John Wayne: A Giant Shadow

by C McGivern

  But even Bond couldn’t rid him of all his demons and Duke often got involved in fist fights and brawls. Whilst filming The Fighting Seabees the director banned him from going into local bars. He was loosing as many fights as he won and Ludwig said he was worried he wouldn’t get him through the picture in one piece. As it was, the make-up man had a hard time disguising the lumps and bruises he was covered in throughout filming.

  When Wayne realized his commission wouldn’t materialize he decided to do more for the war effort and he freely gave his time in The Hollywood Canteen serving meals to the needy. He carved the meat there on Thanksgiving, and gave generous donations at Christmas. He made his propaganda films and visited hospitals. He stopped writing letters asking for a posting and instead increased his USO Camp Show tours to the South Pacific and Australia. His attempt to make a personal contribution alleviated some of his guilt and suffering of the troops at the same time. He was asked to gather some information whilst he was overseas by William Donovan, Ford’s commanding officer. He filed his first report with Donovan on his return from one tour, and in return a plaque was issued saying that he had served in the OSS.

  Duke believed Ford set the whole thing up to make him feel better and he never collected the plaque, feeling it really meant nothing. As an entertainer helping the troops he was more successful. He spent three months touring the Pacific bases and battle lines, performing two shows a day, and visiting as many hospitals as he could. He talked constantly to the injured and visited areas subjected to nightly bombing raids where there was likely to be enemy infiltration. Each performance carried its own danger. He sat up all night talking with troops. Day time temperatures often hit 130 degrees and the stage was made up out of crates. Duke was deeply moved by the endurance of the soldiers as they sat, indifferent to the climate, waiting for his appearance. Only as he shared their discomfort did he feel any better about himself.

  In 1944 he returned from one tour to a mass of unexpected publicity. Newspaper pictures showed him being welcomed home by his four children. Nowhere was it mentioned that he no longer lived with them or that his private life was in turmoil. He had felt better when he was away, but as soon as he got back to Hollywood he was forced to look at what he had done to the people he really cared about, and when he saw the picture of his children clinging to his legs he cried with shame. Nothing ever drove him like guilt. He had done his bit, now it was time once again to find relief in front of the cameras.

  He had seen a story called “Tall in the Saddle” in a magazine in 1943 and persuaded RKO studios to buy it for him. They gave him a free hand in script development and were keen to involve him in production. It was the first time he had been given any responsibility and after the experience he started seriously developing the plan that had been brewing in his mind for so long. His intention remained to take more control of his career but he knew there was still so much to learn. Tall in The Saddle was produced by Robert Fellows from a screenplay written by old friend Paul Fix. Working closely with the two of them convinced him that he had to become more involved in the business he loved if he was to survive in it after the war. Once all the big stars came home he knew he would be displaced and whether he knew enough about the business or not was no longer the issue, he had to take a gamble, “There were so many reasons for getting into production; a bigger slice of the pie, more control of my own destiny, a chance to stay in the business I loved. It was also a chance to get away from a studio for which I had no respect. I hated the films Republic made, they offered me no scope to develop a future career. I could walk through their pictures with my eyes closed.” He had worked with the best and naturally he wanted to be with them, constantly pushing and extending himself. He dreamed of a future where he was producer, the boss, in control of his own destiny, but both Republic and Josephine continued to stand firmly rooted in his path.

  Josie was a Hollywood wife, a woman without a man living in a town run by an industry which consumed the time and energy of its men, demanding everything of them. From the moguls, to the producers, directors, writers, and stars, they were all slaves to the industry that fed the town. The star and his wife suffered the most; the star because he projected and carried the consciousness of a nation, the wife simply because she was a “Hollywood wife.” John Wayne carried his position with tremendous responsibility, and Josie suffered all the more because of it. Whatever went on in his private life he always knew what was expected of him as a star and however he chose to behave in private he rarely let his public down. He understood, with sharp clarity, that he represented a nation’s hopes and dreams, he was much more important than real life to the cinema-going public. And as far as he was concerned, no matter what happened to him, no matter his own tragedy and sorrow, however often he got knocked down, he knew he had to get up to make his next picture. That was what was expected of him and his every anxiety in life surrounded the next film, the next script, and the public concept of him. He knew his responsibility, it weighed heavy, and he needed an understanding wife to help him shoulder it.

  Suddenly, in 1944 Josie finally filed for divorce, charging him with extreme cruelty, and causing her mental suffering. In court she stood up to recount the nights he had not come home, his refusal to explain his actions, of finding a lady’s coat. He contested nothing, offered no defense, and the divorce was granted on November 29, 1944. A generous settlement had been agreed before they went to court, “She damn well deserves it. She’s done a wonderful job with the kids.” Josephine made only one public statement, “In my eyes the divorce is a purely civil action and does not affect the moral status of the marriage.” She remained Mrs Marion Morrison, and continued to regard herself as his real wife. She brought up their four children to hold the same view.

