I am ever grateful that the luminescent Maureen O’Hara granted me an interview a few years before she passed away, in the enchanting seaside town of Glengarriff in the Republic of Ireland, where she spent many of her final years. I’ll never forget dining with Miss O’Hara at Casey’s Hotel—with her helpers and companions, Marie, Carolyn, Geraldine, Carol—and hearing her sing that heartbreaking Irish anthem “Kevin Barry.” Thanks also to Casey Hotel’s genial proprietor, Donal Deasy, who helped make the evening possible, seating us in her usual corner table by a wood-burning furnace that added warmth to a rainy April evening.
I’m grateful, too, to the director and film historian Peter Bogdanovich, for his deep scholarship, insights, and appreciation of both John Ford and John Wayne. He generously gave of his time to talk with me about Ford Westerns—especially The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. He is probably the last man standing who knew both men and loved their work.
Nancy Gray, my friend and colleague at The College of William & Mary, read early versions of this book and gave me invaluable suggestions and resources. Thanks also to another valued colleague, Varun Begley, for conversations about Howard Hawks’s Red River, and to my nephew Joshua Day—a gifted writer!—who read early chapters and encouraged me to go further. And to my spouse, Sam Kashner, for his countless kindnesses, insights, and encouragement.
William & Mary helped support the writing of this book through an academic research leave and through a Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence, administered by the college and endowed by the philanthropist Joseph Plumeri—a game guy and a knowledgeable fan of Ford-Wayne Westerns!
Finally, my thanks to my agent David Kuhn, to Sarah Levitt and Nicole Tourtelot at Kuhn Projects for their guidance, and to my publisher and editor, the legendary Nan Talese. I have lived much with legends lately.
Sources
ARCHIVES
John Ford Papers, Lilly Library, University of Indiana, Bloomington.
ARTICLES
Begley, Varun. “ ‘One Right Guy to Another’: Howard Hawks and Auteur Theory Revisited.” Camera Obscura 64 (2007).
Bennett, Jessica. “Man Deconstructed.” New York Times, Aug. 9, 2015.
Bogdanovich, Peter. “The Duke’s Gone West.” New York, June 25, 1979.
Bolger, Daniel P. “The Truth About the Wars.” New York Times, Nov. 11, 2014.
Bosworth, Patricia. “John Wayne, Larger than Life.” In John Wayne: The Legend and the Man. Brooklyn: Powerhouse Books, 2012.
Didion, Joan. “John Wayne: A Love Song.” In Slouching Towards Bethlehem. New York: Pocket Books, 1968.
Freedman, Carl. “Post-heterosexuality: John Wayne and the Construction of American Masculinity.” www.filmint.nu.
Haskell, Molly. “Wayne, Westerns, and Women.” Ladies’ Home Journal, July 1976.
Kehr, David. “John Ford, on Uncommon Ground.” New York Times, Nov. 10, 2013.
———. “John Ford’s Portraits of Loss and Redemption.” New York Times, Feb. 10, 2013.
Kimmel, Michael S. “Masculinity as Homophobia.” In Sex, Gender, and Sexuality: The New Basics, edited by Abby L. Ferber, Kimberly Holcomb, and Tre Wentling. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Lethem, Jonathan. “The Darkest Side of John Wayne.” Salon, Aug. 11, 1997.
McMurtry, Larry, and Diana Ossana. “Talking About ‘True Grit.’ ” http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/feb/08/.
Miller, Claire Cain. “A Disadvantaged Start in Life Harms Boys More than Girls.” New York Times, Oct. 22, 2015.
Scott, A. O. “The Post-Man.” New York Times Magazine, Nov. 10, 2013.
Wallace, Chris. “Mythic Middle-Aged Protectors.” New York Times, March 8, 2015.
Weiss, Bari. “Camille Paglia: A Feminist Defense of Masculine Virtues.” www.wsj.com/news/article, Dec. 28, 2013.
BOOKS
Anderson, Lindsay. About John Ford. London: Plexus, 1981, 1999.
Bacall, Lauren. Now. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.
Bogdanovich, Peter. John Ford. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.
