John Wayne: The Life and Legend

by Scott Eyman

  “I thought we’d do it in Old Tucson.”

  “Good—I like that too. What’s the story?”

  “Oh, no story, Bob. Just character. Stories bore people.”

  “You never knew which Mitchum was going to show up,” said the writer-director Andrew Fenady, who made pictures with both Wayne and Mitchum. “If Mitchum was with people that didn’t know what they were doing, or weren’t pros, he’d say, ‘OK, I’ll hit the marks and say the lines.’ If he was working with someone he thought had depth and character and know-how and cared about what they were doing, he’d give a performance. Mitchum was a mirror; he reflected what was around him. He was highly intelligent, wrote poetry, and was a fine writer as well. He could discourse on almost any subject, from cattle to Communism. He was an interested party, as long as you didn’t bore the shit out of him.”

  It was a pleasant production but a ragged one, because Hawks was making a lot of it up as he went along. Johnny Crawford remembered the pace as “totally relaxed and ponderous.” One day, when the company was preparing to shoot Crawford’s death scene, Hawks looked up at the sky and said, “It looks like the sun’s going to be behind the clouds for quite awhile.” He and Wayne promptly jumped into a car and headed for Nogales. The rest of the company stayed on location, just in case, but nothing else got shot.

  Wayne still liked Hawks and Hawks still liked Wayne. Hawks told one journalist that the two best actors he ever worked with were Wayne and Cary Grant. “Duke is the easiest to work with; Cary Grant is facile. Duke and I have a lingo—I want to do things his way. With Cary, we change things. Duke knows when something is wrong; he’s got an instinct. . . . It took him so long to realize he was a good actor. Mitchum and Ann Sheridan were the same way, but they didn’t get really good pictures. You have to be lucky.

  “Duke got into four or five good ones—Yellow Ribbon, Iwo Jima, Red River—and it made him. Nobody’s good in a bad picture and everybody’s good in a good picture.”

  The result of all this mutual admiration was that after four days of production Hawks was two days behind. By Christmas, he was twelve days behind schedule—he was shooting only about one and a third pages of script a day instead of the scheduled two and a third. Seven actors who thought they had finished their jobs were called back for retakes. By the time El Dorado finished in late January, the picture had been shooting for eighty-four days, an astonishing twenty-four days over schedule—a huge overrun for a small-scale movie that didn’t present any production problems.

  It didn’t faze Mitchum, of course. Soon after the picture started in Tucson, Mitchum showed up at lunch with a teenager from a local high school or, perhaps, college. “Fellas, I’d like to introduce what’s-her-name here. She’ll be with us for the entire picture. She’s my new drama coach.” And she did indeed shadow Mitchum through the location shoot.

  Mitchum and Wayne got along well, although they were wildly disparate personalities. Wayne was having his toupee fitted when he asked Mitchum, “Goddamn it, Mitch, when are you gonna let me direct you in a picture?”

  “Duke, that’s all you do anyway,” replied Mitchum.

  For a couple of months after El Dorado was finished, Wayne and Mitchum became the Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer of the Hollywood drinking set. They crashed a party Ray Stark threw to welcome Barbra Streisand to Hollywood. The two men stumbled around Stark’s garden bellowing, “We want to meet Barbra!” although neither of them had previously evinced a taste for show tunes.

  Their friendship gave Mitchum some good Wayne stories. Some of them were false—Mitchum said Wayne wore four-inch lifts in his shoes—and some of them were probably true, as with a time at the Batjac office when Wayne was in a fine fury, bellowing at the staff and even knocking over some chairs. Then he went into his office, slammed the door, and pulled out a bottle. “You gotta keep ’em Wayne-conscious,” he grinned.

  Mitchum insisted Wayne wasn’t anywhere near as square as he liked to pretend. When a friend who smoked pot with Mitchum asked if Wayne ever got high, Mitchum said, “Duke will do anything. He’ll do it all.”

  When El Dorado was finally released in the summer of 1967, it did well, although nowhere near as well as it would have had Hawks made it more expeditiously. The film had originally been budgeted for $3.8 million, but the cost rose to $4.5 million. The film earned good domestic rentals of $5.2 million, and was a hit overseas as well. Three consecutive successful westerns (The Sons of Katie Elder, El Dorado, and The War Wagon) swelled his coffers—Wayne declared his 1966 income at $1.6 million, with deductions of $947,367.77.

