It's a great sketch, Keith. I must admit that I had never noticed the eagle thing.
One thing about Duke being ill, just in case there's any confusion: He had (since his lung was removed in '64) increasing difficulty breathing upon exertion, and simply walking while in higher elevations (i.e. where The Shootist was filmed), and in early '78 (he was in the hospital during the Oscars), he had his heart surgery in Boston, where they inserted a pig valve.
I know most, if not all of us KNOW this already, but over on another site (IMDb), and other places, people STILL insist he had cancer when he made this film, and it simply WAS NOT the case.
He also wasn't at death's door, as some imply, but he wasn't "in the pink" either.
Dick Cavett wrote a great piece about meeting JW for the first time while he and Becall were filming interiors at the studio backlot. I recommend it as a great read, but he makes the erroneous assumption (after JW's death) that he was battling the cancer (while filming this movie) that would eventually end his life but he wasn't.
As for Richard Boone's performance...I was quite happy with how he did. He rarely appeared in public (or made many films) in those years (he died in '81), as many years of alcohol abuse, not to mention a heavy smoking habit, caused RB's rugged good looks to deteriorate into a very haggard appearance, resembling nothing of what (just a short 10 years before) was a "maturing" matinee idol's graceful aging.
Side note...RB was supposed to play Doyle Lonnigan in "The Sting," the part that went to Robert Shaw, but was unable to do so due to his rapidly increasing inability to work sober. He supposedly did fine during The Shootist.
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Sir, I beg your pardon, but Richard Boone was asked to play Doyle Lonnigan in The Sting by Paul Newman. He turned it down because the part was small. Newman had the part rewritten to be larger in hopes of tempting Boone to play it because Paul Newman and Richard Boone had enjoyed making Hombre together. After the part was increased in size, he asked Boone to reconsider. Boone turned it down. The part was rewritten again. Boone was going to do it, but he was so rich from making HGWT that at the end he decided against it. It was a disappointment to Newman.
Sir, if you must cast aspersions on a dead man you should know what you're talking about. Richard Boone was a hard drinker, it's true. His abuse of alcohol had nothing to do with this issue or this particular role. Allow me to suggest that you read his biography, Richard Boone, A Knight Without Armor In A Savage Land before you spread any further libel.
Was Richard Boone an alcoholic? After studying his life I'm still not certain. Many men suffering from WWII PTSD self-medicated with alcohol. In the Navy Richard Boone had three ships destroyed under him: the Hancock, the Enterprise and the Intrepid. They were torpedoed, taken out by ack-ack and kamikazied. In addition his plane was shot down and he fought in hand-to-hand combat before he was rescued. Boone never spoke about this to anyone but his son, Peter, but for a single quip, 'We began to think somebody was trying to kill us.' Boone tried to get help from the VA but was stymied by the red tape.
Richard Boone discarded his WWII medals. My husband's father did the same thing with his own WWII medals. For those of you who thought John Kerry was in the wrong, this is a common occurrence with some men. RB's mother rescued his medals. My father-in-law's mother rescued his ones, both from the trash cans. Mothers, saviours of the world. My father-in-law burned his uniform behind the house in the incinerator. He swore that he would never leave home again.
Do you expect a man like Richard Boone to win a beauty contest? Richard Boone was in 2 near-fatal car accidents, both involving him going face-first through the windscreen. One wonders how that might affect the looks of anyone else. When these accidents happened there were no seat belts in cars. Boone was lucky to survive them. His chest broke the steering column of his car in the first accident. Had it not done so he would have likely have been impaled and killed. This was a common occurrence in accidents at that time.
Boone was not a vain man. When he broke his nose in the second of these accidents he failed to have it repaired for years. Look at his films and television appearances, it's easy to spot on Boone's magnificent nose.
After Richard Boone completed Have Gun - Will Travel, he never had to work again a single day in his life. Every job he accepted he did so because he wanted to work: he liked the script, he wanted to work with the other actors, or he wanted to help establish a film industry in Israel, his pet project.
Is it appropriate to judge our ancestors and predecessors? In a word, no, social changes make it wrong to do so in every case. There's a great deal more than to pontificate, but this is not the appropriate platform. Suffice it to say that you are mistaken in many ways, sir.
in such a silly hat. 
Was he afraid of looking too good?
Well, wouldn't you? I know my father did and he ruled my world.
Still, we must be grateful that it's preserved and for what we have, I must say. The magnificence of the past is there for us to view. I hope most of it will be preserved for us. Fingers crossed.
