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
The Wings of Eagles films as "Hell Divers" with Wallace Beery and Clark Gable, "Ceiling Zero" with James Cagney, and the Oscar-nominated World War II drama "They Were Expendable" in which Wayne co-starred with Robert Montgomery. The supporting cast features Ward Bond, Ken Curtis, Edmund Lowe and Kenneth Tobey. This film was the third of five in which Wayne and O'Hara appeared together; others were "Rio Grande" (1950), "The Quiet Man" (1952), "McLintock!" (1963) and "Big Jake" (1971). Soon after World War I is over, "Spig" Wead (John Wayne), along with John Dale Price (Ken Curtis), tries to prove to the Navy the value