The story goes that John Wayne was a judge on a talent show for college students in the late ‘60s, and he was very impressed with the girl drummer/singer of the Dick Carpenter Trio. So impressed, in fact, that the next year, the Duke pushed to have her cast as Mattie Ross in “True Grit.”
Producers and director Henry Hathaway nixed the idea; she had no acting experience and they couldn’t afford to take a chance on a novice. So Karen Carpenter stuck with the music career—which hit high gear in 1970, the year after the movie was released.
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