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John Wayne’s ’embarrassment’ over becoming a ‘singing cowboy’ – Old western – My Blog

John Wayne, the iconic Hollywood star whose films like How the West Was Won and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon can be streamed on BBC iPlayer, was once left so embarrassed by one of his performances that he nearly gave up acting, unearthed accounts show. Nicknamed the Duke, Wayne enjoyed a stellar career in Tinsel Town, earning credits in more than 180 films and TV productions. His career peaked in 1970 when he clinched the fabled Academy Award for Best Actor he craved.

But Wayne, born in Iowa in 1907, nearly quit the profession that made him one of the Golden Age of Cinema’s most profitable and popular stars after one of his performances in a romantic comedy fell flat.Before finding fame as a Western megastar, the Duke appeared in flicks such as Brown of Harvard and Girls Demand Excitement, titles that drew upon his previous experience in American Football and sports.

It was his role in the latter that left him fearful that people were poking fun at him, the actor still in school at the time.In a 1976 interview, The Bobby Wygant Archive reported, Wayne felt he wouldn’t be popular among his schoolfriends, saying: “I can remember I was going down the street just talking to myself. Thinking, ‘Geez, how am I going to face…’“You know, most of my friends were still the kids in school. I just didn’t think I could face my fraternity brother if they saw this picture.”His career soon moved on though, and next up for Wayne was the 1930 flick The Big Trail.This performance, though, left executives unsure of exactly what role Wayne was likely to secure as his career developed.Reflecting on that time, Wayne said: “So the next picture they had me do [after ‘The Big Trail’], they had been training some girls to play basketball for some musical that they were going to make that would cost a lot of money.“Now with the depression, they’ve decided against it. So now they have these girls that have learned to play basketball. So they write a story about a college in which the boys don’t want the girls there. So it was probably as ridiculous a thing as I’ve ever been in.”And then Wayne’s place on the frontier was found. He noted how the executives “put me in those quirky westerns”, and that for a period, he was able to develop a “beautiful life for about 10 years of hunting from September to March, and doing the four-and-a-half and five-day pictures”.But success still wasn’t guaranteed yet, and the actor pointed out how at one point he was “made into a singing cowboy”.During a 1971 interview with Playboy, Wayne continued: “The fact that I couldn’t sing — or play the guitar — became terribly embarrassing to me, especially on personal appearances.”“Every time I made a public appearance, the kids insisted that I sing The Desert Song or something.“But I couldn’t take along the fella who played the guitar out on one side of the camera and the fella who sang on the other side of the camera.”It left Wayne so infuriated that he considered giving up a career in Hollywood altogether. He wanted to maintain a connection with his younger fans and felt that not being able to perform for them let them down.Wayne claimed that he then “quit doing those kinds of pictures,” adding: “It was 1939 before I made ‘Stagecoach’ — the picture that really made me a star.“Let’s say I hope that I appeal to the more carefree times in a person’s life rather than to his reasoning adulthood.“I’ve played many parts in which I’ve rebelled against something in society. I was never much of a joiner. Kids do join things, but they also like to consider themselves individuals capable of thinking for themselves. So do I.”Wayne’s career in the film industry may not have happened at all had he not been injured while training to become an American Football star, according to the star’s friend Eugene Clarke, in Scott Eyman’s 2014 book John Wayne: The Life and Legend.He noted how Wayne went to Balboa and saw “a lot of USC sorority girls… and we decided to do a little showing off”. Clarke continued: “We jumped in the water — it was Duke’s idea — and started to do what the kids nowadays call body surfing.“The waves were pretty high, real rough, and one of them caught Duke and tossed him ashore with a badly wrenched right shoulder.”Wayne needed time off training as he was in “pretty bad shape”, and his coach demanded one of the star’s fellow players to “hit him with your right shoulder… real hard”.Clarke added: “If Duke tried to do that with his injured shoulder, it would have killed him. So what he tried to do was twist his body around so he could block with the left shoulder. Well, Jones saw him do that and that was all he needed.“All hell broke loose. Jones accused the Duke of being yellow, of being afraid to block and demoted him to the scrubs.”

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How did Paul Koslo ever have a tense encounter with star John Wayne ? – My Blog

In 1975, the Canadian actor starring The Duke in Rooster Cogburn. At the time, Koslo was only 19 and still relatively green in the industry. So working with the Hollywood legend was a bit stressful.


During an installment of World on Westerns, Paul Koslo shared his experiences with John Wayne, including a time where he nearly stepped on Wayne’s lines.As the story goes, Wayne had a short 15 line monologue. And once he was finished, Koslo was supposed to respond. And as they were filming, Wayne said his part. But when it was Koslo’s turn, he froze.“The director said ‘Paul, why didn’t you say your lines?’” the actor remembered.

“And I said, ‘well, because I didn’t wanna cut him off because he hadn’t said all of his lines yet.’” Hearing the conversation, John Wayne jumped in saying, “who’s gonna? Nobody’s gonna cut me off. I can say whatever I want, you got it, kid?”Of course, the interaction made Koslo nervous, and the only response he could muster was, “okay, sir.”However, the actor admitted that the Western icon wasn’t as intimidating as the story made him sound.

Koslo shared that as long as his co-stars worked hard, Wayne was always their biggest supporter.“My impression of him was that if you did your stuff, and you were right on top of it, he was your best buddy. But if you were like a slacker, or you weren’t prepared, he could get on your case.”During the AWOW interview, Paul Koslo also shared some details behind the age-old feud between John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn.

