John Wayne: A Giant Shadow

by C McGivern

  He began flying round the country visiting old friends, spending the little money he had trying to fill the emotional voids in his life. He loved to go to the ranch near Springerville where he and Louis Johnson still ran their successful partnership. The two men remained close and every Thanksgiving Duke attended the cattle sale at Stanfield where he enjoyed mixing and relaxing with the cattlemen who expected nothing of him, made no demands and accepted him as one of their own. They gave him no special attention and he loved it. In 1974 at a party held by Johnson, Duke fell into a swimming pool and when one of those present shouted, “Shit, he can’t walk on water after all!” it was the film icon who laughed the loudest. All his life he had enjoyed the easy companionship of male friends, liked being one of the boys and being with people who allowed him to be a man rather than an untouchable star. He appreciated the way the cattlemen teased him and laughed at his status.

  He knew he was accepted when they began playing elaborate practical jokes on him. The jokes went both ways and he was well equipped to fight back. On one occasion he got two of the cattlemen drunk and persuaded them to invest $2500 each in a non-existent enterprise. He took their money and gave it to another friend who was going off on his honeymoon! It took three years for them to get even but they did it with a vengeance that surprised him. They began placing fictitious bets on a horse and bragging to Duke about how much they were winning on it. Finally, when Duke could contain himself no longer, they “allowed” him to buy a share of the animal for $12,500. At the next Thanksgiving cattle sale Duke was discussing the merits of the horse but soon realized that no one else had heard about it. He was just becoming suspicious when Johnson let everyone in on the joke.

  He found it easier being around men. He always suspected women were trying to take advantage of him, “They usually just want a piece of me. They frighten me.” He was self-conscious, always careful, always on guard. He idolized them, needed them to complete his life, but still they made him feel uncomfortable and guilty. His mother had always made him feel bad, as had one wife after another, for one thing or another; he took few risks as a result. And it wasn’t just his women that gave him problems; sometimes even his children made him feel guilty. He continued to worry about the kind of father he was but his friend Maureen O’Hara said, “Have you ever been on the set of any of his pictures? Not only are his own children around… but any number of grandchildren. For God’s sake, there’s never been a time that one, two, or three of them aren’t crawling all over him, even when he’s playing cards with the guys. They are on his lap, his shoulders, around his legs, and he’s a great picker-upper, a hugger and a kisser.”

  He wanted to spend more time with them, and it was only when he started making demands on their time that difficulties occurred. Both Aissa and Ethan felt he was too easily hurt when they did not want to be with him. When his second-chance children were small they loved being with him, loved the attention and care he gave. But in trying so hard to be a good father he managed only to alienate them and make them all feel uncomfortable. In 1970, when he got home after completing Big Jake he wanted to take the whole family away on The Wild Goose. Aissa, then fifteen, wanted to stay with friends. He tried everything he could to get her to go, begging and cajoling, and finally becoming angry and flying into one of his towering rages, “Oh, you’d rather be with your friends than with me. I’m home from making a movie and you’d rather be with them.” The demands he made put up the very barriers he had been so desperate to avoid.

  He had never found being the father of teenagers easy. They wanted to wear what they wanted, to go where they wanted and to do what they wanted. They didn’t care about John Wayne’s image and didn’t understand that they could destroy it either. It was even harder for him to accept the needs of his second family than it had been with the first because he was so much older. He came from a different generation of fathers and these rapidly growing youngsters frustrated and bewildered him where once they had given him only the utmost pleasure. He had loved the holidays on the boat when he and the kids spent relaxed hours swimming and playing. He simply couldn’t accept they had grown away from him, as all children must. Pilar complained bitterly about his need to possess the people he cared for, and patiently tried to explain that he was smothering her and the kids, “My beautiful nineteenth century man couldn’t adapt to the seventies.” He didn’t understand and continued to fight tooth and nail to keep them all close under his protective wing.

  He had successfully manufactured a stunning array of characters to satisfy the changing demands of the cinema-going public but was hopelessly lost when it came to pleasing his wife. He was overwhelmed by the discovery that she no longer found him attractive. He had never paid much attention to his thinning hair or his weight, he had been steadfastly opposed to the idea of cosmetic surgery and hated the world’s preoccupation with his looks but now he was afraid of losing his wife to a younger man. He confessed his anguish to the captain of the Wild Goose, saying that nothing he ever did was enough for her. He moaned that he loved her, was afraid of losing her, but that he felt the age gap was to blame for her coolness toward him now, “Damn it! I bend over backwards trying to please her, but no matter what I do, she just doesn’t seem to care… I really don’t know what the hell to do.”

  He was adrift and couldn’t get close to the family he loved. His relationship with Aissa became particularly fraught. He wanted to keep all his children wrapped in cotton wool but Aissa wasn’t interested in protection. She was a teenager growing up in the rebellious sixties and seventies and she wanted to take risks, she wanted to make her own way in life and was angered by his attempts to help. She lost faith in her old fashioned father and rejected the legendary John Wayne values of truth, honor, right and wrong that he had pushed at her, wilfully breaking as many of his rules as she could. She, like her mother, felt the urgent need to escape his overbearing influence; she didn’t want to be an extension of John Wayne’s life.