  Another frequent offscreen companion around this time was Rod Taylor. Once, Wayne idly asked Taylor what he was working on. “The second of two pictures with Doris Day,” he replied.

  “Jesus Christ!” Wayne exploded. “I would crawl over the mountains of Beverly Hills on my hands and knees if I could do a movie with Doris Day!”

  Taylor thought he was being sarcastic, but gradually realized Wayne was serious. “All that macho bullshit, all those men’s men that he played, and what he really wanted was for someone to offer him a romantic comedy.” Despite his narrow focus on playing men with a code, it appeared that the wish he had expressed to Ollie Carey twenty-five years before was still lurking about.

  Taylor invited Wayne to one of his marriages at a church in Westwood. As Taylor walked down the aisle, there was Wayne, sitting next to Pilar in the pew reserved for friends. Taylor scanned the room while the music was swelling. The men were smiling, the women were dabbing at their eyes. But Wayne was shaking his head slowly from side to side, as if to say, “No way, no way in hell.”

  “What made it worse was that he turned out to be right,” said Taylor.

  One day during the El Dorado shoot at Old Tucson, Bob Shelton came home to find Wayne, James Caan, and John Ford gathered around the table playing bridge with Shelton’s wife. Shelton was shocked, not because of the bridge—Wayne loved to play cards—but because of Ford’s presence. “I knew Ford was in town, but I didn’t know why—he hadn’t come to the set at all.”

  Ford’s last several pictures had been failures: Cheyenne Autumn had been a critical and commercial disappointment. He started Young Cassidy but had gone on a bender and been unable to finish it, and 7 Women had been a disaster. If he had been fifty, he could have ridden it out, but Hollywood is brutal on old directors with consecutive flops, no matter how eminent they might be. John Ford would never make another movie, and the only way he could see Duke was socially.

  That was fine with Wayne, not so fine with Ford, who chafed at the inactivity. Wayne had felt that Ford’s powers were diminishing, and he hadn’t gone to see 7 Women, sensing that it would make him unhappy. For the next several years, until Ford’s declining health made work impossible, Wayne tried to dance around Ford’s occasional attempts to inveigle him into a picture. Often, Wayne would use Mike and Batjac as an excuse: “I’d love to do it, Pappy, but Mike’s got me all tied up.” Although the two men were never close to being estranged, the sense of distance that was geographically imposed after Wayne moved to Newport Beach became slightly emphasized.

  In 1966, the producer Martin Rackin did an indifferent remake of Stagecoach, but not before giving an interview in which he said that he thought Ford’s original was old-fashioned. After the Rackin version came out, the producer was at Wayne’s house, when Ford dropped in without warning. There was an awkward moment, followed by Ford glaring at Rackin and asking Wayne, “Mind if I hit this SOB in the mouth?”

  For one of the few times in his life, Wayne refused a direct request from Ford. “Not in my house,” he said. There was a stony silence for some minutes, but Wayne worked overtime at playing the genial host and managed to effect a rough reconciliation.

  Beginning in November 1967, and continuing for the next eighteen years, the Bar 26, the cattle ranch Wayne co-owned with Louis Johnson, would hold a sale for the ranch’s red and white Herefords. The Bar 26 raised about four hundred bulls each year, wi
th the top 125 being sold at auction. Each year the Bar 26 sold about fifty two-year-old bulls, twenty-five heifers, and forty special bulls, all for high-end breeding purposes.

  Wayne loved the event and usually attended, partially because he genuinely loved the environment, not to mention Johnson and his wife, Alice, partially because a personal appearance ginned up sales.

  “Duke and I had an agreement,” Johnson would remember. “Anytime he came east of the Colorado River, I paid the expenses for him and his guests. When I went west of the Colorado, he paid mine. Sometimes he tried to see how many friends he could bring with him.” On those occasions when he came alone, Wayne would stay at the Johnsons’ house, which he always entered by yelling, “I love this house and everybody in it.” In time, the farm was named the Red River Land Company.

