John Wayne may not have been the most progressive figure in Hollywood, and some of his beliefs have aged about as well as milk left in the desert sun. But if there’s one thing that defined ‘The Duke,’ it was his unwavering commitment to his principles—no matter how controversial or outdated they were.
He loathed Communists and made no secret of it. He resented the shifting tides of Hollywood, rejecting modernity with a firm, unyielding grip. The idea of women working behind the scenes on a film set? Preposterous, according to Wayne. And when it came to his career choices, he was just as steadfast.
Wayne wasn’t one to sell out, even when it came to high-profile opportunities. He famously turned down a role in Blazing Saddles, believing that his loyal audience wouldn’t accept him stepping outside his rugged, all-American persona. Instead, he stuck to his tried-and-true formula—the stoic, gun-slinging hero prevailing against impossible odds.
That very formula was the backbone of The Gunfighter, a 1950 western about an ageing sharpshooter seeking to reunite with his estranged family while dealing with ghosts from his past. It was the perfect John Wayne vehicle—so much so that screenwriter William Bowers wrote the role specifically with him in mind. By all accounts, Wayne was interested. There was just one problem.
The film was produced by Columbia Pictures, a studio run by the one man Wayne despised more than anyone else in Hollywood: Harry Cohn. Their bad blood stretched back to the early 1930s when Wayne, then an unknown contract player, had a miserable experience under Cohn’s rule.
After butting heads with the studio boss during his first Columbia project, Wayne was later forced to play a corpse in his second—a decision he believed was a direct order from Cohn meant to humiliate him. “I knew damn well a professional extra would have normally been used for that kind of work,” he later fumed. That grudge turned into a lifelong refusal to work with Columbia, no matter the project.
And so, when The Gunfighter landed at Columbia, Wayne’s interest in the role vanished instantly. Not even a perfect script, a tailor-made role, or a promising production could convince him to work for Cohn. Instead, the role went to Gregory Peck—who, unlike Wayne, didn’t let a decades-old vendetta dictate his career choices.