  He was sad, confused and concerned; he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t understand what he had done to make her so desperate to get away from him. He’d given her everything he could, just as he had her mother. Pilar tried to explain that if he just loosened his grip everything would be alright. But not only was he unable to let go, he didn’t want to. He was a generation older than most fathers of teenage children, and he was stricter than most. When the other local kids went barefoot to the beach he gave his famous lecture, “John Wayne’s children wear shoes and socks.” When his teenage daughter cried her frustration it served only to spur his rage, “Why do you cry when I yell at you? Because you can’t go out with bare feet? Jesus Christ!” He shook his head in disbelief, “What the hell’s going wrong?” He had to face the fact that his precious daughter wished she wasn’t his and rarely even used the name “Wayne.”

  Sometimes though, his reactions to their exploits were unexpected, like the time he discovered Aissa was using diet pills. He had repeatedly begged each of them not to shame him in public, “I worked fifty years for my reputation, I worked damned hard. If you get caught doing something wrong, or if you’re with kids who are doing things wrong, it will go right in the papers. You’ll ruin all that hard work as easy as that. You’ll ruin me. So really think about it before you do anything stupid.” Aissa thought about it every time she smoked pot or ran barefoot to the beach. When she was finally caught out he didn’t rage but told her quietly instead, “Aissa, I love you very much. The people that gave you that stuff, they don’t love you the way I do. You can take their word that this stuff is good, or you can listen to me when I tell you it’s bad. Who’s word are you going to take, someone who’s loved you all your life, or someone you met two days ago?”

  He was fighting a losing battle and couldn’t recreate times long gone. The kids and Pilar resented his effort to be the husband and father he wanted to be. They looked forward to him going away on location as much as they had dreaded his going not so long before, at least when he was
away they got some peace and could run their lives as they wanted to.

  Part of the problem with his younger children was related to the guilt he continued to feel about the older ones. It could be seen in many of his later films where most of the characters he played had trouble with women and children, where he is alienated because of his work, which is either dangerous or takes him away for long stretches. He consistently demonstrated love and a willingness to sacrifice himself for his family whilst being unable to live within a normal relationship. On screen he said exactly how he felt about that. He might argue with or shout at Pilar but he found it almost impossible to discuss his innermost feelings with her, he was unable to express pain, disappointment or fear, he was even uncomfortable around those who did. He was much more successful at exposing his emotions before the camera. Taken out of himself, put down on a set in costume and make-up, he could reveal himself and react freely to any situation. Love, fear inadequacy and insecurity were obvious and his apologies were offered profusely. He hoped those he wanted to talk to were listening for he had no other way of communicating with them.

  Very often the messages were aimed directly at his children. Andrew McLaglen, director and friend, said Cahill in particular was, “A deep statement of feeling from the heart to all seven of his children.” Duke himself tried to explain, “Movie goers interact with their idols through an idealization of the screen presence tied to an awareness of the star’s private life. I felt justified using my screen image to reflect my private life, of using the movie to make contact with all the elements of my life.” He used “The John Wayne” movie for his own ends, manipulating the vehicle to express his own personality, desires and needs. When JD Cahill tells his elder son, “I’ve been gone a lot of times when you kids really needed me. And I’ve missed a lot too. Missed watching you two grow up. I think about it a lot. On every job. But even before that job was finished another one seemed to crop up… I don’t want what I’m saying to sound like excuses. There is no excuse for negligence.” Here was Duke talking to any one of his children. He had many flaws but he worked hard at being a good father. He desperately wanted his children to benefit from his lifetime’s effort and was tireless in his attempt to provide them with the financial security he hadn’t known himself. He didn’t believe that made him a negligent or bad father, only a busy one.

  He had ventured to Durango once again to make Cahill, saying, “Down here we can still tell a story about human frailties, about a lawman and his kids who become criminals, children neglected by their father because he is always too busy doing his job. We can get down to the nitty gritty of what’s wrong today. It didn’t have to be a western at all, but somehow the beauty of the West gives it a spaciousness and an earthiness.”

  Most of the locations he worked on were still open to the Press and he continued giving interviews to anyone who wanted to talk. Whilst he worked on Cahill he spoke to as many reporters as possible, there was nothing like a good trade paper report to stimulate interest in a flagging career. He had started smoking cigars again and it was noticed immediately, “Yeah,” he responded scowling, “I try to hold it down to three a day and not inhale, but it’s hard. Once you’ve been a smoker it’s hard to stop inhaling, and I catch myself!”

  Politics continued to be a source of irritation and sometimes, after perhaps half an hour of trying to divert reporters, he stalked away to his chair where he would slump exhausted and tried to recover his temper without giving offense. Once he cooled off he might wander back to give more answers to unimaginative questions. Microphones were frequently pushed under his nose as he was asked about the problems with the young today. His face burned as he snarled, “I don’t see anything wrong. It’s you people who make a lot of a few bad ones. They’re no worse than they have ever been; only today they get more attention. We spend a lot of time telling them about their rights, but we don’t talk to them about their responsibilities.”

