of the picture, Universal produced the film itself with the up-and-coming Anthony Mann, Stewart's choice, directing. Mann had Borden Chase rewrite the script to make the rifle a bone of contention instead, showing it passing contentiously through the hands of a variety of people. Stewart had wished to make Harvey for Universal-International but, when the studio could not pay the $200,000 salary ($ in modern dollars) he wanted, studio head William Goetz offered to allow Stewart to make both Harvey and Winchester '73 for a percentage of the profits, spread over some time and at a lower capital gain tax rate than a single payment to Stewart would be. Stewart's then-agent Lew Wasserman was able to get his client 50 percent of the profits, eventually amounting to $600,000, from the film's unexpected success. Stewart's deal also gave him control of the director and co-stars. This is acknowledged today as the first confirmed time in the sound era a film actor received some of the movie's receipts as compensation, a practice now called "points". Casting Stewart was already cast in the part of Lin McAdam and spent a lot of time practicing with the rifle so he would look like an authentic Westerner. As Mann later related, "[Stewart] was magnificent walking down a street with a Winchester rifle cradled in his arm. And he was great too actually firing the gun. He studied hard at it. His knuckles were raw with practicing... It was those sorts of things that helped make the film look so authentic, gave it its sense of reality." An expert marksman from the Winchester company, Herb Parsons, did the trick shooting required for the film and assisted Stewart in his training. Shelley Winters was cast as a dance-hall girl. Winters did not understand the film, nor think much of her part in it, saying, "Here you've got all these men... running around to get their hands on this goddamn rifle instead of going after a beautiful blonde like me. What does that tell you about the values of that picture? If I hadn't been in it, would anybody have noticed?" The part of Wyatt Earp was given to Will Geer, who was not alone in feeling he was miscast for the role. Millard Mitchell was cast as High-Spade Frankie Wilson. That same year, Mitchell appeared in The Gunfighter, starring Gregory Peck. He would appear in another Stewart-Mann