  Almost immediately Duke realized he had made a mistake and from that point on his life lurched from bad to worse, “It was the stupidest damn thing I ever did in my life. Not only did I desert the first woman I had loved, but I also left my four young children whom I also loved. Many of our friends naturally deserted me, and I don’t believe my eldest child will ever forgive me for deserting his mother. It breaks my heart.” Sometimes he felt he was harshly judged, but no one was ever as hard as he was on himself. He felt he should be better than he knew he was, and he never saw that his attempts to be a good man were enough.

  He grew to be more understanding after his divorce, more mature, and a little more tolerant of others if not himself. Whilst he began to reflect increased internal maturity on screen, there was no corresponding change in his physical appearance. He retained the juvenile looks of the dashing hero that he had already played for so long. He worried that as he aged there would be no place for him in the movies, but his looks remained unaltered until he was well into his forties, enabling him to continue playing the male lead and delaying the time he knew must come, when he would have to branch into other areas of the industry. The preservation of his rugged good looks also delayed the need to establish his own production company, and although he had finally cut his ties with Josie he continued churning out films for Republic, and any other studio that needed a box-office boost. At the time no one, least of all himself, had the slightest idea that his genius would lie in portraying older men. Not even Ford suspected this element in his protégé. Some film stars were born to play young heroes and it looked as if Duke was one of those; he had always been the raw, romantic, innocent young man. A part made in heaven for him, but as it turned out as he aged and showed a deeper emotional strength he lost non of the raw innocence. His most successful performances all corresponded with his physical aging. He had expected the end of the war to coincide with the end of his career, as it was, he had only just embarked on the journey into legend.

  The war and his divorce coincided and almost destroyed John Wayne the man, neither had any effect whatsoever on John Wayne the film star. Had he been the weak man he thought himself he would have been finished, but he proved to be made of much sterner stuff than he i
magined. He survived the tough years and that survival led to the most miraculous results on screen. Suddenly, he could play characters that showed the most extreme rage, bitterness and even violence, at the same instant as great tenderness, heroism and love. It was an impossible combination of emotions. No director could have evoked it or even dreamed it possible, it was something that emanated from the depths of his soul. He was both simple and complex, a man full of contradiction, both more and less than he appeared. Here was the ultimate soldier, who never served, the cowboy who loved the sea, a sailor at heart, a man whose image was violent but who always longed for peace, and a man acknowledged by all who came into direct contact with him as the most gentle, kind and courteous of people. He abhorred his own cruelty but saw his softness as weakness. He saw little of value in himself, but he never gave up trying to be better, neither did he fail in his attempt to become the hero others believed him to be. To those who knew him, and to his movie going fans, the contradictions were the very root of his charm, were what made him one of their own, were exactly what made him a man. If he used what life taught him up on the screen, he also learned many lessons from his films, he used them over and over again in every role he played from then on. And the performances got better and better.

  The end of the war brought new hope to the world. Everything had changed, there was a brighter future on the horizon. And from somewhere he found the courage to go on with his life, to emerge from the shadows of playing the warrior who never went to war.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE PROFESSIONAL WARRIOR

  The Hero’s Transformation

  “All I do is sell sincerity.”

  “I saw no reason why low budget should imply a split from reality and I decided to play a real man to the best of my ability. I wanted to be a man who got dirty, sweated and really enjoyed kissing a girl.”

  ... Duke had been around the movie industry for fifteen years and had become the complete professional; the image he had promoted from the start became the man, and the man, the image. In the years following the war it was an uncomfortable fit, but the public either didn’t notice, or they didn’t care. John Wayne, with his increasingly complex range of characterizations, needed to work harder and admitted, “I figured I needed a gimmick, so I went to work on this Wayne character.” He continued to credit his enormous success in reinventing his screen role to his directors, saying, “I was just the paint for the palettes of Ford and Hawks.” In fact he was turning out performances rooted deep in his own rapidly developing personality and that was precisely what the audience wanted to see.

  The most enduring image he created then was that of the displaced loner, always uncomfortable in the civilized world, always carrying a sense of some wound, loss or grievance from the past, and that of a man who learned to feel a deep and abiding love despite the violence lying just under the surface. The gimmicks he dreamed up, developed and used to suit himself, were based on the most painful realities of his own life and on his understanding of what a real man should be. The roles he played at any given moment became almost unimportant because each had a common thread running through it that was John Wayne, the man Duke longed to be, a man consistently honest despite a now obvious multitude of flaws. The professional film star carefully considered the characterization, it was all important, he understood its value and recognized the need to protect it at all costs, “I’m an investment. I got to protect that investment.”

