Henry Hathaway directed the first movie adaptation of True Grit in 1969. A renowned Western filmmaker, Hathaway worked with screenwriter Marguerite Roberts on the film. Wayne would credit Roberts’ script as “the best [he’d] ever read”.

The role of young Mattie Ross was originally won by Mia Farrow. But while making another film in England, actor Robert Mitchum warned her not to work with the “cantankerous” Hathaway. Mia dropped out, and Kim Darby took up the part.

During shooting in and around Colorado, Wayne was unable to perform many of his own stunts owing to the fact that he’d had a lung removed four years previously. In fact, he could barely walk 30 feet without getting out of breath.

Though Hathaway’s film went on to earn Wayne his only Oscar (“Wow! If I'd known that, I'd have put that patch on 35 years earlier,” joked the star), it was criticised for Darby’s uninvolving performance, and the fact that the film diverged away from the original material so much. Years later, the Coen brothers would put that right…