John Wayne: A Giant Shadow

by C McGivern

  The studio head wasn’t satisfied with locking his imaginary rival out of the studio and when Duke’s contract came to an end, he picked it up and renewed it for a further six months, paying him three hundred fifty dollars a week! He then put him into the lowest-budget films as the juvenile or support! Duke felt naïve and foolish and he never forgave Cohn, or forgot his treatment at the hands of the executive. Right then he was sick with anger because he was helpless within the system. From then on he tried to make sure he was never under any studio’s control again and he remained wary of men like Harry Cohn for the rest of his life.

  Ultimately Cohn came to regret the day he locked John Wayne out of his studio. When Duke was Hollywood’s leading man he tried everything he could to woo the star back, tempting him with the best screen plays and top directors. But nothing would shift Duke once his mind was made up, he was extremely obstinate, elephantine in his stubbornness and the length of his memory. Twenty years after the incident Cohn thought he had succeeded in getting him hooked on an original story. Duke, he knew, had tried to buy it himself for fifty thousand dollars. Cohn paid one hundred thousand and was sure the star would make peace, forgive and forget and come back to Columbia.

  Duke told him with menace that he wouldn’t work there if his was the only studio in town, “I would rather leave the industry than make a picture for that son-of-a-bitch,” and even the best story he had ever seen wouldn’t make him back down. Columbia finally sold it on to Fox and left Cohn saddened that he couldn’t get him for the part he believed had been written with him in mind. Fox hired Gregory Peck to play The Gunfighter, one of the most successful Westerns ever made. Duke later outlined, scene by scene, how he would have played it, but also explained that his honor had been at stake. Over the following years he made movies at every major Hollywood studio, except one, Columbia Pictures Corporation. He chose when and if he would forgive a slight and Cohn remained unforgiven. Telling Duke to keep his fly zipped turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes he ever made, “I had plenty of opportunities to work with Cohn after that, Harry would come and say, “Duke you’d be just great in this… what do you want?” … I’d say, “Gosh, Harry, I just haven’t got the time,” … that’s the only delight I ever had with that guy.”

  The image of the knight-at-arms, carrying a rifle instead of a sword, the cowboy in the purest terms of chivalry, was created no thanks to Harry Cohn and the incident hurt Duke’s career badly. None of the big studios dared touch him, they believed the rumors must have substance, the mud stuck and he was labelled a skirt chaser, a drinker and a trouble-maker. The movie industry was just getting back on its feet but Duke was box-office poison, every gate in town was closed to him, and he spent weeks trudging round casting offices, feet aching and head throbbing. When he had not wanted to be an actor, he was all but dragged off the street and forced into it, groomed for stardom he neither wanted nor cared about. When one studio dropped him, the next was eager to sign him up, but those were the days when everyone was converting to sound, and there was a shortage of good vocal talent. Things had changed and whilst he had starred in four films and been billed in nine others he suddenly found himself an outcast. He was seen as a “leading man type” and the fact that two studios had dropped him after promising starts made him unappealing in an industry bursting at the seams with leading men. If he had been less tall, less good looking, and less athletic he could have been used as a supporting actor, but he was already too large a presence in the film world for that, “Because Cohn had taken me in dislike, for a year I couldn’t get any work and I was even thinking of going into the fight racket, which I was too old for. Instead I continued knocking on doors that remained firmly closed.”

  Eventually he decided to stop begging at the casting offices, not wanting to appear desperate, sure that he was putting executives off. He hired an agent, Al Kingston to do the begging for him. Kingston had been impressed with Duke’s performance in The Big Trail, but now saw an edgy, shy, and really nervous young man in front of him. Duke confided that he had to find work so he could marry Josie. Fortunately Kingston wasn’t put off by the rumors and suspected Duke’s good points outweighed the fact that he had failed too often. In an industry full of prima donnas and fakes, he had always worked hard to please, and he promised he would give any job Kingston found him his best shot. He was signed on the spot and taken straight over to see producer Nat Levine, known as the “king of the serials.” He owned Mascot Films, a small company operating on Poverty Row that hired equipment from the larger studios to make the “B” Movies of the era, the cheap Westerns and action adventures.

