American Titan: Searching for John Wayne

by Marc Eliot

  The first Green Beret comes on speaking German, to show his versatility in languages. When the VC have just been sprayed with flames, a Green Beret is asked about his apparent affinity for this kind of thing. “When I was a kid,” he says modestly, “my dad gave me a chemistry set. And it got bigger than both of us.” When the VC, nonetheless, win the Special Forces camp in hand-to-hand combat, a soldier calls in air support. “It’ll only take a minute,” he says, like a dentist, as the VC are mowed down from the air. The journalist, “the former skeptic about the war,” the press kit synopsis chooses to say at this point, “leaves to write about the heroic exploits of the American and South Vietnamese forces.”

  The point is that Wayne is using spoken German, lunatic chemistry sets, machine killing of men who have won fairly hand-to-hand, without apparently noticing that this is not exactly the stuff of which heroic fantasies are made. This is crazy. If the left-wing extremist’s nightmare of what we already are has become the right-wing extremist’s ideal of what we ought to be we are in steeper trouble than anyone could have imagined. The movie opened yesterday at the Warner Theater.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  324 “If you’re gonna . . .” The anecdote and quotes of Wayne showing Chris Mitchum how to handle a gun are from Bogdanovich, Who the Devil Made It, p. 244.

  326 “Ooh, they’re going to hate you,” and “Maybe, . . .” from an interview with Bruce Dern, Entertainment Weekly, January 24, 2014.

  326 “In about three months . . .” Ethan Wayne, in his preface to John Wayne: The Genuine Article, August 2012.

  327 “Hell, it’s over with Pilar . . .” John Wayne to Wayne Warga, from the John Wayne Collection of papers at the University of Oregon, reprinted in John Wayne: The Genuine Article, p. 17.

  327 “We finished shooting . . .” Pat Stacy, from a televised interview with Connie Martinson, 1983.

  330 “From then on . . .” Pilar Wayne, John Wayne, pp. 261–262.

  336 “He was thin . . .” Pilar Wayne, John Wayne, p. 268.

  EPILOGUE

  339 “Hell, I’d have gotten sick . . .” John Wayne, quoted by Wiley and Bona, John Wayne: American, p. 562.

  341 “I really prayed . . .” Pilar Wayne, John Wayne Biography. executive producer Ken Burns, made in association with Van Ness Productions, Fox Star Productions and 20th Century-Fox, 1996.

  Index

  The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific entry, please use your e-book reader’s search tools.

  Abbott, Bud, 28, 172

  Abe Lincoln in Illinois, 106

  Academy Awards: (1935), 72–73; (1939), 90–91; (1940), 106–7; (1948), 161; (1949), 179–81, 185; (1952), 203–7; (1954), 218; (1956), 243; (1960), 275, 278–80; (1970), 1–9, 322, 323; (1975), 331–32; (1979), 337, 339–40

  Acuff, Roy, 177

  Adair, “Red,” 318

  Adler, Buddy, 249, 250, 254, 283, 284

  Adler, Luther, 171

  Adler, Renata, 316, 325

  Adventure’s End, 77

  Adventures of Rin Tin Tin, The, 159n

  African Queen, The, 331

  Agar, John, 160, 236

  Airport, 217

  Alamo, The, 3, 177–78, 197, 199, 210, 220, 221, 247, 258, 260, 262–63, 267–80, 283, 285, 294, 316, 317

