I just watched an episode of "Gunslingers" on the Military Channel profiling Wyatt Earp. In his last years in the 1920's he apparently worked as an unpaid movie consultant in Hollywood. He had a lot of free time so he spent it in the commissary drinking coffee. It was there he met a young stage hand by the name of Marion Morrison, who would later go by the stage name John Wayne. The Duke later related that his earliest cowboy characterizations were based on stories told to him by Wyatt Earp.
How cool is that?
How cool is that?