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
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral Behan surname through the end of that summer. She rented her home sometime before April 1881 to Dr. George Goodfellow. Wyatt Earp lived with Mattie Blaylock who was listed as his wife in the 1880 census, who had a growing addiction to the easily available opiate laudanum. Earp remained with Blaylock until he left Tombstone in April 1882. There are no contemporary Tombstone records that indicate a relationship between Marcus and Earp, but Earp certainly knew her, because both Behan and Earp had offices above the Crystal Palace Saloon. Sadie, traveling as either Mrs. J. C. Earp or Mrs. Wyatt