Actor John Wayne had three wives over the course of his life. However, the couples would always go through various hardships. Wayne always publicly embraced family life and would combine his image as a father with his tough, Western one. The actor once confided in a friend and told them the “stupidest damn thing” he ever did over the course of his lifetime.

John Wayne married his second wife 3 weeks after his divorce became final

Marc Eliot’s American Titan: Searching for John Wayne touched on personal and professional aspects of the actor’s life. The divorce from his first wife, Josephine, was finalized on December 26, 1945. However, that certainly didn’t stop the actor from jumping into another relationship soon after. Wayne married Esperanza Baur, also called Chata, exactly three weeks after his divorce in the Unity Presbyterian Church of Long Beach, which is where his mother married her second husband, Sidney Preen. Actor Ward Bond was Wayne’s best man.

However, everything in Wayne’s life would change when he returned to Los Angeles after his honeymoon with his new wife. They purchased a new home in Van Nuys, California, and made sure to have a separate room for his mother-in-law. As a result, the newly-married couple started to have some difficulties.

John Wayne said that marrying Chata was the ‘stupidest damn thing I ever did in my life’

American Titan: Searching for John Wayne mentioned that Chata wanted to get a real role in a movie, but Wayne didn’t want her to have the life of a movie star. As a result, he told her that she belonged at home. Chata didn’t take this very well and turned to alcohol, developing an addiction.

Wayne ultimately turned to Bond to complain about Chata and his mother-in-law speaking Spanish and their desire for a bigger home. His new wife and her mother would often sleep in the same bed, forcing the actor to sleep on the couch in the living room.

Eliot wrote that Wayne took pride in his physical appearance and kept it in a specific condition for the camera. His ex-wife also took care of her physical appearance, but Chata refused to remove her facial hair, as she had a bit of a mustache. She also wouldn’t bathe very often and refused to shave her legs, which would make Wayne angry. Their arguments became increasingly frequent, which Wayne told Bond.

“Our marriage was like shaking two volatile chemicals in a jar,” Wayne said, admitting that marrying Chata was “the stupidest damn thing I ever did in my life!”

The actor would marry one final time

Wayne’s life moved on past Chata, as they divorced in 1954. Tragically, she died from a heart attack in 1961. Wayne married one final time to Pilar Pallete in the same year that he divorced Chata. They would ultimately remain married until the actor died in 1979, although they no longer lived together. The couple separated, but it was never legally so.

Meanwhile, Wayne became romantically involved with his former secretary, Pat Stacy, until his death.

Actor James Caan once talked about what it was like working with legendary actor John Wayne on El Dorado. The then-young actor didn’t initially get along with the Western star. However, they would ultimately develop their relationship in unexpected ways, as Wayne turned into a “big prankster” with Caan on the set. It’s a whole other side to the iconic actor that the world didn’t get to see very often.

John Wayne and James Caan co-starred in ‘El Dorado’

Wayne and Caan co-starred in Howard Hawks’ 1966 American Western called El Dorado, which was loosely based on Harry Brown’s novel called The Stars in Their Courses. The story begins when a heartless tycoon named Bart Jason (Edward Asner) brings in a group of thugs to claim the MacDonald family’s home right from under them. However, the town’s sheriff is too drunk to lend his aid.

An elder gunfighter named Cole Thorton (Wayne) agrees to lend his aid when he hears about the situation. He makes a trip to El Dorado, but he isn’t alone. Mississippi (Caan) joins to clean up the sheriff in time for the inevitable shootout to come.

John Wayne and James Caan turned into ‘big pranksters’ on the set

Find out what was it like working with Duke on the set of El Dorado! Spoiler: Duke was a big prankster 😂 pic.twitter.com/5HMi3YpcLB

— John Wayne Official (@JohnDukeWayne) August 25, 2021

The official Wayne Twitter account tweeted an interview with Caan, where he talked about filming El Dorado. However, the situation that unfolded is anything but expected, as the tweet referred to Wayne as a “big prankster.”

“Wayne told me every time, he says, ‘Take a step, turn around.’ So, I do it and Hawks would yell ‘Cut’ and come walking, they’d reset everything, which took a half hour,” Caan recalled. “He’d go, ‘Look, kid, when you say the line, just go.’ ‘All right, coach. I’m sorry.’”

Caan continued: “Now, he walks, he does, as he’s walking back to the camera, he goes, ‘Now, look, kid. Don’t take a whole step. Just take a half a step and then turn around and give me that look you give me.’ I still have no idea what the freaking look is. I think I was smiling, just laughing at him. Action, everything starts up again, I take a half a step, turn around: ‘Cut!’ (Laughs). He comes up, yelling, ‘What’s the matter with you? Can’t you just say the line and go?’ ‘Coach, I’m really sorry. I don’t know what happened. I had a brain fart, something.’”

