In 1948, John Wayne was offered the role of Jimmy Ringo in the psychological Western The Gunfighter, a script that Columbia Pictures had purchased specifically for him.
Wayne turned it down, despite having expressed a strong desire to play the part, because of his longstanding feud with Columbia’s president, Harry Cohn.
Columbia then sold the rights to Twentieth Century Fox, and the role went to Gregory Peck, who gave a strong performance in a very good Western.
Wayne’s final film, The Shootist (1976), one of his very best, is often compared to The Gunfighter and contains numerous plot and character similarities.
