Gunfight at the O.K. Corral direct conflict with the Earps' roles as lawmen, Johnny Behan was Cochise County Sheriff. Virgil Earp had served for three years during the Civil War and had also been involved in a police shooting in Prescott, Arizona Territory. He was appointed Deputy U.S. Marshal for eastern Pima County by U.S. Marshal Crawley Dake, on November 27, 1879, before the Earps arrived in Tombstone on December 1, 1879. He was appointed acting Tombstone's town marshal (or police chief) on September 30, 1880, after popular Tombstone town marshal Fred White was shot and killed by Curly Bill Brocius. Only a few days
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