by C McGivern
Ford’s casting of Duke and O’Hara for The Quiet Man was a stroke of genius. One critic commented, “The Quiet Man pairing becomes one of the highest evocations of passion-suppressed on film. Wayne is seen as unmanly by O’Hara because he won’t fight for her dowry, no one but Wayne, the epitome of masculinity, could have played the role with such conviction. Because O’Hara plays the Irish prude it falls to Wayne to play the erotic role, though he has no dominance over her.” In fact he found the suppressed love scenes very difficult, “It was tough … really uncomfortable filming the scene in the churchyard where we are both soaking wet. Jack wanted me to hold her so close! It was what he wanted to do himself of course.” His expression of lonely frustration was put to full effect.
The finishing touches were added as soon as he arrived back in Hollywood and it was screened for the heads at Republic. Yates hated it, he even hated the title, considering it too weak for a John Wayne film. Yates wasn’t the only one who worried. Even Duke had serious reservations, considering himself little more than the straight man, only there to set up lines for everyone else, He had enjoyed working in Ireland but it hadn’t been easy and he had found the role professionally taxing. But he trusted Ford and was confident about his own persona; he hoped it would be enough to carry the day. And Ford was exactly spot on with the film, right to assume that the audience would understand that whilst it was John Wayne playing Sean Thornton, Sean Thornton was John Wayne, and soon enough the quiet man would roar! It was the very fact that the audience did know John Wayne that carried the whole premise of the film.
It may have been OK for Wayne to trust Ford’s instincts, but Yates didn’t. When he first saw it he feared he had a disaster on his hands. He demanded cuts were made in what he considered an overlong film that looked “too green.” But long before the film had even been fully edited, and despite Yates’ worries, everyone else around the studio was talking about it. Mary recalled people walking round after seeing it shaking their heads in awe, and when it was finally released the critics raved about it. Suddenly Yates was a believer, saying, “I never doubted its success for a minute.”
On Oscar night Wayne collected Ford’s award for best director for The Quiet Man. He also collected the award for best actor on behalf of Gary Cooper for High Noon - the fact that he won nothing himself wasn’t lost on Hollywood insiders, who knew how unfairly he was always treated come Oscar time. The awards that year followed the HUAC hearings and people in the business were playing for keeps. The industry recognized that Duke didn’t even get a nomination that year because of his presidency of the Motion Picture Alliance. Mary said “Duke’s politics definitely hurt him. The Quiet Man was his best performance to date. In a film nominated for a half dozen awards he was simply ignored.”
The film grossed well but Ford believed Republic was cheating him by not paying his promised percentage. Ford turned his venom not on Yates but on Wayne, blaming him for getting him involved with the head of a B-studio in the first place, conveniently forgetting it had been he and Yates who enabled him to make his picture. In the end Yates coughed up and Ford patched up his differences with Duke. The star himself was less forgiving of Yates. He had always been uncomfortable about Republic’s business practices, and as far as he was concerned there could be no excuse for trying to cheat Ford. At the same time old man Yates had been trying to cheat Ford he had also tried to back out of a promise that he had made to him personally. To Duke breaking that was unforgivable.
The Quiet Man had been Ford’s dream. Making A-movies had been Yates’, but Duke had a dream of his own. For seven years he had been waiting to make a film about the men who had been willing to stand and fight for their beliefs at the Alamo, “Yates had promised me I could do this picture, I had found a location… a really perfect setting.” Now, with The Quiet Man finished he turned his full attention to his own dream. He had budgeted his film at $3 million, but suddenly Yates told him there would be no location shooting, it would be made on the Republic lot, he wanted to cut down on extras, wanted to shoot the film in black and white, and everything he suggested cheapened the vision. They had many violent shouting matches over it, with one or other of them usually storming away in temper. Once, Duke marched out of his office without telling Mary where he was going. He called her half an hour later and told her to pack all their things up, “We’re moving.” He was furious and no quiet words from her placated him, “I’ve sent a truck round to pick up my personal things.” She hurried to do as she was told, ignoring the Republic staff who got in her way. At the same time the van arrived a bemused Yates appeared. Mary told him curtly, “He’s gone.” He ordered her to stop packing, “Who are you working for, him or me?”
She answered his screams with quiet determination, “Duke.” She picked up her own belongings and also walked out of Republic. Neither ever returned. Herbert Yates had lost his biggest asset, he had also lost America’s most popular movie star. Within ten years of Duke leaving, Republic had completely fallen out of the movie business.
He could have walked out for either one of Yate’s big mistakes that year; cheating Ford or trying to frustrate his own plans. He had stayed at Republic for six years longer than he needed to. At any time he could have used his popularity to negotiate a better deal elsewhere but loyalty had been important to him, and he had stuck with his original contract. Of course Republic had also been like family, he had worked there amongst friends, felt safe and unthreatened, he had been happy. But Yates had pushed him too far and now he dug spurred heels in, stubbornly refusing to listen to anything else the old man offered.