  Aldrich, Robert, 217

  Allegheny Uprising, 97, 98, 100

  Allen, Elizabeth, 295

  Allen, Fred, 63n

  Allen, Woody, 334

  All Quiet on the Western Front, 128

  All the King’s Men, 3, 169, 180, 204

  Altman, Robert, 323

  American Film Institute, 244, 328

  Ames, Stephen, 147

  Amos and Andy, 236

  Anderson, Michael, 243n

  Ando, Eiko, 254–55

  Andrews, Julie, 309n, 322

  Andriot, Lucien, 50

  Angel and the Badman, 64n, 145–46, 171, 215

  Anne of the Thousand Days, 1

  Annie Laurie, 30n

  Ann-Margret, 326

  Anthony, Stewart, 118

  Apartment, The, 3, 280

  Araner, The (boat), 67, 75, 78, 79, 176

  Archer, Eugene, 274

  Ardrey, Robert, 243

  Argosy Pictures, 103, 158, 159, 172, 174, 187, 197, 231, 232, 233

  Arizona, 57n

  Arliss, Georg, 4

  Armendáriz, Pedro, 170

  Arnaz, Desi, 219n, 221

  Arness, James, 208, 223, 234–35

  Around the World in Eighty Days, 243

  Arrowsmith, 71

  Arthur, Jean, 129

  Ashburn, Allen W., 212

  Astaire, Fred, 193n

  Astor, Mary, 232

  Atkinson, Buddy, 336

  Auer, John H., 115

  Autry, Gene, 65, 67n, 98n, 105, 120

  Avalon, Frankie, 271

  Ayres, Lew, 128, 161

  Baby Face, 63n

  Bacall, Lauren, 219n, 227, 333

  Bach, Stephen, 111n, 112n

  Back to Bataan, 135–36, 137

  Bacon, James, 299

  Bad and the Beautiful, The, 203n

  Balaban, Bob, 280

  Ball, Lucille, 221, 308

  Bancroft, George, 79, 83

  Barbarian and the Geisha, The, 254–55, 256, 268, 269

  Bardelys the Magnificent, 28, 30n

  Bardot, Brigitte, 284

  Barnes, Binnie, 123–24

  Barnes, Howard, 161

  Barnett, Beverly, 80, 207–8

  Barrett, James Lee, 308

  Barrymore, Lionel, 4

  Barzman, Ben, 135

  Bataan, 135n

  Batjac, 3, 218, 227, 228, 249, 251, 253, 267–68, 271–72, 275, 278, 296–97, 303, 305, 306, 308, 313–14, 319, 323, 329

  Battle Cry, 314

  Battleground, 179n, 180n

  Battle of Little Bighorn, 159

  Battle of Midway, 141

  Baur Diaz Ceballos, Esperanza “Chata,” 5n, 126, 128, 131–32

  and her mother, 132, 138, 147, 201, 207

  separation and divorce, 201–2, 207–8, 209, 211–12, 213–17, 223

  spending money, 178, 189, 215

  unhappiness of, 138–39, 145, 147, 176, 194, 199, 201

  wedding of Wayne and, 137–39, 141

  Baxter, Warner, 4, 44–45

  Bazin, André, What Is Cinema?, 88–89

  BBC4, 205

  Beau John, 336

  Beckley, Paul V., 290

  Beebe, Ford, 60

  Belcher, Frank, 211–12, 216, 223

  Bellah, James Warner, 159, 174, 188, 233, 288

  Beneath the Planet of the Apes, 323

  Benjy, 159n

  Bennison, Andrew, 44

  Berger, Senta, 303

  Berman, Ted, 302

  Bernstein, Elmer, 332

  Berry, John, 249

  Best Years of Our Lives, The, 144, 157

  Big Jake, 193n, 324, 325

  Big Jim McLain, 208–9, 227, 269

  Big Punch, The, 33–34

  Big Sky, The, 234

  Big Stampede, The, 63n

  Big Trail, The, 45–52, 55, 56, 58, 76, 78, 79, 82, 87, 91, 96, 97, 118n, 119–20, 204, 242

