John Wayne Highlands, fierce fighters against communism, bestowed on Wayne a brass bracelet that he wore in the film and all subsequent films. Wayne finally won a Best Actor Oscar for "True Grit" (1969), two decades after his only other nomination. Wayne took on the role of the eponymous detective in the crime drama "McQ" (1974). His last film was "The Shootist" (1976), whose main character, J. B. Books, was dying of cancer—which Wayne himself succumbed to three years later. "The Shootist" (1976) contains numerous plot similarities to "The Gunfighter" of nearly thirty years before, a role which Wayne had wanted but
John Ford "How The West Was Won", the first non-documentary film to use the Cinerama wide-screen process. Ford's segment featured George Peppard, with Andy Devine, Russ Tamblyn, Harry Morgan as Ulysses S. Grant, and John Wayne as William Tecumseh Sherman. Also in 1962, Ford directed his fourth and last TV production, "Flashing Spikes", a baseball story made for the "Alcoa Premiere" series and starring James Stewart, Jack Warden, Patrick Wayne and Tige Andrews, with Harry Carey Jr. and a lengthy surprise appearance by John Wayne, billed in the credits as "Michael Morris". "Donovan's Reef" (Paramount, 1963) was Ford's last film with John