———. Picture Shows: Peter Bogdanovich on the Movies. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1975.
———. Who the Hell’s in It. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
Canutt, Yakima. Stunt Man. With Oliver Drake. New York: Walker, 1979.
Carey, Harry, Jr. Company of Heroes: My Life as an Actor in the John Ford Stock Company. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1994.
Davis, Ronald L. Duke: The Life and Image of John Wayne. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.
———. John Ford: Hollywood’s Old Master. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.
Donovan, Jack. The Way of Men. Milwaukie, Ore.: Dissonant Hum, 2012.
Exley, Jo Ella Powell. Frontier Blood: Saga of the Parker Family. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2001.
Eyman, Scott. John Wayne: The Life and Legend. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014.
———. Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Ford, Dan. Pappy: The Life of John Ford. New York: Da Capo Press, 1998.
Frankel, Glenn. The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend. London: Bloomsbury, 2013.
Gallagher, Tag. John Ford: The Man and His Films. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
Harris, Mark. Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War. New York: Penguin Press, 2014.
Haskell, Molly. From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Leaming, Barbara. Katharine Hepburn. New York: Crown, 1995.
Mast, Gerald. Howard Hawks, Storyteller. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
McBride, Joseph. Searching for John Ford. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2003.
Mellen, Joan. Big Bad Wolves: Masculinity in the American Film. New York: Pantheon Books, 1977.
Munn, Michael. John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth. New York: New American Library, 2005.
O’Brien, Darcy. A Way of Life, Like Any Other. New York: New York Review of Books, 1977.
O’Hara, Maureen. ’Tis Herself: An Autobiography. With John Nicoletti. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.
Peary, Gerald, and Jenny Lefcourt, eds. John Ford Interviews. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001.
Pippin, Robert B. Hollywood Westerns and American Myth: The Importance of Howard Hawks and John Ford for Political Philosophy. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010.
Ricci, Mark, Boris Zmijewsky, and Steve Zmijewsky. The Films of John Wayne. New York: Citadel Press, 1970.
Sarris, Andrew. The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929–1968. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
———. The John Ford Movie Mystery. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975.
———, ed. Interviews with Film Directors. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967.
Shepherd, Donald, Robert Slatzer, and Dave Grayson. Duke: The Life and Times of John Wayne. New York: Citadel Press, 2002.
Swarthout, Miles. Introduction to The Shootist, by Glendon Swarthout. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011.
Tompkins, Jane. West of Everything: The Inner Life of Westerns. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Wayne, Aissa. John Wayne, My Father. With Steve Delsohn. Lanham, Md.: Taylor Trade, 1998.
Wayne, Pilar. John Wayne: My Life with the Duke. With Alex Thorleifson. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987.
Wills, Garry. John Wayne’s America: The Politics of Celebrity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
DOCUMENTARIES AND FEATURETTES
The Battle of Midway, directed by John Ford. U.S. Navy–20th Century Fox, 1942.
Becoming John Ford, directed by Nick Redman. The Ford at Fox Collection DVD.
The Breaking of Boys and the Making of Men, with director Mark Rydell. Warner Bros. Deluxe Edition.
The Cowboys, Together Ag
ain, with director Mark Rydell. Warner Bros. Deluxe Edition.
Directed by John Ford, directed by Peter Bogdanovich.
The Great American West of John Ford. Synergy Entertainment.
John Ford/John Wayne: The Filmmaker & the Legend. American Masters special feature included in Warner Bros. Special Edition of Stagecoach.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Featurette, The John Wayne Collection, Warner Video.
The Shootist, Cast and Crew Interviews. Warner Home Video.
Stagecoach: A Story of Redemption. Special feature. Warner Home Video, Special Edition of Stagecoach.
A Turning of the Earth: John Ford, John Wayne, and “The Searchers.” 1998. Narrated by John Milius. The John Wayne Collection, Warner Video.
FEATURE FILMS (LISTED CHRONOLOGICALLY)
The Iron Horse, 1924. The Ford at Fox Collection DVD.
The Big Trail, 1930. 20th Century Fox Special Edition.
Stagecoach, 1939. Warner Home Video Special Edition.