  Birdwell, Russell, 275, 277, 278, 279

  Birth of a Nation, 33, 44, 70

  Bitter Tea of General Yen, The, 82

  Blackie (dog), 255

  Black Watch, The, 41, 71

  Blane, Sally, 75

  Blood Alley, 227–29, 247, 248, 269, 305, 333

  Bloomberg, Daniel, 203

  Blue Angel, The, 81, 109, 111

  Blue Steel, 64n

  Blyth, Ann, 250

  Bogart, Humphrey, 4, 52, 57, 98, 120, 161, 219n, 228, 254, 331

  Bogdanovich, Peter, 88n, 89–90, 170, 175n, 239, 244, 251, 285, 286, 291, 306

  Bond, Mary Lou, 278

  Bond, Ward, 83, 104, 115, 126, 134, 137, 142, 149, 160, 187, 196, 197, 258

 
; death of, 277–78, 281, 294

  early film work of, 41, 58

  friendship with Wayne, 67, 74, 75, 127, 131, 131–32, 138, 173, 250

  in Quiet Man, 198, 200

  in The Searchers, 237, 239

  in 3 Godfathers, 170, 171

  in Wings of Eagles, 252

  Boomtown, 106

  Booth, Shirley, 203n

  Borgnine, Ernest, 4

  Born Reckless, 44

  Bosworth, Patricia, 86, 164

  Bowie, Jim, 262, 270, 277

  Box Office Management, 334

  Boyle, Marie, 50

  Brackett, Leigh, 305

  Bradbury, Robert N., 64

  Brand, Max, 110

  Brando, Marlon, 4, 165, 204n, 220, 227

  Brandon, Henry, 240

  Brandt, James, 146

  Brandt, Joe, 57

  Brannigan, 329, 331

  Brassac, Virginia, 77

  Brazzi, Rosanno, 253

  Breaking Point, The, 170

  Breaking the Sound Barrier, 203n

  Breen, Joe, 87

  Brennan, Walter, 163, 166, 258, 259

  Brewer, Roy, 150

  Bridge on the River Kwai, 252–53, 261

  Bridges, Lloyd, 206

  Bringing Up Baby, 162

  Britt, May, 271

  Bronson, Charles, 334

  Brooks, Mel, 334

  Brooks, Richard, 270

  Browder, Earl, 149

  Brown, Francis Li, 223

  Brown, Harry, 171, 178, 305

  Brown, Pat, 307

  Brown of Harvard, 28, 30n, 334

  Bruce, David, 158n

  Brynner, Yul, 4, 220, 243, 303

  Bullitt, 327

  Burks, Robert, 213

  Burton, Richard, 1, 5, 7, 8–9, 309n

  Bushman, Francis X., 28, 59

  Bus Stop, 243n

  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 7

  Buttolph, David, 124

  Caan, James, 305, 306, 310

  Cabot, Bruce, 307

  Cagney, James, 4, 52, 98, 191, 231, 258n

  Cahiers du Cinéma, 244, 343

  Cahill, U.S. Marshall, 326

  Caine Mutiny, The, 137, 236n

  California Straight Ahead, 77

  Campbell, Glen, 6–7, 320n

  Cane, Joseph, 134

