Leigh Brackett’s Words with John Wayne’s Voice

Leigh Brackett was one of director Howard Hawks’ favorite screen writers.  They first worked together in 1946 on the Humphrey Bogart film noir The Big Sleep.  And over the years, they partnered on several John Wayne Westerns: Rio Bravo, Rio Lobo, and El Dorado.

Hawks liked Brackett because she “wrote like a man.”  That’s right; a woman wrote lines for the Duke in three films. She also won a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America for her novel Follow the Free Wind, based on the life of mountain man Jim Beckwourth.