  Duke and Kingston were admitted to the Mascot offices by a short, fat man in thick glasses. He had a huge cigar that stayed in his mouth throughout the interview. Levine was a caricature of the Hollywood tycoon, but Duke was impressed by him, recognizing the restless energy that powered him, and he smiled his appreciation, “Nat Levine was an interesting character, a man of tremendous drive. He worked fourteen hour days and expected the same from us. He was also notoriously tight fisted … We had a party one day, lots of guests and everything. Levine had a diamond ring on and, as a gag, they tried to take it off him. Well the son of a bitch put up a hell of a fight and ended the whole party. He wasn’t going to give up that ring! And I knew he was close with a buck, if the thieves had come to me first, I coulda’ told ‘em not to bother.”

  The agent introduced Duke, lying, “He’s between jobs while a firm deal is done, so you got a good chance to grab some talent before somebody else does.”

  Levine glanced knowingly, “He’s younger than I expected.”

  Levine was surprised Duke was up for grabs and unable to find work, “When I met him I was really impressed with his honesty, his character. You could believe him. There was nothing phoney about the guy, and that came through on screen… As an actor, he was OK. What helped him more than anything else was his naturalness.” He signed Duke immediately asking, “Are you available tomorrow?” Although he was offered considerably less than he had been getting at Columbia, Duke liked the deal because it was non-exclusive. Levine never attempted to shackle people like the big studios did, and Duke saw that as a mark of trust on both sides. He was contracted to Mascot for six months and left free to work anywhere else he wanted the rest of the time.

  Levine was lining up a serial about a flyer; the western hero having been consigned to the graveyard by Lindberg’s solo flying exploits. Duke was told, “Be ready at four tomorrow morning,” and as he walked out of the office Levine was already on the phone arranging photographers, cameramen, a director, extras, stunt men and equipment. The studio boss collected him promptly next morning, saying as he handed him a pastry, “It’ll save time if you eat on the way.” Levine had also brought make-up and he applied it to Duke himself after he had changed into costume as the car cruised down Ventura Boulevard. Three hours later they arrived on location to start shooting Shadow of the Eagle as the sun rose. Levine was a man after Duke’s own heart as far as work and organization went and the producer couldn’t believe his luck in finding a star of Duke’s quality for his B-movies. The specially selected crew worked swiftly and well, moving between one set up and the next. There was no effort wasted perfecting scenes, sound or lighting, no wasted motion, no added costs, “We worked so hard on those serials we didn’t have time to think. I was paid $500 and we would put twenty five reels in the can in sixteen to twenty three days of shooting… and that’s nights too. They didn’t hire you for acting, they wanted endurance. You had to be able to last through it. They’d change the directors every day, but the leading man had to be there all the time. We never worked less than eighteen hours a day, had to, just to get that much film cranked out. We’d do 101,102 set-ups a day. Nowadays they get 3 or 4. Back then the most we ever got was 118 in one twenty six hour day.”

  Out on that first location he realized he would have no time for the three hour drive back to Hollywood at the end of the day and decided to
stay out on location overnight instead. Some of the crew had bed rolls with them, others had bread and cheese, and as usual there was plenty of whiskey on hand. Duke had nothing with him but everyone was happy to share what they had, and he felt as comfortable with those men that night as he had ever felt before. “This was the way B-movies were made and no-one ever squawked about the treatment.” He later looked back on his time at Mascot with fondness, he always enjoyed the great camaraderie there, “Modern stars complain if there is no cream for their coffee or if the hotel is not up to scratch. Back then we had it good if the producer provided tents and sandwiches were served. It was tough but good training and I loved it. The units were like family. There really was a very strong family atmosphere. We had to learn to work together, we were put into teams and before you knew it you’d made ten pictures together and we had things down to a gnat’s tooth. We were always fighting time and sunshine and we had to get on with things. It was pretty much slave labour but I made many wonderful, loyal friends back then.” On his first night he didn’t bother with bread or cheese, but helped himself to large amounts of the whiskey that was passed round. He was cold and aching, worn out and too tired to eat, but the whiskey warmed him up as he sat by the camp fire, swigging from a bottle with the others. A man sauntered over and crouched down next to the fire. Duke handed him the bottle and the man took a huge gulp. He passed it back saying, “Well Duke, it won’t take long to while the night away.”