  Cannes Film Festival, 232

  Canutt, Enos Edward “Yakima”; “Yak,” 48n, 59, 65, 67n, 74, 85

  Capra, Frank, 3, 57n, 72–73, 82, 87, 90, 129, 187

  Capucine, 274, 283, 284

  Cardinale, Claudia, 297

  Carey, Harry, 23–24, 33, 59, 78n, 83, 117, 123, 145, 170

  death of, 163

  filling the role of, 34, 68, 71, 85, 240

  Carey, Harry Jr. “Dobie,” 48n, 76, 163, 170, 171, 175

  in The Searchers, 237, 239, 241

  Carey, Olive, 138, 237

  Carr, Trem, 64, 76, 77

  Carradine, John, 79, 83

  Carson, Johnny, 339, 340

  Carter, Jimmy, 295, 334–35, 336, 341

  Cartoonists Guild, 151n

  Casablanca, 99, 120

  Cassidy, Hopalong, 172

  Cast a Giant Shadow, 302–3, 304, 305, 309

  Cat Ballou, 300n

  Central Airport, 63n

  Ceplair, Larry, 150

  Champion, 180

  Champlin, Charles, 321

  Chaplin, Charlie, 23, 31, 55, 106, 219n

  Chase, Borden, 147, 162

  Chaucer, Geoffrey, 78n

  Cheer Up and Smile, 44

  Cherrill, Virginia, 55, 56

  Chisholm Trail, The, 162

  Chisum, 321–22

  Christmas at Mojave Tank, 170n

  Churchill, Marguerite, 48, 49, 51, 52, 55, 56

  Churubusco Studios, 300

  Cimino, Michael, 340

  Cinecittà Studios, 253, 303

  Circus World, 286, 297

  Cisco Kid, 44–45

  Citizen Kane, 89, 103

  City Lights, 55

  Clark, Colbert, 63

  Clemente, Steve, 48

  Cleopatra, 293

  Clift, Montgomery, 145, 163–65, 167, 168, 204n, 241, 258n

  Cline, Eddie, 41

  Clothier, William, 269, 271–72, 278, 285, 307, 326

  Cohn, Harry, 57–58, 59, 61, 82, 169, 204n, 234, 271

  Colbert, Claudette, 96, 102

  Coleman, George, 228

  Coleman, Ronald, 125

  Collier’s, 78

  Columbia Pictures, 57–59, 82, 169, 192, 204n, 221n

  Comancheros, The, 285

  Come Back, Little Sheba, 203n

  Communism:

  anti-Communist films, 195

  and anti-Semitism, 186–87

  and FBI, 191, 267

  and Hollywood blacklist, 3–4, 135, 153–55, 170, 174, 185–87, 190–93, 202, 204n, 205, 249–50, 278, 281, 284, 307

  and Hollywood Ten, 100, 204n, 273

  and HUAC, see HUAC

  and MPA, 129–30, 149–50, 152–54, 169, 186, 191, 204n

  and unions, 73, 100–102, 149, 150–51

  and Vietnam War, 300

  Waldorf Statement, 153, 154n, 191, 279

  Wayne against, 3, 5, 74, 101, 105, 129, 135, 136, 144, 148, 149–55, 169, 173, 174, 185–87, 202, 205, 208, 227, 249–50, 262, 272, 278, 300

