John Wayne Started His Career In Show Business By (Literally) Knocking Over John Ford – My Blog
When it comes to classic collaborations between actors and directors, few can compete with John Ford and John Wayne. The two made movies together for most of their working careers. Even though Ford had a complicated working relationship with Wayne according to most accounts, bullying and belittling him when the cameras were off, they shared a great affection for each other between movies. And at their best, those movies are unbeatable. Ford had a bit of a reputation for his behavior on sets, coming from his tendency to yell or roughhouse. If Ford could be a bit of a heel on set, a tyrannical bully with a megaphone, he was beloved to many of his longtime actors, the wide-ranging community that became known as the John Ford Stock Company. In many ways, his behavior was probably excused as a lot of masculine ribbing, men ridiculing each other in the tradition of the Navy or farmwork cultures Ford so loved.There was a reason that John Wayne did his best to save young John Agar from the director’s wrath on the set of 1948’s “Fort Apache.” The actor was a Ford veteran at that point, having gotten his first Hollywood jobs from the director 20 years beforehand. He knew the man’s tempers well.In fact, when he got those first jobs, Wayne had to stand up for himself before John Ford. He was just a USC student on a football scholarship then. When Ford decided to try tackling him, he proved his mettle.The linemen
United ArtistsNeither John Ford nor John Wayne went by their birth names. They had multiple reasons to adopt show business names, whether it was Ford’s desire to not go by his Irish surname of Feeney or Wayne’s first name being the decidedly not rugged Marion. Ford’s name came from his brother Francis, his older sibling who moved west to make pictures in the early 1900s. Wayne’s came from Raoul Walsh, who cast the actor in his doomed cutting-edge proto-widescreen epic “The Big Trail.”Both men also came from the world of American football. According to Joseph McBride’s “Searching for John Ford,” the director was nicknamed “Bull” Feeney as a student at Portland High School in Maine for his prowess (and brutality) on the field. Even in the fairly unregulated era of the early 1910s, he was notorious for playing rough, and on the rowdy sets of his silent films, lawless football games were rituals. After moving to California, he became a big fan of college football, particularly coach Howard Jones’s team at the University of Southern California. Watching those games, he saw Marion Morrison, the man who would be John Wayne.At that time, Wayne was just a prelaw student and a surprisingly graceful football lineman at USC. He went by “Duke.” In the summers, he worked as a prop man on local sets, “lugging around furniture and other props” according to McBride. 1926 saw his first film role ever, as a wild, no-line spectator at a horse race in Ford’s Irish drama, “Hangman’s House.” But their first meeting was a tough one.The wrath of FordUnited ArtistsJohn Ford’s tendency to belittle and emasculate his male actors didn’t start with John Wayne, but Wayne saw perhaps the most brutal edge of it. A lot of it goes back to that first meeting, when Ford saw Wayne working on a set, talked about football some, and delivered what Joseph McBride called “a macho hazing ritual.”John Wayne remembered the incident during his 1976 appearance on “The Phil Donahue Show,” talking about how Ford, having played a great deal of football in his life, got Wayne to try to tackle him. As Wayne recalled, “he just kicked my feet out from under me.” Wayne was reeling from the typically rough work of Ford, who, per McBride, sneered at the young prop man and sarcastically said, “and you call yourself a football player.”That gave Wayne the push he needed to attempt something on the older man. He didn’t have any interest in an acting career at that time, so, no fear for his professional future, he asked Ford to try it again. That time, when Ford came charging, Wayne kicked him in the chest and knocked him over. There was, as Wayne recalled, “a deadly silence.”And then laughter. Wayne proved his mettle to Ford, who was so charmed by his willingness to fight back that he hired him a couple more times through the ’20s. He didn’t give John Wayne a starring role until a decade later, with 1939’s “Stagecoach,” which was effectively the star’s entry into the big leagues after 10 years of low-budget cowboy flicks.
‘Black movie queen’ Maureen O’Hara – a close colleague of John Wayne passed away in front of the audience’s mourning. – My Blog
The star of the movie “Miracle on 34th Street”, a familiar co-star of actor John Wayne, has passed away due to old age and weakness. Maureen O’Hara, an Irish star, was once known as “the queen of movies. color”, died at his home in Boise, Idaho, USA, on October 24, at the age of 95.