However, the next interaction would nearly put Wayne and Caan on very bad terms.

“He starts walking back and he goes, ‘Now look, kid,’ and I turn around and [Robert] Mitchum grabbed me, I was going to hit him,” Caan said. “From that day, we were … he knew what he was doing, you know? He was having a good time at my expense.”

The relationship between Wayne and Caan made a sudden turn for the hilarious when they started to play jokes on one another, but it clearly confused Hawks.

“But as a week went by, I’d be off camera and Hawks would be next to me, and Duke would be sitting there. Right in the middle of my scene, I’d go, (mouths) ‘You stink’ and he’d laugh. ‘Oh, what’s the matter there?’ ‘Oh, nothing. Sorry.’ It just became who can screw up who.”

Caan concluded: “Like, one day, you remember those wooden dressing rooms they had? I’d come to lunch, my dressing room’s locked. I go, ‘Excuse me, guys, how come it’s locked? I can’t get in there.’ ‘Well, here’s the key.’ Garbage just came out. He’d just pile it with garbage. He was like a 12-year-old kid.”

‘El Dorado’ became a box office success

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El Dorado would ultimately prove to be a success for both Wayne and Caan. The film earned critical praise, but the legendary Western actor often gave off the impression that he didn’t care what they had to say. Wayne would prefer for the audience to enjoy what he put up on the silver screen. Luckily, he would be in luck with El Dorado, which was a commercial success.

This particular Western would become one of Wayne’s more iconic genre pieces. Even his final movie, The Shootist would incorporate footage from it.

Western movie actor John Wayne has over 180 credits to his name running through 1976. However, some of his most iconic clips frequently come back into popular culture through social media. One particular Wayne clip from Hondo resurfaced and his fans are reminiscing about how they feel about the controversial snippet.

John Wayne starred as Hondo Lane in ‘Hondo’

The 1953 Wayne movie called Hondo was directed by John Farrow. The screenplay was based on the 1952 short story called “The Gift of Cochise.” However, Farrow wasn’t able to finish shooting the movie due to the shoot going over schedule. As a result, Wayne asked his mentor, John Ford, to help out. However, he didn’t receive credit for his work.

Hondo follows an Army dispatch rider named Hondo Lane (Wayne), but everything changes when he becomes their protector. However, they don’t expect him to introduce such massive changes to their lives.

John Wayne fans react to resurfaced ‘Hondo’ movie clip

The official Wayne Twitter account tweeted a movie clip from Hondo. Social media users turned a portion of the snippet into a GIF as a reaction to particular comments online. However, the full Hondo scene itself earned plenty of controversial reactions over time.

In the Hondo clip, the young boy is fishing in a body of water. Hondo approaches him and gives him a piece of advice on where to best position himself to fish. However, the boy explains that he can’t follow his advice because he doesn’t know how to swim. This instantly catches Hondo’s attention and he leans down to ask the young boy how old he is.

The boy responds that he’s 6 years old. In response, the Wayne clip shows him grabbing the young boy and throwing him into the water, who begins to panic in the water. The boy’s mother runs out shouting that he can’t swim.

“Time he learned,” Hondo responded. “Everybody should swim. Just reach out in front and grab a handful of water, pull it back towards you. Not too fast. That’s the way I learned.”

The Wayne movie clip ends with the woman admitting that she doesn’t know how to swim either before running off to avoid Hondo tossing her into the water, as well.

Twitter users responded that this is how their own father taught them. However, they noted that this didn’t work too well with their sibling. Others responded how much they love the Wayne clip and the humor involving the mother.

However, some other Twitter users took this as an opportunity to tease others: “Spit out my orange juice laughing,” one user responded. “Wonder what the ‘safe space’ generation thinks of the John Wayne swim school?” Many other Wayne fans responded in agreement with a few responses calling out their overcommitment to an actor who isn’t a real cowboy.

The movie was a big success with audiences

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Hondo is an example of a Wayne movie that was a big success during its initial release. It became quite popular with audiences, bringing in over $4 million at the box office. As a result, Hondo‘s run ended as one of the top 20 money-making films of the year.

This particular Wayne movie also earned a 3D release at the time, since this format was particularly popular at the time. However, this technology continues to find its way back into popularity before fading away. The same can be said about the Wayne movie clip itself, which occasionally continues to resurface in the form of the full snippet or a simple GIF. Nevertheless, it always garners big reactions for how the actor tossed a young boy without swimming abilities into the water.