At the time, although the studios still controlled the industry, their grip was weaker than it had been after a 1950 court decision gave independent producers the right to arrange distribution of their own films. Duke decided to take a chance at last, “Sink or swim, working independently had to be better than working for men like Yates.” He became one of the first stars to form his own production company, Wayne-Fellows. When others saw how well he and Robert Fellows were doing they rushed to establish their own companies. Duke said he wanted a bigger slice of the pie, but what he really wanted was more control. He loathed the power that producers had over creativity and once told his son, “You’re not supposed to point, but it’s permissible to point to select a French pastry or to point at producers.” The producer’s job was to make sure no money was wasted but to Duke it was criminal to save money by taking short cuts. He accepted there was never enough money to go round but thought what there was should be spent creatively, up on the screen.
He despised the role of the producer and thought by going into that line of business himself he could cut the problem out of his life, “Producing my own films was worth all the added stress and effort. Gave me increased artistic freedom and better economic reward, my earning potential rocketed without my having to do anything. I could decide what I made, who I worked with, I had control over script selection and development.” Stars with high salaries paid up to ninety percent in tax, but if that star formed his own company to make a picture and didn’t pay himself a salary then sold his interest in that film as a capital asset he only paid twenty five percent tax on its earnings. Even if he chose to pay himself a salary, the tax paid as a company director was just sixty percent. As corporate tax rates were less than those of an individual a company was a sensible place to shelter capital! Duke had never been a wealthy man despite all his years in the industry, “Last year I made over $500,000. Though I live conservatively in a three bedroom house and I don’t throw parties, I’m all but broke. Still, I don’t owe a dime in taxes!”
He wasn’t broke but he had a point. He had never lived like a Hollywood star was expected to live, and he hoped his new company would enable him to close the gap between the illusions of his fans and the realities of his life. Wayne-Fellows allowed him to make creative decisions whilst Bob Fellows controlled finances. Fellows had been around the business as long as Duke and they had known each other since 1940. T
hey shared a deep love of the film industry. Neither feared the spread of television as most of the rest of Hollywood did, neither was worried about the future of the industry, both were confident they could carry on making films that people would pay to see.
Shortly after going into partnership, Fellows signed a deal with Warner Bros. on behalf of the new company. Duke already had a multi picture deal with the studio and he liked Jack Warner personally, but the contract Fellows signed worried him. It was exclusive and would have prevented him working for another studio and that defeated the object of setting up as an independent. He pushed for a non-exclusive deal and eventually, despite his friend’s arguments, he signed a non-exclusive deal with Warners who agreed to finance and distribute Wayne-Fellows productions and to pay Duke at least $150,000 per film and ten percent of gross receipts.
As he became increasingly involved in national politics he used his new position as an independent producer to serve his own ends. The Hollywood Left always thought he was suspiciously well informed and believed he received inside information, in truth he was only just starting to move away from his interest in local problems, and telling anyone who would listen that world issues had become too serious to ignore.
The country was involved in Korea, President Truman’s popularity was on the wane and the Republican Party sensed that at last Democratic control was coming to an end. The Republicans promised to cut taxes, reduce Government spending and Duke gave his wholehearted support to Senator Robert Taft. Moderate Republicans thought Taft was too far to the Right to win much support, but as usual Duke had no interest in compromise candidates. He liked what Taft had to say but admitted his delivery was stiff and that he needed to work on his image; if anyone knew about image it was Duke. He wanted to help, but before the Republican convention Duke was already back at work for Warner Bros. He decided that if Taft’s image was all wrong, if he couldn’t be relied on to deliver the Republican message, then he could. He began making films like Big Jim McLain, a frank and preachy propaganda film, warning decent Americans about the dangers of Communism. There were many anti-communist films coming out, all generally failures. Duke wanted to make a controversial picture that would generate profit. He was so successful with it that even the FBI took an interest in the project. FBI interest combined with viscous attacks by the liberals led Duke to predict a box-office bonanza. As usual, he had his finger on the pulse; the public loved it. Audience reaction to this picture proved that if his politics were out of step with the Eastern critics, they were mainstream everywhere else. The success of the film was remarkable and a clear sign that he had been right in believing himself exempt from the general decline in the film industry, also that he was right in step as far as his political beliefs went. The major film reviewers disliked him, his films and his politics, it hardly mattered anymore, he had risen above all that. The pattern laid down then was perpetuated for the rest of his career, poor east coast reviews, Republican politics, very successful movies.
Whilst he worked on Big Jim McLean his marriage to Chata took a sudden turn for the worse, and their final fight occurred in Hawaii as it was being filmed. In a last ditch attempt to patch things up he had taken her with him on a boat trip to the islands, inviting her to share a second honeymoon. He still loved her, but he found out on that trip that he actually didn’t like her very much. Almost as soon as they set sail she began drinking, and as usual, as soon as she had a drink she started looking for a fight. They argued bitterly throughout the voyage and even when they disembarked in Honolulu they continued shouting. Duke had allowed himself a week’s holiday before shooting started, it was a week filled with furious conflict. She cried, she spat, she threw things at him and she cursed. That same John Wayne who refused to cringe for Howard Hawks certainly did so when Chata started swearing.