  A less lucrative but equally rewarding event involved USC awarding him an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree at the June commencement. “Sportsman, responsible citizen and patriot, as well as motion picture star, Mr. Wayne is certainly one of the most famous living alumni of this university,” said Raymond Sparling, a member of USC’s Board of Trustees. “In a medium of imagery, he has faithfully portrayed to hundreds of millions of persons throughout the world the authentic spirit of the pioneering American. In the medium of life, he is, in fact, the rugged man of courage, strength, honor, humor and generosity who has contributed so much to the character and to the perpetuity of this land.”

  By the mid-1960s, the marriage to Pilar had grown increasingly problematic, although Wayne didn’t seem to want to split up, perhaps because a third divorce would have been too embarrassing. The age difference was unimportant at first, when passion served as a bridge. Later, when a man slows up and might need to be tended, it seems to have become an issue. Mainly, Pilar was increasingly restless with the highly ordered life Wayne led. He could languish on the Wild Goose while she got bored after a few days; he loved nothing in life more than holing up in Old Tucson or Durango and making a western, but there was nothing for her to do while Wayne was shooting his movie. How much tennis can a woman play?

  Complicating things was her grande dame personality. “Duke had something about distant, austere women,” said Stefanie Powers. “Perhaps it went back to his mother. Bill Holden’s mother was like that—not warm or cuddly. She had three boys and wouldn’t let them play inside the house. She was uninvolved in her children’s lives. And Bill ended up marrying Brenda Marshall—the same kind of woman as his mother.”

  From her point of view, Pilar was just bored, and her feelings were probably not much different than those of the late, unlamented Chata, who had told one reporter, “My husband is one of the few persons who is always interested in his business. He talks of it constantly. When he reads, it’s scripts. Our dinner guests always talk business, and he spends all his time working, discussing work or planning work.”

  “Pilar was very introverted,” said Rod Taylor. “By the time I got to know him, Duke’s attitude toward her was a respectful, Spanish family relationship with the wealthy woman of the house. I felt no emotional intimacy at all. I think Duke’s male friends were far more important to him than his female friends.”

  Even though the marriage to Pilar was approaching in-name-only status, Wayne had little interest in the traditional droit du seigneur of the movie star. “He was never flirtatious or overly interested in actresses,” said Rod Taylor. “He turned a blind eye to punks like me who were always scouting around.”

  Bob Shelton, from Old Tucson, also felt a slight chill emanating from Pilar. “I have no authority to have an opinion, but here it is: she was more movie star-ish than he was. In the early days, she traveled with him and she was always with him. And then she gradually grew tired of it, and sort of began enjoying her own celebrity status. And she quit traveling with Duke, which is not a good sign because in that business you need to stay close together.

  “Each of them was respectful of the other, but I felt no warmth.”

  Trophy wives want to play, and Wayne wanted to work. And, as with Josie, Pilar’s friends were not really his friends. Once, a friend of Wayne’s was visiting at the house when the doorbell rang. Wayne looked out from behind the drapes and suddenly put his finger over his mouth. “It’s some friends of Pilar’s. If I open the door, they’ll want to talk the whole goddamn afternoon.” Wayne and his friend hid in the room until the visitors went away.

  No matter how petulant he could be, his employees stayed with him for decades, the same way the public did. The reasons are best conveyed by a story told by Tom Kane, whose wife, Ruth, was in the Motion Picture Home dying of cancer. Wayne was close to Kane, not particularly close to Ruth.

  One morning at 9:15, Kane’s phone rang. It was his wife, sounding like she did before she got sick.

  “My God, you sound great,” said Kane.

  “Well, how would you feel if you woke up in the morning and John Wayne was standing by your bed?” She went on to explain that Wayne had stayed for more than an hour talking to her. Before he left, he had brushed her hair.

  Kane vowed then and there that he would never let anything Wayne said or did interfere with their relationship. When Ruth died, Wayne came from Newport to Burbank for the 8 A.M. funeral Mass. Wayne drove himself to the funeral, which was potentially dangerous because he was a terrible driver—recklessly fast. But he got to the church in one piece, even if he did park halfway up on the curb. He put his arm around Kane, who leaned against him. “Things will never be the same again,” Wayne told him.

