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John Wayne

John Wayne Wanted To Make a Film With Ron Howard Just Before His Death

While they worked together in the 1976 film “The Shootist,” John Wayne reportedly was looking into teaming up with Ron Howard once again for another film project shortly before his death in 1979.

In his book “John Wayne: The Life and Legend,” Scott Eyman revealed that Duke was hoping a film project about Beau John would be his last. Although his wish was granted with a contract in 1978, it was less than a year before the actor would pass away. He was then able to get director and friend, Peter Bogdanovich to consider the film he was proposing.

Bogdanovich stated at the time, “It’s kind of a half-western thing, it’s not cowboys and Indians, you know, it’s — oh, the humour and the wonderful relationship between this grandfather and the son and the son-in-law and the grandson. Wayne said, ‘I hope to hell I live to do it. Just a wonderful story.’”

John Wayne then reportedly reached out to Ron Howard to be a part of the project. He told Howard, “I found a book. I think it’s a movie. It’s you and me or it’s nobody.”

Unfortunately, John Wayne passed away on June 11, 1979 and nothing was started for the project. Howard claimed that it never even got past the verbal stage. “And at that point, he was showing signs of not being well. I was a little doubtful.”

Ron Howard Says He Always Admired John Wayne as a Movie Star 

During a 2020 interview with Huffington Post, Ron Howard spoke about what it was like to work with John Wayne in “The Shootist.”

“I always admired him as a movie star, but I thought of him as a total naturalist,” Howard stated about John Wayne. “Even those pauses were probably him forgetting his line and then remembering it again, because, man, he’s The Duke.”

Howard then recalled a moment on the set with John Wayne. “But he’s working on this scene and he’s like, ‘Let me try this again.’ And he put the little hitch in and he’d find the Wayne rhythm, and you’d realize that it changed the performance each and every time. I’ve worked with Bette Davis, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda. Here’s the thing they all have in common: They all, even in their 70s, worked a little harder than everyone else.”

According to IMDb, “The Shootist” follows a dying gunfighter who spends his last days looking for a way to die with a minimum of pain and a maximum of dignity. Howard and Wayne starred in the film with Lauren Bacall and James Stewart. The film earned a nomination for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration from the Oscars. Ron Howard also received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Motion Picture.

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John Wayne

John Wayne: Get to Know The Duke’s 7 Children

Actor John Wayne, known as The Duke by many dads and cowboy movie lovers, was a Hollywood and American icon. His western movies, such as The Searchers, Stagecoach, and Rio Grande, often overseen by director John Ford, are still iconic pieces of Hollywood western lore.

But the man who starred in The Quiet Man and Sands of Iwo Jima and as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit (his only Academy Award win) was far more than just an actor. He was a family man as well. John Wayne had seven children in total from two marriages (another marriage resulted in no children).

Get to know all of John Wane’s kids below.

1. Michael Wayne (November 23, 1934 – April 2, 2003)

The John Wayne Foundation’s former president and chairman of the board is John Wayne’s first child. He started his film career as a production assistant on The Quiet Man and worked for his father’s production company, Batjac Productions. Michael also served as a producer on several of his famous dad’s movies, including The Green Berets, Cahill U.S. Marshal, McLintock! and The Alamo.

2. Mary Antonia “Toni” Wayne LaCava (February 25, 1936 – December 6, 2000)

Born in Los Angeles, California, Toni was the Oscar winner’s first daughter. Like her older brother, she appeared in The Quiet Man in a cameo role. Toni also had an uncredited role in The Alamo.

In 1956 she married Donald La Cava. The couple would go on to have eight children: Anita, Mark, Brigid, Kevin, Christopher, Peter, David and Brendan. She spent the rest of her life privately, as a mother and wife.

3. Patrick Wayne (born July 15, 1939)

Patrick John Morrison, or as he’s known on the screen, Patrick Wayne, is the legendary American actor’s second son. Patrick has had a prolific acting career, including in films like Mister Roberts and The Searchers, which starred his father as well. Patrick also had a great career in sci-fi, starring in films like Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger and The People That Time Forgot. Patrick also screen-tested for the role of Superman.

4. Melinda Wayne Munoz (born December 3, 1940)

John Wayne’s second daughter also had multiple appearances in his films as a child, but did not go into acting long term. Currently, Melinda lives in Newport Beach in Orange County, California, on Balboa, Island. She married Gregory Robert Munoz in 1964. The couple had five children together before divorcing in 1985.

5. Aissa Wayne (born March 31, 1956)

Aissa Wayne, like the rest of her siblings, had cameos in her dad’s movies as a kid, but she grew up to be a high-powered attorney.

According to her website, “Ms. Wayne is an experienced trial attorney having been trained as a criminal prosecutor for the City of Los Angeles. Our associate attorneys, Of Counsel and paralegals are qualified and experienced in the area of Family Law.”