  Duke laughed and took the bottle back, “Sure won’t.”

  The man was stunt co-ordinator Yakima Canutt, who had worked on many Hollywood films and was accepted as a star in his own right. Duke had recognized him immediately he arrived on set. Yak had also heard about Duke, having been told, “He’s easy to work with. You’ll like him. He’s great and when it comes to ribbing he’ll hold his own even with you!” Yak teased young Duke mercilessly right from that first meeting, “I wanted to get the first strike in fast on the new boy.”

  He told one of the others to spread the word to Duke that he needed to be careful around him because he reported everything back to Levine, but they weren’t to tell him until they had already spent the night talking. Yak later said Duke was friendly and happy to talk. Then, after the others had warned him off, he watched the stuntman in amazement and disbelief as he stood apart writing notes in a book. On the second night when Yak approached, Duke refused to drink with him. Yak offered him a cigarette, “No thanks” he answered and stomped away in disgust. Yak thought it was funny, but was glad Duke obviously believed in loyalty and honor amongst friends. Yak kept the joke going for a week before Duke went for a drink with one of the other actors. As he took a swig he noticed Yak, sitting in a dark corner making more notes in the book. Duke, over-sensitive to rumors and gossip after his brush with Cohn, blew his top, rushed toward the stuntman, and had to be restrained as the others explained it was just a joke. He had been mad but Yak had now become fair game and from then on, whenever they got together there was never a dull moment. Whoever came off worst it was always Duke who laughed the loudest. They were kindred spirits and became professional comrades.

  Canutt was large and stocky with mean black eyes and a hawk-like nose. He was the most famous rodeo rider on the circuit and had become a stuntman in the days of silent movies. By the time he met Duke he was accepted as the best in the business. Duke was impressed by his physical presence and courage, he was every inch what he thought a real man should be. Yak became involved in most of Duke’s films, and even when they weren’t working together Duke often sought him out, spending many hours talking about life on the rodeo circuit, and working out stunts in detail. At that time Yak was making more money than the star, and Duke seriously thought about giving up acting altogether to follow in his footsteps. He began studying Canutt in earnest, the way he rode horses, the way he moved, the way he did everything. In fact Duke could already put on the best fight in Hollywood, even without any specialist training from Yak. The two were so competitive that directors let them choreograph their own fights, feeling it was safer than getting mixed up between them. In most of their films there was at least one brawl. Neither was satisfied with the way the fights came out on screen, they were so obviously phoney and they worked tirelessly together to come up with ways to make them more realistic.

  Occasionally Duke took things too far. Once, when Yak had annoyed him about something, Duke chased after him as the cameras were still rolling, he dived at his legs in a flying tackle and sent the stuntman somersaulting across the street. The action looked great in the rushes but Yak hurt for days and he did his best not to annoy his quick tempered friend for a while.

  The no-frills work, where the stunt-man was a bigger star than the leading man, suited Duke. In such a tough, all-male surrounding, it was impossible for anyone to become a prima donna, impossible to take yourself or life too seriously, and Yak recalled, “He was a regular guy. I enjoyed the steady work with him, it became an enjoyable habit for us both.” He enjoyed telling the story of an incident he felt captured Duke’s spirit perfectly, “Early one morning between takes Duke noticed a hobo cooking stew at the side of the railway tracks. He ambled across to talk. The hobo shared the stew with him and Duke got a big kick out of it; meeting that man was just as important to him as meeting the president.”

  The friendship with Yak also meant a lot to the film star. By 1932 he was getting increased exposure, but he never forgot his friends, and it was at his insistence that Yak was later used in most of his films, “Duke was never stingy when it came to handing out credit. When Ford interviewed me for Stagecoach he called me by my real name, Enos. Duke was one of the few people who knew my name so I knew right away he had referred me to the director. I said to Ford, ‘I see Wayne has given you all the inside dope on me. Ford laughed, “That’s right, in fact he has said so much about you that you are going to find it difficult to live up to it.”

