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) after bearing Cogburn a single, extremely clumsy son, Horace, (of whom Cogburn says, "He never liked me anyway"). Cogburn is described as a "fearless, one-eyed U.S. marshal who never knew a dry day in his life." He was "the toughest marshal" working the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) on behalf of Judge Isaac Parker, the real-life judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas (having criminal jurisdiction in the Indian Territory, as the bailiff repeatedly announces in both films). Cogburn shot a total of 64 men in eight years, killing 60 (not counting the men he