6. John Ethan Wayne (born February 22, 1962)

The current director of John Wayne Enterprises and the John Wayne Cancer Foundation, which was founded after John Wayne died of stomach cancer, Ethan Wayne very much followed in dad’s footsteps. The actor has appeared in the NBC TV movie The Alamo: 13 Days to Glory, the CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, and the television series Adam-12.

7. Marisa Wayne (born February 22, 1966)

The daughter of John Wayne and his third wife, Pilar Pallete Wayne, was born on February 22, 1966, in Burbank, California. Marisa, like her other siblings, had cameos in a couple of her dad’s movies. She did not, however, pursue acting. She married Tony Ditteaux on May 4, 2005, and the pair have had two children.

Granddaughter Jennifer Wayne

The granddaughter of John Wayne and Pilar Wayne and the daughter of Aissa Wayne has followed in granddad’s footsteps, in a sense. No, she’s not an actress, but she is a performer. The country music singer and songwriter performs in the band Runaway June, who have hit songs including “Buy My Own Drinks” and “Head Over Heels.”

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John Wayne

John Wayne sends fans the last message of his life in ”The Shootist”.

John Wayne. What can you say about him? Whether you enjoy the man’s work or not, there’s no denying that he has made a massive impact on film history and pop culture. But even as a fan, I can’t defend every aspect of the Duke, like the guy’s acting. I can’t think of anyone who’s watched a John Wayne film for his acting chops.

The man was more known for his screen persona than his acting abilities, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have some good advice on acting.There are, however, a couple of films in which Duke pull off a pretty good performance . There’s his iconic role as Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (1956) where he played a cold-hearted and cynical war veteran searching for his niece.

Then there’s his Oscar-winning performance as the one-eyed, fat, drunken Marshal Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn in True Grit (1969). But in this column, I’m going to talk about his last performance in a feature film :Тһе Տһootıѕt (1976), directed by Don Siegel.Based on the Glendon Swarthout novel of the same name, the film tells the story of an aging gunfighter named JB Books, played by Duke, who at the dawn of the 20th century finds out he has terminal cancer.

Per this news, he decided to try and spend his final days in peace. But as rumors spread about him through the tiny town of Carson City, Nevada, more people want to get a piece of him. It eventually climaxes with Books realizing that he’ll never escape his past and going out the only way he knows how.Before I go on about John Wayne in the film, I have to talk about the rest of the cast.

This film boasts an all-star ensemble, many of whom took the role purely as a favor to Wayne. There’s Dr. Hostetler (James Stewart) who delivers the bad news to Books about his health and becomes a closer friend throughout the film. “You know, Books,” he says, “I’m not an especially brave man. But, if I were you and had lived my entire life the way you have, I don’t think that the ԁеаtһ I just described to you is the one I would choose.”

Then there’s the late, great Lauren Bacall as the widowed boarding house owner Bond Rogers and Oscar-winning director Ron Howard as her wide-eyed idolizing son. The film also features a slew of great TV and Western legends — Richard Boone as the vengeance seeking Mike Sweeney, John Carradine as the town’s undertaker Hezekiah Beckum, Bill McKinney as the ill-tempered Jay Cobb, Scatman Crothers as the liver-stable owner Moses Brown, and Harry Morgan as the fast-talking and loud Marshal Thibido.

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John Wayne

How Maureen O’Hara Broke Her Hand During Iconic Scene With John Wayne

John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara starred in five films together over the course of their impressive movie careers. The only thing greater than their off-screen friendship was their on-screen chemistry.

Even though the pair had undeniable affection for each other, their film takes weren’t always flawless. In fact, one of their most memorable movie scenes resulted in O’Hara breaking her wrist. The scene takes place in The Quiet Man, a movie that was considered to be a passion project for director John Ford…the same man who introduced John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara at a party.

In a 2004 interview with Diane Sawyer, Maureen O’Hara shared a behind-the-scenes details about how filming a scene with John Wayne while she was angry at him resulted in her broken wrist.

“That particular day I was mad at him,” O’Hara recalled of a day on the set of The Quiet Man. “I was hitting him for real and I was intending to break his jaw. As you’ll see, as I hauled off to hit him, he puts his hand up and stops it. In that moment he snaps my wrist back and cracked a bone in my wrist.”

O’Hara finished filming the scene then went to the hospital. She later returned to the set to continue working because “you got no sympathy.”

O’Hara went on to explain in the interview that she was angry because John Wayne and the movie’s director had put down sheep’s dung for the scene where Wayne’s character drags O’Hara’s on the ground.

“Let me tell you, it stinks!” O’Hara said. “They loved tormenting me. Probably because I reacted. If I had had the sense not to even react they probably would have quit tormenting me.”

Hear Maureen O’Hara talk about breaking her hand while taking a swing at John Wayne in the clip below.

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