  Duke often suffered painful falls from fast moving horses, but Yak was always there, encouraging him to get up and carry on as if nothing had happened. It had been his ability to carry on that made so many of his stunts look realistic in the early films. Most stars wouldn’t gamble on losing money by getting injured performing a stunt, if they even skinned their face valuable days of shooting time was lost while they healed up. Duke insisted on doing them anyway. He wanted his work to look as natural as possible, he enjoyed the stunt work and was never concerned with looks or torn skin, “I’ve been hit plenty of times. There was once a big kid, and I told the producer he could fight and that he would save us time in the fight scenes. He hit me so hard he busted my nose and mouth. The producer walked over to where I was lying in a pool of blood and said, “You son of a bitch… so he’ll save us time will he?” Duke never complained about the knocks he took or the tough life on location, “You get used to hardship after a while, and, Christ, you can even look forward to it. I loved making the Mascot serials. We had only one set for interiors, so to show scene changes we had to change our clothes. Some days I had to change clothes twenty times. I began to hate changing clothes. But it was a great experience, and it taught me to realize how wonderful it is to work in an A picture when you get the chance.”

  The serials didn’t have much dialogue and the first take was usually printed. Later, Duke adhered to that principle whenever possible, “I’ve kinda believed this is what you should do even when you’re making a fine movie. If you have a director who knows what he wants, and knows his business, and you have good writers, and professional actors, with a competent guy on camera and good technicians, the first take is the most natural, most spontaneous. For Mascot the idea was just to get the scene on film and move onto the next one. They were rotten pictures. But they taught me how to work, how to take orders, and how to get on with the action. You can waste an awful lot of time when you have someone fussing with lights and shadings of interpretation. That only means they haven’t done their homework, have not worked hard enough, that or they are insecure i
n their work.”

  Whilst he was making enormous efforts for Levine at Mascot, Al Kingston was busy lining up other work for him, for the six month period he was free. The market for the western had reopened and Warners were planning to remake several of the old Ken Maynard silent films. Maynard himself was now under contract to Universal, and was no longer the slim line star that he had been when he made the original series. Warners were producing four direct remakes, using original footage of the stunt work, which had been of the highest quality. The high budget films had been shot in beautiful locations with top quality casts and using the original action sequences appealed to the studio because it kept costs down.

  Duke was introduced to the executives as a prospective replacement for Maynard. Although he looked just right they were worried about the old Cohn rumors and he was questioned at length about his attitude to work. Duke didn’t even bother replying, he stood up sharply mid-interview to begin his customary restless pacing, saying quietly, almost to himself, that he was going to shut Cohn’s mouth once and for all. Fortunately, he didn’t have to, Warners were ready to take a gamble and he was hired. Duke had trouble remembering all the films he made under Kingston’s care, he took everything that came his way, including shorts for Universal, films for Levine, films for Warners, films for anyone else who allowed him to remain non-exclusive. He went swiftly from one location to the next, never resting, no sooner catching one bandit than moving on to unmask the next.

  Warners were particularly pleased with his dedication and began giving him leeway, allowing him to make some of his own decisions, “I think they helped me a great deal because I was given freedom from the concept of what acting was in that period. In those days the western hero wore the white hat, stood with his fists up ready to fight and never took unfair advantage of the villain. But when a guy threw a vase at me, I picked up a chair and hit him with it. They said, “Jesus, you’re the hero” and I said, “You’re goddamn right.” My dad told me that if I got in a fight I better win. What I did then changed the whole attitude of what a hero should be. They’ve never made a point of this, but I have tried never to play the pure hero. I have always been a character of some kind, Tom Mix, Buck Jones and Tim McCoy were just clean and pure. I didn’t like to wear rodeo clothes, so I started wearing Levis. I’m the first one to wear those brown Levis that they have now. I got Western Costume to make some for me, but these things never came out to the public. But they loved it, loved the fights, and I think they liked the idea of my not being in rodeo clothes. It gave a little more identification let’s say. I did most of my things by instinct.”