![]() ![]() Movie buffs will appreciate the closing references, including a list of productions shot in western Colorado and a complete John Wayne filmography. Other chapters relate Colorado’s ongoing flirtation with the film industry, review the 2010 remake of True Grit and direct readers to locations and buildings used in the original. The longest section of the book highlights the actor’s life and career and provides a rundown of Wayne-Ford film collaborations. “No,” came the answer, “people are what put me where I am at today. “He loved everybody,” Martinez recalls, “He gave everybody a slice of the mustard.” Montrose policeman Warren Waterman also provided security for the cast and crew, and he once asked Wayne if fans ever bothered him. Out of gratitude the actor invited young Phil and a friend to lunch with him every afternoon-provided they bring a different classmate each day. His father worked as a part-time deputy, assigned to escort Wayne and entourage around town. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, under the real-life Isaac “Hanging Judge” Parker.) Ridgway resident Phil Martinez was 14 in 1969. (Ridgway itself was a stand-in for Fort Smith, home to the U.S. Alongside quotes from author Portis and Wayne’s costars Kim Darby (Mattie Ross) and Glen Campbell (Texas Ranger La Boeuf) are remembrances from doubles, stunt performers, sign painters, security guards and locals fortunate enough to have been chosen as extras. ![]() The warmth he shared with fans is one aspect that comes across loud and clear in this 50 th anniversary retrospective of True Grit, filmed largely in and around Ridgway, Colo.Ī labor of love by the Ridgway Western Heritage Society, the book is a wide-format compendium of photographs and firsthand accounts from the set and on location, including period articles from local newspapers that lend a very personal touch. But in the end it didn’t matter a damn, as “Duke” might have put it, because he cared more about the people watching, not those judging. But despite having starred in 131 films to that date, been among the top box office draws for three decades and achieved iconic status as a Western actor, he’d been slighted by the “Academy.” It was certainly political, as the conservative was hardly shy about expressing his opinions. He had accepted the award in the past for director John Ford and fellow actor Gary Cooper. She hires Rooster Cogburn, a former Confederate soldier, to track him, and they are joined by LeBoeuf, a Texas ranger who has his own financial. “Rooster” Cogburn in the 1969 film version of the Charles Portis novel True Grit. True Grit imagines the story of one Mattie Ross, a 14-year-old girl in post-Civil War Arkansas who sets out to avenge the death of her father at the hand of scoundrel and thief Tom Chaney. So quipped John Wayne when accepting the Academy Award for his performance as U.S. “Wow! If I had known that, I’d have put that patch on 35 years earlier!” This edition includes an afterword by bestselling author Donna Tartt ( The Secret History and The Goldfinch) and a reading group guide.True Grit : A 50-Year Tribute, by the Ridgway Western Heritage Society, Ridgway, Colo., 2019, $20 plus shipping (for information on obtaining a copy, email the Ouray County Ranch History Museum at the book is also available on the museum website) For fans of taut, funny storytelling, it will be a joy to experience in its original form. For fans of either the John Wayne classic or the more recent Coen brothers’ movie, it’s a chance to relive the story of Mattie and Rooster and experience their story as it was originally told. ![]() Not just a classic Western, but an undeniable classic of American literature as eccentric, cool, funny, and unflinching as Mattie Ross herself. Filled with an unwavering urge to avenge her father’s blood, Mattie finds and, after some tenacious finagling, enlists one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available US Marshal, as her partner in pursuit, and they head off into Indian Territory after the killer. True Grit tells the story of Mattie Ross, who is just fourteen when the coward Tom Chaney shoots her father in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 cash. This story of danger and adventure in the old west became the basis for two award-winning films, the first starring John Wayne, in his only Oscar-winning role, as Marshall Rooster Cogburn, and the widely praised remake by the Coen brothers, starring Jeff Bridges. True Grit, his most famous novel, was first published in 1968, and has garnered critical acclaim as well as enthusiastic praise from countless passionate fans for more than fifty years. “Charles Portis had a wonderful talent-original, quirky, exciting.” -Larry McMurtryĬharles Portis has long been acclaimed as one of America’s most enduring and incomparable literary voices, and his novels have left an indelible mark on the American canon. “The dialogue in True Grit is exquisite.” -David Mamet “Quite simply, an American masterpiece.” - Boston Globe ![]()
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