  As his power in Hollywood grew he chose to work only on projects that coincided with his personal vision, accepting only those roles that fell within his strictly defined set of guidelines, “In my movies I try always to remember that people are dropping bills at the box-office so they can relax and enjoy. That’s why I like to keep it decent.” Sometimes he demanded the authority to change scripts before he signed a contract. Studios, moguls, producers, directors and even, sometimes his own family, were irritated and annoyed by the ferociousness with which he protected his image, by his extreme sensitivity toward how the public perceived him as a man, “You tend to manage your life and your thinking in a manner that is expected. I would not want mine to be different.” He knew beyond doubt what his fans required and he made superhuman efforts to let neither them nor himself down. The characters he chose to play were simple and direct, they could be hard and cruel, but never mean or petty. If he was offered a part that didn’t fit the guidelines he turned it down flat, saying, “Nuance is out of my line. I’m not that good an actor.” His determination to stick to the roles he knew his fans wanted generated the mythological figure and turned the man into an icon. It never made the slightest difference to anyone when he protested that he was just an actor, that he wasn’t the same in private as he appeared on screen, for his own personality was intricately woven into the fabric of the John Wayne story, filmgoers the world over knew it and he felt the responsibility keenly.

  Whenever he wanted to wander off the path he had to think long and hard before taking the risk. Sometimes when he took a gamble the public ignored the film altogether, refusing to accept it as part of the legend. Late in his career he made The Cowboys, a film in which he met a violent and gory end, brutally murdered in front of a group of young boys. He was profoundly troubled about filming the death scene and had to get drunk before he was able to go through with it. He was worried about what the fans would make of it, and his worst fears were confirmed when, despite rave reviews, they stayed away in droves. He had his answer, and a deafening silence greeted a great performance. They didn’t want to see the legend murdered; they wanted to see the hero overcome all odds. “You say all my pictures are the same, but that’s what I want you to think, I want people to say, “Hey, let’s go and see Duke at the pictures” … I try to do things that people identify with.” Every so often he experimented, but in general he gave people what he knew they wanted. He also tried his very best to become the man off screen that they thought he was. That proved to be far less easy.

  He took his car and some clothes when he left Josie. He gave her every cent he owned and left all his personal possessions behind when he walked out. He was supporting an ever-increasing number of hangers on. More and more people were making financial demands on him, but there was plenty of work lined up and he believed his future was secure now Bo Roos was taking care of his money. He and Chata were living together and all was well in his world. Nothing outside mattered because he had the enchanting Chata inside and for the first few idyllic months her idiosyncrasies went unnoticed. Her melting smile turned the tough man to jelly. He had been warned about her past but he made light of it; she was irresistible, intelligent, fun to be with, and she was happy to join him in everything he wanted to do, either roughing it with his drinking friends, or equally, at the more formal dinner parties he was obliged to attend. Best of all she was happy to go away on location with him, wherever he was she wanted to be, and he adored her. Their life together was perfect and when his divorce came through in January 1946 he married her immediately at a small gathering in Long Beach. Nowhere was it reported that they had already been living together for several years. Coverage of the event was kept as antiseptic as possible.

  The celebrations had scarcely ended before Chata’s mother moved into their modest rented love nest! She moved in at Duke’s suggestion and he had no one else to blame for one of the biggest mistakes he would ever make. At the wedding Senora Ceballos, was so drunk she cried throughout the ceremony and reception. Later, when it was time to return home to Mexico, she cried even more. Mother and daughter embraced and sobbed uncontrollably. Duke, that soft touch who could not bear tears, in a fit of typical insanity, insisted that Senora Ceballos stay with them a while. Following his divorce from Josie, Duke had very little money and the apartment he was renting was tiny but he willingly offered to have his den converted into a room for his mother-in-law. She was overwhelmed by his generosity and, even before he and his bride left for their honeymoon, she was making herself at home, becoming another heavy
drain on his already stretched finances.

  Still he went off to Hawaii a happy man to share a time of romantic wedded bliss with his bride. It rained every day they were there. They didn’t notice and it didn’t matter. For three weeks they were soaked to the skin, walking, swimming, and sightseeing in the rain, holding wet hands, kissing and pressing soaked faces together. At night they visited night clubs in the rain, and when they made love it was with the sound of driving rain pounding against the window. Duke treasured every minute of it, he loved being in love, he loved being with Chata, he loved the rain, and nothing else mattered for those three short weeks.

  They were over before he knew they had even begun. As soon as they got home he went straight back to work, making two films back to back, They Were Expendable for John Ford, and a light comedy, Without Reservations. Republic had finally given way to his demands and agreed to let him produce his own films. Yates had seen all the other studios gathering for a piece of the Wayne action like vultures and recognized that he had to make some concessions or lose him. Everything was falling into place for the star, the war was over, he had divorced Josie, he had films lined up as far into the future as he cared to look, a new bride and now, at last, Republic acknowledged his potential. He was already working on Angel and the Badman, and now had an agreement that he could produce all his own films for them. He negotiated a new, non-exclusive deal with Yates, agreeing to make one picture a year for him for $150,000 plus ten percent of gross receipts. He was looking at over a quarter of a million dollars for each Republic film and he was still free to work for any other studio that wanted his services. For years he had been turning out four or five films a year, sometimes more, and he expected to make vast amounts of money now. The new deal was the start of his rise to prominence in Hollywood. The agreement allowed him to hire and fire his own staff and he began to gather around him a close group of intimates, people he knew he could work comfortably with, and who wanted to work for him. One of these was James Edward Grant, who wrote the screenplay for Angel and The Badman, and who was to become a big influence in Duke’s life.