Editing True Grit (1969 film) (section)

=== John Wayne's involvement ===
Wayne began lobbying for the part of [[Rooster Cogburn (character)|Rooster Cogburn]] after reading [[True Grit (novel)|the novel]] by [[Charles Portis]]. He called [[Marguerite Roberts]]' script "the best script he had ever read", and was instrumental in getting her script approved and credited to her name after Roberts had been blacklisted for alleged leftist affiliations years before. This came in spite of Wayne's own conservative ideals.{{sfn|Shepherd|Slatzer|Grayson|2002|p=274}} He particularly liked the scene with Darby where Rooster tells Mattie about his life in [[Illinois]] (where he has a restaurant, his wife Nola leaves him because of his degenerate friends, and has a clumsy son named Horace), calling it "about the best scene I ever did".{{sfn|Ebert|2011|p=164}} [[Garry Wills]] notes in his book, ''John Wayne's America: The Politics of Celebrity'', that Wayne's performance as Rooster Cogburn bears close resemblance to the way [[Wallace Beery]] portrayed similar characters in the 1930s and 1940s, an inspired if surprising choice on Wayne's part. Wills comments that it is difficult for one actor to imitate another for the entire length of a movie and that the Beery mannerisms temporarily recede during the aforementioned scene in which Cogburn discusses his wife and child.{{sfn|Wills|1997|p=286}}

After reading ''True Grit'' by Charles Portis, Wayne was enthusiastic about playing the part of Rooster Cogburn, but as production got closer, Wayne got jumpy — he did not have a handle on how to play Rooster Cogburn. He was, of course, nervous because the part was out of his comfort zone and had not been specifically tailored to his screen character by one of his in-house screenwriters. Henry Hathaway, who directed the film, calmed Wayne's doubts, most notably concerning the eye patch which was made of gauze, allowing Wayne to see.{{sfn|Eyman|2014|pp=442–443}} John Wayne thought the picture had been edited too tightly by Hathaway. Nevertheless, in May 1969, a few weeks before the picture was released, Wayne wrote to Marguerite Roberts thanking her for her "magnificent" screenplay, especially for the beautiful ending in the cemetery that she had devised in Portis's style.{{sfn|Eyman|2014|p=448}} Wayne and Kim Darby worked very well together, but Henry Hathaway disliked her, stating: "My problem with her was simple, she's not particularly attractive, so her book of tricks consisted mostly [of] being a little cute. All through the film, I had to stop her from acting funny, doing bits of business and so forth."{{sfn|Eyman|2014|p=445}}