Fort Apache, 1948. The John Wayne Collection, RKO Radio Pictures.
3 Godfathers, 1948. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Home Video.
Red River, 1948. United Artists, MGM Home Entertainment.
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, 1949. Turner Home Entertainment.
Rio Grande, 1950. Republic Pictures. Olive Pictures DVD.
The Searchers, 1956. Warner Video.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, 1962. Paramount Pictures. The John Wayne Collection, Warner Video.
True Grit, 1969. Paramount Home Entertainment.
The Cowboys, 1972. Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. Deluxe Edition.
The Shootist, 1976. Paramount Pictures, Warner Home Video.
Notes
PROLOGUE: WHY WESTERNS STILL MATTER
“John Ford and John Wayne taught us”: John Ford/John Wayne: The Filmmaker & the Legend, documentary.
“I’ve played the kind of man”: Wayne quoted in Eyman, John Wayne, 565.
“It is easy to see why so few women”: Wills, John Wayne’s America, 157.
“When John Wayne rode”: Joan Didion, “John Wayne, a Love Song,” Slouching Towards Bethlehem, 44.
Wayne’s 136th picture: There are varying accounts of Wayne’s total film count; I’m using Davis’s filmography in Duke.
“Saw the walk”: Didion, “John Wayne, a Love Song,” 44.
“I am here”: Haskell, “Wayne, Westerns, and Women,” 77.
“We rode the range”: Ibid., 94.
“the father figure”: Ibid., 92.
“[He] was paternal”: Ibid., 94.
“doesn’t immediately see her”: Ibid.
“Masculinity is just becoming something”: Weiss, “Camille Paglia.”
“Boys get a message”: Quoted in Miller, “Disadvantaged Start in Life Harms Boys More than Girls.”
“What other American icon”: Lethem, “Darkest Side of John Wayne.”
CHAPTER 1: BIRTH OF THE WESTERN HERO
“Nobody should come to the movies”: Wayne, quoted in Davis, Duke, 14.
“When I pass on”: John Ford/John Wayne: The Filmmaker & the Legend.
“the essence of classical American cinema”: Ibid.
“I had an eye for composition”: Ibid.
“Ford’s movies are visual ballads”: Ibid.
“He wasn’t portraying”: Ibid.
“From roughly 1900 to 1975”: Tompkins, West of Everything, 5.
“The desert light”: Ibid., 4.
Writers on sex, gender, and sexuality: Kimmel, “Masculinity as Homophobia,” 61.
“men prove their manhood”: Ibid.
“ ‘No Sissy Stuff’ ”: Ibid., 62.
“Many movie stars”: Freedman, “Post-heterosexuality,” 19.
“when men compete”: Donovan, Way of Men, 2.
CHAPTER 2: THE GOOD BAD MAN
“Dammit. The son of a bitch looked like a man”: Walsh quoted in Didion, “John Wayne: A Love Song,” 45.
“To live outside the law you must be honest”: Bob Dylan, “Absolutely Sweet Marie.”
“remarkable quality of innocence”: Bogdanovich, “Duke’s Gone West,” 67.
“Duke wasn’t ready”: John Ford interview, John Ford Papers (hereafter cited as JFP), Lilly Library.
“I met Duke”: Ibid.
“I had no ambition”: John Wayne interview, JFP.
“When I went back to school”: Ibid.
“We were between San Diego”: Ibid.
“I should have complained”: Frankel, Searchers, 228.
“He had a good height”: Walsh quoted in ibid.
“Yeah. He wanted a name”: Ford interview, JFP.
“I like[d] Duke’s style”: Ibid.
“I remember he was evidently”: Wayne interview, JFP.
“calculated to appeal”: Davis, Duke, 48.
“Keep your goddamn fly buttoned”: Ibid.
“a drunk and a rebel”: Ibid., 49.
“For a year I couldn’t get work”: Ibid.
“Most of the company”: Ibid., 51.
“Wayne got to be terrific”: Ibid., 57.
“a goddamn pansy”: Ibid.
“projected a quality”: Ibid., 83.
“I made up my mind”: Ibid., 58.