  Compulsion, 284

  Conflict, 64, 76

  Conners, Mike, 212

  Connery, Sean, 309n

  Conqueror, The, 210, 220–22, 248, 250–51, 269

  Conway, Jack, 28, 30n, 106

  Cooper, Gary, 3, 8, 45, 51, 81, 82, 98, 109, 149, 162, 196, 203–6, 210, 227, 235

  Cooper, James Fenimore, 102

  Cooper, Merian C., 72, 81, 186, 203, 233, 234

  Corey, Jeff, 320n

  Cornell, Kathleen, 334

  Cosmopolitan, 287

  Costello, Lou, 28, 172

  Couderc, Pierre, 50n

  Coward, Noel, 124

  Cowboys, The, 325–26

  Crabbe, Buster, 58

  Craig, Yvonne, 248

  Crawford, Broderick, 3, 4, 111, 169, 180, 181

  Crawford, Joan, 116, 125

  Crisp, Donald, 149

  Cristal, Linda, 273

  Crockett, Davy, 177, 212, 236, 247, 262, 270, 272–77, 301, 302, 317

  Cromwell, John, 106

  Cronkite, Walter, 315

  Crosby, Bing, 131, 172, 202, 227

  Crowther, Bosley, 98, 161, 167, 171, 208, 243, 276

  Cruze, James, 82

  Cukor, George, 2, 87, 106, 107

  Cumming, Irving, 44

  Curtis, Ken, 237, 248, 271

  Curtiz, Michael, 2, 40, 170, 209, 285

  Custer, George, 159

  Dailey, Dan, 248, 252

  Dakota, 137

  Darby, Kim, 319, 320

  Dark Command, The, 97, 98

  Darkness at Noon, 152

  Dark Victory, 90

  Dassin, Jules, 125, 280

  Daves, Delmer, 257

  Davis, Bette, 90, 107

  Davis, Ron, 189

  Davis, Sammy Jr., 271, 331, 340

  Dawn Rider, The, 64n

  Day, Doris, 309n

  Day, Laraine, 147–48, 218

  Days of Wine and Roses, The, 290n

  Dean, James, 165, 197, 209, 243

  Deceiver, The, 58

  December 7, 141n

  Dee, Frances, 115

  Deep Throat, 7

  Deer Hunter, The, 340

  de Havilland, Olivia, 161, 206

  Dekker, Albert, 123–24, 128

  De Laurentiis, Dino, 332, 333

  Del Rio, Delores, 158

  DeMille, Cecil B., 110, 119, 149–50, 179n, 185–87, 188, 192, 203n, 243n

  Dern, Bruce, 325–26

  Desert Trail, The, 64n

  Desilu Productions, 221

  Destry Rides Again, 81, 87, 110, 284

  Devine, Andy, 40, 79, 82, 83, 177, 286, 289, 335

  De Wilde, Brandon
, 248

  Dickinson, Angie, 258, 259

  Dieterle, William, 150

  Dietrich, Marlene, 45, 96, 116, 125–26, 204, 205, 283

  and Destry, 81, 110, 184

  and Pittsburgh, 125

  and Spoilers, 123

  Wayne’s affair with, 107, 109–13, 115, 118, 122–23, 125

  Directors Guild, 72–73, 101, 103, 186, 187, 190

  Dirty Harry, 205, 329

  Disney, Walt, 3, 106, 129, 151–52, 163, 177, 212, 236, 247, 262, 276, 284

  Dmytryk, Edward, 135, 136, 236n, 294

  Doctor Bull, 71

  Doering, Otto C. “Ole” Jr., 158

  Donen, Stanley, 2, 180n, 192n

  Donovan, William J. “Wild Bill,” 131, 158n

  Donovan’s Reef, 286, 295–96

  Dors, Diana, 252

  Dorsey, Tommy, 143

  Douglas, Kirk, 179n, 180, 181, 229, 249, 273n, 297, 303, 307

  Douglas, Paul, 180

  Driscoll, Bobby, 163

  Drop Kick, The, 30n

  Dru, Joanne, 165, 175, 241

  Drums Along the Mohawk, 87, 102

  Duke (dog), 21

  Dunne, Irene, 96, 97, 149

  Dunne, Phillip, 105

  Durocher, Leo, 147–48

  Duvall, Robert, 320

  Dwan, Allan, 3, 178–79, 180

  Earp, Wyatt, 157–58

  East of Eden, 243n

  Eastwood, Clint, 205, 235, 249, 323n, 329, 334, 340

  Easy Rider, 5, 245, 329

  Edelman, Louis, 196

  Edeson, Arthur, 50

  Edison, Thomas A., 73

  Edison Trust, 46

  Edwards, Blake, 290n

  El Dorado, 305–6, 309, 310, 323, 333

  Eldridge, Florence, 105

  Elmer Gantry, 270

  Englund, Steven, 150–51

  Enright, Ray, 123

  Erickson, A. F., 41, 44

  Evarts, Hal G., 50

  Everson, William K., 23, 88, 98

  Exodus, 279, 280

  Eyles, Allen, 118

  Fabian, 274

  Fairbanks, Douglas Jr., 63

  Falk, Peter, 280

  Famous Artists Corporation, 96

  Far Country, The, 234

  Farrow, John, 212, 222, 223, 229n

  Farrow, Mia, 319

  Fast, Howard, 273n

  FBI, 191, 267

  Feldman, Charles K., 96–97, 99, 111, 119, 123, 125, 153, 163, 166, 169, 219, 249, 283–84, 298, 306

  Fellows, Robert, 145, 218

  Fenton, Frank, 253

  Ferrer, Jose, 4, 290n

  Feurer, Cy, 124

  Fidler, Jimmie/Jimmy, 112

  Field, Betty, 117, 118

  Fighting Kentuckian, The, 174, 176–77

  Fighting Seabees, The, 130, 131, 137, 172, 208

  Fitzgerald, Barry, 104

  Fitzgerald, Ella, 219n

  Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 41