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.
Johnson County War Redhead from Wyoming," starring Maureen O'Hara, dealt with similar themes; in one scene Maureen O'Hara's character is told, "It won't be long before they're calling you Cattle Kate." In the 1968 novel "True Grit" by Charles Portis, the main character, Rooster Cogburn, was involved in the Johnson County War. In the early 1890s Rooster had gone north to Wyoming where he was "hired by stock owners to terrorize thieves and people called nesters and grangers... . I fear that Rooster did himself no credit in what they called the Johnson County War." Films such as "Heaven's Gate" (1980) and "The