“When I started, I knew”: Wayne interview, JFP.
“Pappy was full of bullshit”: Ford, Pappy, 138.
“The truth about my life”: Davis, John Ford, 19.
“Ford’s famous act”: Becoming John Ford, documentary.
“I am of the proletariat”: Davis, John Ford, 19.
“one great emotional tragedy”: Ibid., 16.
“Pop was responsible”: Carey, Company of Heroes, 45.
“Roaming the mountains”: Ibid., 47.
“He and my father”: Ibid.
“natural and rugged”: Davis, John Ford, 38.
“He won’t ask me”: Carey, Company of Heroes, 2.
“buried himself in work”: Davis, John Ford, 48.
“Duke describe[d] how Ford”: Becoming John Ford, documentary.
“or one of the local whorehouses”: Davis, Duke, 63.
“I never expected anything from Jack”: Wayne interview, JFP.
“I’m having a hell of a time”: Davis, Duke, 81.
“You idiot. Couldn’t you play it?”: Ibid.
“When the time came”: Ford interview, JFP.
“What already counts for the Wayne character”: Mellen, Big Bad Wolves, 135.
“at the bend in the river”: Didion, “John Wayne, a Love Story,” 44.
“I myself am a pretty ugly fellow”: Becoming John Ford, documentary.
“They were all hard drinkers”: Mary Ford interview, JFP.
“Why are you moving your mouth”: Davis, Duke, 83.
“When we first started Stagecoach”: Wayne interview, JFP.
“Jack Ford stood up for me”: Ibid.
“You are a big, dumb”: Davis, Duke, 88.
CHAPTER 3: SOLDIER’S JOY: THE CAVALRY TRILOGY
“To me he was sort of like Moses”: McDowall quoted in Davis, John Ford, 159.
“In the military, we love our legends”: Bolger, “Truth About the Wars.”
“Gimme some of that Soldier’s Joy”: “Soldier’s Joy, 1864,” lyrics by Guy Clark.
“The Japanese shrimp fleet”: Ford, quoted in Davis, John Ford, 155.
“Ford just loved it!”: Ibid., 158–59.
“The thing that sticks out”: Ibid., 159.
“Their experiences during the war”: Harris, Five Came Back, 440.
“My father was an absolute”: Davis, John Ford, 204.
“the writer had better keep”: Ibid., 205.
“on the frontier, the troops”: Ibid., 223.
“Masculinity is about being a man”: Donovan, Way of Men, 2.
“poetic” and “beautiful”: Davis, John Ford, 52.
“I wouldn’t give that son of a bitch”: Ibid., 211.
“I literally saw tears”
: Ibid., 209.
“really didn’t relate to women”: Davis, John Ford, 224.
“My grandfather’s macho image”: Davis, John Ford, 206.
“The Navajo loved it”: Ibid.
“The real star of my Westerns”: Ibid., 205–6.
“That’s how he kept people on their toes”: Ibid., 209.
“Here [we] were in the middle of the West”: Ibid., 242.
“Duke used to talk about”: Ibid., 227.
“Ford was the type of person”: Ibid.
“Ford liked to watch me ride a horse”: Ibid., 224.
“I learned to react, not to act”: Munn, John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth, 48.
“the greatest guy I ever knew”: O’Hara, interview with author.
“The usual gang was there”: O’Hara, ’Tis Herself, 103–4.
“There were times when you”: O’Hara, interview with author.
“a miniature Monument Valley”: Davis, John Ford, 234.
“A lot of the Irish went west”: Ibid., 207.
“I’ve been able to ride a horse”: Ibid., 227.
“Hey, stupid”: Bogdanovich, interview with author.
“He knew he’d been wrong”: Carey, Company of Heroes, 121.
“Ford loved drunks”: Davis, John Ford, 231.
“He’s always eatin’ on a handkerchief”: Ibid., 235.
“All right, go at it!”: Carey, Company of Heroes, 188–89.
“my nature, my religion”: Becoming John Ford, documentary.
CHAPTER 4: THE AVENGING LONER: THE SEARCHERS
“I didn’t know that the big”: McBride, Searching for John Ford, 459–60.
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