  Left to his own devices he concentrated on the good things in life, always seeing the best in people, young or old, and as soon as he was asked about his own children he still melted and turned into a real softie. He was happy to dwell on them, his pride in each, despite their problems, obvious, “I do tell them about responsibility and what we expect of them. My Dad wanted me to be a man, and that’s what I hope for my boys too. I am proud of my girls. The most important advice I can give them is to follow their own conscience, trust their own judgement and don’t let political parties or other institutions tempt them away from what they know to be right. I tell them not to sacrifice their moral standards and to take a strong attitude toward life, stand up for what they believe in. I don’t tell them what to believe in. There’s that hour before you hit the sack at night, when you’re alone. That’s when you have to think over your past and that helps you shape your future, your attitude to other people and situations. In that hour you can think about self-respect. I believe if you lose sight of that you lose everything. That’s what I believe and it’s what I’ve tried to teach my kids too.”

  Once he started reminiscing the gathered Press gleaned many a good new story from him, “My dad told me he had been forced to play the piano, so he told me I could choose what I wanted and I picked the banjo. There was a fella called Fat Stockbridge at Glendale who could really play and my Dad arranged for me to get lessons. Trouble was I was so mixed up in all the school activities that I never practiced and when Fat and I got together he’d end up playing dirty songs. In college I pawned the banjo to go away for a weekend and that was the end of my musical career.” None of them knew John Wayne played the banjo! The few writers who understood he mellowed as soon as politics were off the agenda got by far the best of him, and those who hung around after the others had drifted away were sometimes allowed to catch a glimpse of the real man. If they thought to ask him about music he smiled gently, “For my dough Sinatra’s stuff is best. I guess I’m a little sentimental, but some of the things he does are so beautiful. I love Country and Western too, I like Charlie Pride.” He enjoyed relaxing in the setting sun talking about music and the kids. He might have been struggling to breathe all day at altitude, hollering directions to other actors, camera men, lighting technicians who couldn’t deliver what he wanted, he might have been driven to despair by some of the sycophants who hung around, but come the time of day the hangers-on all went home he enjoyed nothing better than sitting talking, enjoying another cigar. He always allowed one last question before sauntering away to dine alone in his trailer, “When do you plan to retire?”

  He smiled, “Never. I intend to stay in the saddle until I drop!” And this was his message for Pilar. She wanted him to give up the cigars, to stop working, she wanted him to relax and reap the rewards of his effort. She wanted him to change. He might apologize to his children for what he knew was negligence but wives were a different matter entirely. She had known from the outset the demands of his work, and he would not apologize or ask forgiveness for any seeming neglect toward her. In that, Pilar was no different to his previous wives. He had always wanted each of them to be with him all the time. He had never wanted to be apart from them, and was prepared to give each of them the world, but he expected them to be willing to share the life of John Wayne. His mother’s unhappiness had stemmed from his father’s inability to provide a decent lifestyle for her. None of his wives could level such a complaint against him. He provided each with all the things he thought his mother would have wanted. In return, he expected to be loved on his own terms; it was the price to be paid for his complete devotion. His friends said it was possible to see how much he loved Pilar when he talked about her. He talked about her all the time.

  No matter how much he loved her he had little patience with her new religion, tennis, friends, or any of the other things that took her away from him. He thundered that if he couldn’t have the old Pilar back she might as well leave him altogether. Things were getting out of control and he shouted his disappointment. He never stopped loving her but
by the early 1970’s he was very angry with her. He no longer considered her a real wife, at least not the one he had chosen to marry. He couldn’t talk about it, couldn’t clear the air between them, and they drifted further and further apart, until the rift became fatal.

  In 1973 he announced his third marriage was over. He told reporters it was his fault; that the problems had arisen because of his work schedule, “Pilar and I can’t seem to get an understanding between us anymore,” he added, “I can get along with everybody. Why the hell can’t I get along with women?” He acted tough and spoke in a cold detached voice, he hid his fears and no one saw John Wayne cry because he had lost the woman he loved. At least, no one on the outside saw, but after a particularly bitter fight with Pilar he told Aissa, “Your mother and I are having serious problems. I love her so much, I love you, I love our family, but I have to work, you know I have to… it’s hard on your mother. She doesn’t understand…” He was a mess, he hadn’t shaved, and tears ran unchecked down his stubbled face. He sat for a long time talking about the old days, the people he had already lost, and about his fears for the future. Who was going to protect John Wayne from life’s hardest knocks?

  He was devastated by yet another failure. But this time he had done his best, he knew there was nothing more he could have done to make this marriage work. His priorities had never altered, but, almost overnight it seemed to him, Pilar wanted him to change. When she asked him again to retire she was asking for something he couldn’t give. Without work he was a lost soul and he saw only hours of loneliness stretching ahead of him if he gave in to her demands.