ground for guest stars. When Ford directed an episode of the show, 1960’s “The Colter Craven Story,” the ostensible star was Carleton Young, another Ford stock actor, who played the part of Colter Craven. But dig into the credits and you’ll find another name: Michael Morris … who was actually John Wayne, perhaps the biggest star to appear on the program. And he did it in near secret.

Rise of the TV western

Robert Horton and Ward Bond in Wagon Train

As televisions became more commercially available in the 1950’s, the TV western became one of its most ubiquitous genres, lovingly homaged in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” There were so many western TV shows that only a few are still widely remembered today, regardless of their contemporaneous popularity (shows like “Gunsmoke” and “Bonanza” remain cultural milestones even as others vanished). Like many film westerns, these shows took place a couple of years after the Civil War, using national scars and the rocky terrain of the country’s westward expansion as raw material.

“Wagon Train” was one of those shows. It didn’t just incorporate the communal warmth and actors of John Ford’s westerns — it borrowed story beats from his 1950 film “Wagon Master,” about 19th century Mormon pioneers. When Ford came on to direct his episode, he even used the movie’s location photography to give the episode a grandeur that differentiated it from the other westerns on television, according to Joseph McBride’s “Searching for John Ford.”

Where the initial movie was more concerned with the historic transport of pacifistic Mormons across the wilderness, the TV show became more secular by cutting out the Mormon element. The premise needed to carry the show through 284 hour-long episodes. All that mattered was that the wagon train kept moving.

The Colter Craven Story

Carleton Young and Ward Bond in Wagon Train

In “Wagon Train,” Ward Bond plays wagon master Major Seth Adams, his typically irascible screen image softened for television. While he played the lead role for the show’s first four seasons (until his passing shortly after filming “The Colter Craven Story”), his character often takes a backseat to the main drama of the episode. Exceptions include the first season’s origin story two-parter “The Major Adams Story” and “Colter Craven.”

“Searching for John Ford” notes that by the end of the 1950’s, Ford’s five-decade filmmaking career had stalled somewhat, which saw him visiting the sets of his old friends’ projects. When he wasn’t bullying John Wayne on the set of Wayne’s directorial debut, “The Alamo,” he would hang around Ward Bond’s TV show. Ford’s passion for American history and its complicated players made him pitch Bond an episode dealing with U.S. president and Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant. Bond acquiesced.

Because of Ford’s interest in Grant, the saga of Colter Craven (Carleton Young) is just one piece of the episode. Craven, a surgeon whose experience in the Civil War has traumatized him to the point of alcoholism, joins the wagon train with his wife. When Major Adams (Bond) needs Craven to perform a C-section, he explains his own past with the Civil War, talking about his time in Shiloh, where he reunited with an old friend named Sam (Paul Birch). Hidden in this flashback is the appearance of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, who is played by actor Michael Morris. Who is actually John Wayne.

Wayne in the open

John Wayne on a Horse In Wagon Train

“Sam” is Ulysses S. Grant, and Ford portrays him first as a hapless drunk who sparks the ire of townspeople. His Civil War moment comes later, in Shiloh. Adams and Sam reunite, they share a haunting conversation, interrupted by the arrival of Sherman.

In a show with major roles for actors like the Oscar-winning Bette Davis, Agnes Moorehead, and Lou Costello, it feels almost perverse to shoot its sole John Wayne appearance like Ford does. Sherman is kept at a distance, in wide shot, with only one line. Wayne’s familiar posture and voice are the only clue that this mysterious figure is a famous movie star. It was a favor from Wayne to his buddies Ford and Bond — they remained tight even after Wayne almost walked away from his role in “The Searchers.”

As for John Wayne’s credited name for “Wagon Train,” Michael Morris? That’s closer to his actual name: Marion Robert Morrison.

While Ford’s choice to barely show Wayne was almost certainly a typical bit of rebellious behavior (according to “Searching for John Ford,” the director also got in trouble for giving Grant a cigar in a show sponsored by cigarettes), it suits the show well, keeping the focus on Adams and Grant. In 1962, Ford would get the chance to show the aftermath of Shiloh again in the anthology film “How the West Was Won,” depicting Grant (Harry Morgan) and Sherman (John Wayne again, now fully credited) in conversation. You get to see his face that time.

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