Living The Legend

"Rooster" Cogburn in "True Grit"

The second to last film this blog will examine is the 1969 film “True Grit”. This film has Wayne play the role of Rooster Cogburn, a hardened U.S. Marshal with a cold personality and arguably worse morals than Ethan Edwards. Cogburn is sought out by Mattie Ross, a young girl who hires him to hunt down the man who killed her father. It is in this film we see the continuing trend of our protagonist as an outsider as Cogburn’s kill count of twenty-three men in four years is met with just as much contempt as reverence. Just like in “The Searchers” the idea of the gunslinger as a morally grey, possibly villainous character is prevalent. Filmed during the height of the Vietnam War Cogburn’s gung-ho gunslinger personality being met with scorn reflects the Western genre’s slow death thanks to American cynicism that built up over the course of the mid-20th century. The death of the Western is also mirrored by Wayne’s loyal yet shrinking fan base, as Scott Eyman notes, “That audience was extremely loyal, but it was also finite, and Wayne’s refusal to try to expand it meant that it would stay finite, before it inevitably began to shrink”(451). But what makes Wayne’s portrayal of Cogburn so strong is the character beneath his tough exterior. Under the dirt built up from a lifetime as a gunslinger Cogburn is the same character that John Wayne’s fans love and sympathize with, as is shown by his paternal relationship with Mattie Ross that strengthens over the film. Another great indicator of Wayne’s acting is, despite Cogburn’s destructive personality and crude morals, he’s a likable and in some sense goofy character for how over the top Wayne portrays him. On his character of Cogburn Wayne said, “That was me letting myself have fun. For the first time, I felt like an actor” (Munn). Director Henry Hathaway allowed this over-the-top acting of Wayne saying, “I knew Duke was going over the top, but I let him do it because it was a whole different color any other part he’d played. I thought the he was a pure caricature and not even one of himself…”(Munn). By this stage in his career we see Duke confronting those who call him a ‘character actor’ by being the most John Wayne he could be, and the remarkable part is he ends up putting on a great performance for an emotionally complex character. Cogburn’s gunslinger caricature personality works so well as it masks his own insecurities and the emotions he wants to subdue. Though Wayne would go a step farther in his acting for the last Western he ever did, and the final movie this blog will examine.



Eyman, Scott. John Wayne: The Life and Legend. New York City: Simon & Schuster, 2014.
    Google Books. Google, 1 Apr. 2014. Web. 7 Dec. 2015.

Munn, Michael. John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth. New York: New American Library, 2004.
     Google Books. Google, 1 Mar. 2005. Web. 5 Dec. 2015.