The information was confirmed by Johnny Nicoletti, her long-time manager. “She passed away in the loving arms of her family, as well as on the soundtrack of the movie The Quiet Man that she loved so much,” one Maureen O’Hara’s relatives shared.
During her illustrious career, O’Hara had five times played the screen lover of actor John Wayne. She appeared in many classic Hollywood films, such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), How Green Was My Valley (1941), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952). , Our Man in Havana (1959) and The Parent Trap (1961).
However, she never received an Oscar nomination. A year before Maureen O’Hara’s death, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to present her with an honorary Oscar for her service to Hollywood.
During the 1940s, when color film began to flourish, Maureen O’Hara appeared in a series of compelling works such as To the Shores of Tripoli (1942), The Black Swan (1942), The Spanish Main (1945). and The Quiet Man.
Possessing fair skin, red hair, as well as green eyes, she “shines like the sun on a silver screen,” as the New York Times described it. It was Dr. Herbert Kalmus, the inventor of color film, who gave Maureen O’Hara the nickname “color film queen”.
The reason why John Wayne is labeled ‘Draft Dodger’ in Wor ւ ԁ War II . – My Blog
When actor John Wayne visited American soldiers in Vietnam in the summer of 1966, he was warmly welcomed. As he spoke to groups and individuals, he was presented gifts and letters from American and South Vietnamese troops alike. This was not the case during his USO tours in 1942 and ’43.According to author Garry Wills’ 1998 book, “John Wayne’ America: the Politics of Celebrity,” the actor received a chorus of boos when he walked onto the USO stages in Australia and the Pacific Islands. Those audiences were filled with combat veterans. Wayne, in his mid-30s, was not one of them.
Around the time the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Wayne was not the big-name actor we remember him being today. He was fresh off the box-office success of the 1939 film “Stagecoach.”Being drafted or enlisting was going to have a serious impact on his rising star. Depending on how long the ԝаr lasted, Wayne reportedly worried he might be too old to be a leading man when he came home.
Other actors, both well-established and rising in fame, rushed off to do their part. Clark Gable joined the Army Air Forces and, despite the studios’ efforts to get him into a motion picture unit, served as an aerial ɡսոոеr over Europe. Jimmy Stewart was initially ineligible for the draft, given his low weight, but like some amazing version of Captain America, he drank beer until he qualified.In his 2014 book, “American Titan: Searching for John Wayne,” author Marc Eliot alleges Wayne was having an affair with actress Marlene Dietrich. He says the possibility of losing this relationship was the real reason Wayne didn’t want to go to ԝаr.
But even Dietrich would do her part, smuggling Jewish people out of Europe, entertaining troops on the front lines (she crossed into Germany alongside Gen. George S. Patton) and maybe even being an operative for the Office of Strategic Services.Wayne never enlisted and even filed for a 3-A draft deferment, which meant that if the sole provider for a family of four were drafted, it would cause his family undue hardship. The closest he would ever come to Worւԁ Wаr II service would be portraying the actions of others on the silver screen.
With his leading man competition fighting the ԝаr and out of the way, Wayne became Hollywood’s top leading man. During the ԝаr, Wayne starred in a number of western films as well as Worւԁ Wаr II movies, including 1942’s “Flying Tigers” and 1944’s “The Fighting Seabees.” According to Eliot, Wayne told friends the best thing he could do for the ԝаr was make movies to support the troops. Eventually, the government agreed.
At one point during the ԝаr, the need for more men in uniform caused the U.S. military brass to change Wayne’s draft status to 1-A, fit for duty. But Hollywood studios intervened on his behalf, arguing that the actor’s star power was a boon for ԝаrtime propaganda and the morale of the troops. He was given a special 2-A status, which back then meant he was deferred in “support of national interest.”The decision not to serve or to avoid it entirely (depending on how you look at the actor) haunted Wayne for the rest of his life. His third wife, Pilar Wayne, says he became a “super-patriot for the rest of his life trying to atone for staying at home.”