  Charlie Feldman had been experiencing bouts of bad health in the midst of producing films. His latest was Casino Royale. Since it involved no fewer than five directors, any cohesive approach was impossible, and Feldman was exhausted. “I’ve been through the most harrowing experience that I have ever been through since I’ve been in the business,” he wrote Wayne in October 1966. “Not a moment to myself, not a moment to write a letter, not a moment to pick up the horn. . . . I was so ill at times I didn’t know whether I could finish the film. . . .

  “Dear Duke, please take care of yourself,” closed Feldman. “Though I am not a faggot, I close this note with a big kiss and all my love to you, Pilar and your wonderful family.” Charles Feldman died in 1968, but Wayne stayed with the agency after Feldman’s death.

  The genesis of The Green Berets seems to have been an encounter Wayne had on the USC campus. He was there to discuss a benefit for a children’s hospital and was taking a stroll with Mary St. John when he saw students protesting the Vietnam War.

  What got my goat was that these students were heckling a young marine, a corporal, who was going by and heading for his car. He walked with his back straight as a rod, and he wore his uniform with pride. Then I noticed that where his right arm should have been there was only an empty sleeve which was neatly folded and pinned back.

  Turned out he was one of the Ninth Marine Brigade which were the first ground troops America sent to Vietnam. He had a chest full of medals and ribbons. He said his drill instructor had taught him to ignore impolite civilians. He said, “You don’t give them the satisfaction of noticing them.” I waved to him as he drove away. And my blood was boiling.

  I ran over to the students and I was just so angry, I drummed my fists into their goddamn table and I said, “You stupid bastards! You stupid fucking assholes! Blame Johnson if you like. Blame Kennedy. Blame Eisenhower or Truman or fucking goddamn Roosevelt. But don’t you blame that kid. Don’t you dare blame any of those kids. They served! Jesus, the kid lost his arm. I mean what the hell is happening to this country?

  The first concrete sign of The Green Berets was a December 29, 1965, letter from Wayne to the distinguished director George Stevens. “My company and I want to make a motion picture about the war in Vietnam,” Wayne began. “It will have the scope, integrity and dignity required by the subject matter. . . . Our film about the exciting new unit fighting in Vietnam will be as American as ‘apple pie’ and as harshly against the ‘be
ard and sandal’ brigade as possible.”

  Stevens was no co-religionist of Wayne’s—he was a New Deal liberal. Wayne was writing him because Stevens’s son was working in the Johnson administration and Wayne knew he would need help from the Defense Department.

  Wayne also wrote President Johnson, while George Stevens Jr. spoke to Johnson’s assistant Jack Valenti, who made sure Johnson saw Wayne’s letter. Valenti advised Johnson to give Wayne what he wanted: “Wayne’s politics are wrong, but insofar as Vietnam is concerned, his views are right. If he made the picture he would be saying the things we want said.”

  Wayne opened his offensive by telling Lyndon Johnson that, while he, Wayne, supported the war, he knew it was not popular. It was important that the people of the United States as well as the rest of the world understand why it was important to be there.

  “The most effective way to accomplish this is through the motion picture medium. Some day soon a motion picture will be made about Vietnam. Let’s make sure it is the kind of picture that will help our cause throughout the world.”

  Wayne wanted the cooperation of the Defense Department, just as they had helped on The Longest Day and Sands of Iwo Jima. Unsure if Johnson was a movie fan, he recapitulated his career, slightly exaggerating by saying he had been a star for thirty-seven years, then closed by quoting some of Jimmy Grant’s dialogue from The Alamo, about how a man who gets in the habit of goring oxes gets his appetite whetted. “And we don’t want people like Kosygin, Mao Tse-Tung, or the like, ‘gorin’ our oxes.’ ”

  Three weeks later, Bill Moyers, special assistant to the president, wrote Wayne saying that President Johnson did indeed remember The Alamo and understood the reference. However, whether or not the Defense Department could offer assistance depended on the script. A month after that, Wayne replied to Moyers: “We feel confident that the finished script will be one that adheres closely to the thinking of President Johnson . . . regarding the role being played by the U.S. fighting men in Vietnam.”