True Grit (1969 film) Their adaptation focuses more on Mattie's point of view, as in the novel, and is more faithful to its Oklahoma setting. Hailee Steinfeld portrays Mattie Ross, Jeff Bridges plays Rooster Cogburn, and the cast also includes Matt Damon as La Boeuf and Josh Brolin as Tom Chaney. True Grit (1969 film) True Grit is a 1969 American western film directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Kim Darby as Mattie Ross and John Wayne as U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn. It is the first film adaptation of Charles Portis' 1968 novel of the same name. The screenplay was written by Marguerite Roberts.
Rooster Cogburn (character) boy named Wolf (Richard Romancito) while on the trail of the desperado, Hawk (Richard Jordan), who had stolen a shipment of nitroglycerin from the U.S. Army and killed family members of both Goodnight and Wolf. Cogburn lived in Fort Smith, Arkansas in the back of a Chinese dry-goods store, along with the proprietor, his friend and gambling buddy Chen Lee, and an orange tabby cat named after Confederate General Sterling Price for his entire life as a marshal. In the 2010 film, while Cogburn demonstrated a ruthless attitude towards the criminals and fugitives he pursued, he was generally very fair