Director Robert Rossen (qv) offered the role of Willie  Stark to John Wayne (I) (qv). Rossen sent a copy of the script to  Waynes agent, Charles K. Feldman (qv), who forwarded it to Wayne.  After reading the script, Wayne sent it back with an angry letter  attached. In it, he told Feldman that before he sent the script to  any of his other clients, he should ask them if they wanted to star  in a film that "smears the machinery of government for no purpose of  humor or enlightenment," that "degrades all relationships," and that  is populated by "drunken mothers; conniving fathers; double