In 1947 he had attended all the award ceremonies alone following a blazing argument with her. She had wanted to go on location with him when he made Fort Apache. Violence erupted when he explained that Ford wouldn’t let her. She fled to Mexico, setting a pattern for all their future arguments. She stayed away for months, giving rise to gossip and much speculation, but he always denied they had separated. Once he had cooled off he followed her and pleaded with her to return. That had been the start, but the same thing happened over and over after that, and his life consisted of arguments, fights, running after Chata and making up. He had developed an ulcer and John Ford worried about the health and emotional state of his favorite son. He wrote to him begging him not to ruin his life over her. To his cost, Duke paid no attention at first.
The day before filming began on Big Jim McLean Duke wanted to get to bed early, but Chata insisted that they attend a party being given in their honor by the Vanderbilts. Duke went along reluctantly, and warned his hosts that he couldn’t stay long as he had an early morning shoot. At nine o’clock he tried to get Chata to leave the party. She was already very drunk and refused to go. For another two hours he tried to persuade her to leave. Finally at eleven he left for the hotel alone and asked the Vanderbilts to put her in a taxi when she was ready. At four o’clock in the morning he received a phone call from the hosts saying Chata would not leave and he had to come and get her. He sent a driver to collect her, but she would not move for him either. An hour later Duke received another frantic call, “Please come and get this Mexican bitch out of my house!”
Just before seven the next morning Chata wandered into the hotel just as he sat down to breakfast. She had hitch-hiked back from the party, she had no shoes on and her dress was torn. He asked her if she wanted to talk about what had happened but she refused, “Nothing happened, I had a great time at the party after you left. That’s all.” She staggered to the lift and he went to work.
Only a few days later they attended another party and the same situation arose; Chata got drunk and he wanted to go back to the hotel. This time he was really angry and tired after a hard days filming. He threw her shawl to the ground in temper and physically dragged her away, not wanting any more early-hour calls. Back at the hotel he got no rest, all hell let loose as he pounded the walls with his fists in frustration, calling her vile names, and throwing pillows at her. The next day she booked a flight home when he told her he had finally had enough, that the arguments were too painful for him to bear. He had taken her to Hawaii to try to rekindle their marriage, it ended with her leaving him.
He had put up with his mother-in-law living with them for over two years before he finally told Chata to choose either him or her mother. Duke knew she needed her mother but felt she was always a bad influence. Chata was an alcoholic who drank even more when she was with her mother, and he bore the scars to prove she was more violent when she was with her too. He had always believed that if he could cut the emotional cord between them he could have had the wife he wanted, so he bought a new house for Mother in Mexico. Chata found it very difficult living without her and she fled back there so often that he found it impossible to even begin to sort their problems out. At first she ran back for a week, then a month and then several months at a time, and by 1948 and 1949 she was spending more time in Mexico than with him. Strangely, he never considered such times as separations, they were just both sulking, long distance. As far as he was concerned he still loved her, and he was often away from home for months at a time himself, he couldn’t complain if Chata went home to her mother now and again. His work put a tremendous strain on them both, and he understood her loneliness. He didn’t mind her going to Mexico while he was on location, but he needed her home when he got back. On the occasions when she wasn’t he usually went down after her to beg her to come home. He spent hours pleading, telling her how much he needed her. She said, “He called himself a big jerk, and told me he knew how horrible he was to me, and that he would try to do better, that he just needed one more chance.”
In 1949 she returned to Los Angeles for a while but at Christmas 1950 she told him she was going back to Mexico. It was summer 1951 before she returned, ju
st before they all went to Ireland to film The Quiet Man, where she had been relaxed, even getting on with his children and drinking less. Stupidly he believed they still had a chance, if he could only get her to stop running away. As soon as they got back to Hollywood she demanded that her mother come back to live with them.
They needed to talk openly about their marriage, Chata didn’t want to and he was usually too busy to make the effort. She did though confess to being jealous of his work, his friends, and she told him she resented the time he spent away from her, that she was lonely and depressed. Duke was so terrified of failing in another marriage that, after listening to her, he decided to do his best to please her in every way he could think of. Much of his effort consisted of giving her material things. He showered her with presents, flowers and any surprise he could think of that might make her happy. But he never gave the only thing she really wanted; he could not give her any more of his time. He refused to change his life for her or for anybody else. Work came first. He wanted and needed her to complete his life, but she could never be everything to him.
His search for a new home for her illustrated the lengths he went to in his attempt to please her. She had always, from first getting married, complained that their home was too small. She believed they should live somewhere grand, in a house that reflected his position in Hollywood, and that was also large enough to accommodate her mother. Duke had never seen anything he liked and really made very little effort to look; he was satisfied with what he had. Then just before they left for Ireland Chata told him she had seen the perfect house, it had everything a Hollywood star’s home should have. When he went with her to see it, he said he thought it was too big, and that he wasn’t really interested, but agreed to think about it while they were away on location. When Chata went to look at it again after they got back, she was furious to find the house had been sold. She ranted at a subdued Duke, telling him he should have thought about it sooner, and that he should have bought it before they went. He shook his head, defeated; accepting the criticism, then smiled brightly and told her, “I did.”
