The Gunfighter turned it down, despite having expressed a strong desire to play the part, because of his longstanding hatred for Columbia's president, Harry Cohn. Columbia sold the rights to Twentieth Century Fox, where the role went to Peck. Wayne's final film, "The Shootist" (1976), is often compared to "The Gunfighter" and contains numerous plot similarities. The script was loosely based on the purported exploits of an actual western gunfighter named Johnny Ringo, a distant cousin of the outlaw Younger family and a purported survivor of the infamous gunfight at the OK Corral against Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers. As in
Wyatt Earp Earp was the last surviving Earp brother and the last surviving participant of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral when he died at home in the Earps' small rented bungalow at 4004 W 17th Street, in Los Angeles, of chronic cystitis on January 13, 1929, at the age of 80. The "Los Angeles Times" reported that he had been ill with liver disease for three years. His brother Newton had died almost a month prior on December 18, 1928. Wyatt was survived by Josephine and sister Adelia Earp Edwards. He had no children. Charlie Welsh's daughter Grace Spolidora and his