“I mean, Kate and him, they were always like this,” said Koslo, while punching his fists together.According to Koslo, politics were behind the fight. Hepburn was a democrat and Wayne was a republican.“It seemed like… in a fun way. I don’t know if it was for real,” he admitted. “You know, she would be sitting on the hood of a truck going like a hundred feet down to the set where they were shooting, and how Wallis was having heart attacks. She was really a daredevil, and she was full of piss and vinegar.”

The actor also noted that he didn’t get to spend much time with the actress, so he couldn’t get a proper gauge on the so-called feud. Almost all his time was spent with The Duke.The only interaction Koslo had with Hepburn was while shooting an intense scene where they were “moving this nitroglycerin to another location because we were going to rob the U.S. Treasury with it, and [John Wayne’s] about to ambush us.”And that happened right before Paul Koslo nearly stepped on John Wayne’s lines.

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What John Wayne said in his angry letter to Clint Eastwood and how Eastwood responded. – My Blog

John Wayne and Clint Eastwood are the two biggest icons of the Western movies, however, Wayne wasn’t always a fan of Eastwood’s work. In fact, Wayne hated one of Eastwood’s Westerns so much he sent him a letter decrying the film. Here’s how Eastwood reacted to the letter — and how the public reacted to this movie.

This Clint Eastwood movie was a lot darker than John Wayne’s films : First, a little background. The Western was a staple of American cinema from its early days. It often presented a glorified view of American expansionism. During and after the civil rights movement, Westerns began to evolve, often presenting a critical or at least cynical view of the Old West. Movies like that became especially popular during the 1970s, but by the 1980s the genre was no longer an American staple.


One of the more famous dark Westerns from the 1970s was High Plains Drifter. The film is about a mysterious criminal who comes into town, to get revenge for his brother who was murdered as many of the townsfolk watched by idly. No one in the film is very sympathetic — they’re all either evil or passive in the face of evil. It’s a far cry from the more uplifting films which made Wayne famous.


What John Wayne said in his letter to Clint Eastwood — and how Eastwood responded : It’s very easy to see High Plains Drifter as a critique of the American West. According to the book Ride, Boldly Ride: The Evolution of the American Western, that’s how Wayne saw the film. In addition, he saw it as incorrect.Eastwood told Kenneth Turan “John Wayne once wrote me a letter saying he didn’t like High Plains Drifter. He said it wasn’t really about the people who pioneered the West.

I realized that there’s two different generations, and he wouldn’t understand what I was doing. High Plains Drifter was meant to be a fable: it wasn’t meant to show the hours of pioneering drudgery. It wasn’t supposed to be anything about settling the West.” According to the book John Wayne: The Life and Legend, Eastwood did not write back. How the public reacted to ‘High Plains Drifter’ : Clearly, Wayne was upset by the film. This raises an interesting question: Did High Plains Drifter resonate with the public?

According to Box Office Mojo, High Plains Drifter earned over $15 million. Even by the standards of the 1970s, High Plains Drifter was not a tremendous hit. For comparison, Box Office Mojo reports a less dark 1970s Western starring Eastwood called The Outlaw Josey Wales earned over $31 million.Regardless, High Plains Drifter has a bit of a legacy. It was the first Western that Eastwood directed himself. Eastwood would go on to direct several other Westerns including the Oscar-winning Unforgiven. Wayne wasn’t much of a fan of High Plains Drifter — and neither was the public.

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John Wayne spent a lot of time in Mexico doing charity work at orphanages . – My Blog

Easily overlooked amid the prolific acting career and larger-than-life persona was John Wayne’s generosity. He was generous with his family, whom he welcomed into his own career with open arms. And in the years since his ԁеаtһ, the philanthropy carried out by his estate has been dedicated to cancer research.Recently, the official John Wayne Instagram account posted a throwback photo from 1970.


It shows Duke visiting a Mexican orphanage with actress Raquel Welch.“Giving back to the community was important to Duke, he’s pictured here with Raquel Welch visiting an orphanage in Mexico in 1970,” the caption of the post reads.The heartwarming photo shows John Wayne giving a smile to a child outside the orphanage. Raquel Welch can be seen behind him to the right, doing the same thing.

John Wayne Had an Affinity for Mexico : John Wayne spent a lot of time in Mexico. For one, the iconic Western actor filmed no less than six movies in the country throughout his career. Beyond his acting career, however, Duke just loved spending time there.Granted, most of that time wasn’t spent at orphanages. But John Wayne did his small part in other ways too.

The town of Chupaderos in Northwestern Mexico was effectively built by Wayne and the movies he filmed there. Although, it did fall on hard times after he stopped making movies there.Nonetheless, Mexico was one of Wayne’s favorite destinations. His estate posted another photo back in April of the Western icon taking in the sights of Acapulco.“Duke loved to travel all over the world and one of his favorite places to visit was Mexico.

He’s pictured here in Acapulco in the late 1940’s, where he owned a hotel called Hotel Los Flamingos with his friend Johnny Weissmuller, who played Tarzan,” part of the caption reads.One of the things that brought Wayne to Mexico was his yacht, the Wild Goose. One of his favorite activities was sailing it down the coast of Mexico with his family.“For a long time, whenever I dreamed about him, we were on the boat,” John Wayne’s daughter Marisa said.Duke Owned a Hotel in Acapulco, Mexico : As the caption from the Instagram posts mentions, John Wayne owned a hotel in Mexico.

Along with a group of celebrities, John Wayne bought Hotel Los Flamingos in 1954 to use as a private getaway.After using it for vacations and private events for a few years, the group decided to sell the hotel. Today, Hotel Los Flamingos is still in operation. And fortunately for travel-inclined fans of the Duke, getting a room there is actually pretty affordable.

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