John Wayne

JOHN WAYNE IS MORE THAN A COWBJOHN WAYNE IS MORE THAN A COWBOYOY

A photo of John Wayne from the 1940 film, “The Long Voyage Home.”Courtesy | Wikimedia Commons
When a tycoon tried to take a family’s land in the movie “El Dorado,” an alcoholic sheriff did nothing to help – but John Wayne did.
“Your gun hand’s no good,” gunman Nelse McLeod said.
“Just give me time to get down off of this wagon and we’ll find out,” Wayne replied.
While Wayne embodied the character of the American frontier, few Americans know the story behind his own character.
Wayne was born in 1907 to a pharmacist in the small town of Winterset, Iowa. His parents, who struggled financially and often fought, gave him the name Marion Michael Morrison at age five.
His grandfather, a Union Civil War veteran, bought a homestead in California’s Mojave Desert, and his father moved there to help tend the land in 1914. The rest of the family followed soon after and lived on a farm in what Wayne called a “glorified shack.”
“Didn’t have gas nor electricity nor water,” Wayne said, according to The Washington Post. “A stranger visiting from Iowa wouldn’t have believed he was in the 20th century.”
Wayne rode a horse to school until his family moved to Glendale, a Los Angeles suburb, in 1916. He went to Glendale Union High School, where he was president of the Latin society, on the debate team, on the football team, and wrote sports news for the school paper. During these years, his dog Duke never left his side. Locals started calling him “Duke,” and the name stuck.
Wayne’s family kept struggling with finances, which strained the relationship between his mother and father.
“Mom was just not a happy woman,” he said, according to The Washington Post. “No matter what I did, or what Dad did, it was never enough.”
He went to study at the University of Southern California in 1925, where he continued playing football. He worked for the Fox Film Corp. during the summer, where he made inroads and eventually got minor roles in Western films under the name “John Wayne.” He made his first major appearance in the 1939 movie “Stagecoach.”
When America entered World War II, however, he never enlisted. The Japanese struck Pearl Harbor when he was 34 years old, and he was the sole provider for his family, so he got an exemption from the draft.
When the Army later changed its mind, film studios threatened legal action against Wayne should he enlist. They convinced the military he would be more useful making war movies. So he served from the studio, making movies including “The Fighting Seabees” and “Back to Bataan.”
Wayne’s only field experience came from entertaining soldiers in the Pacific with the USO. Army Lt. Col. Fred Stofft, however, served with Wayne in the New Britain Campaign, and recalled him sneaking onto a landing craft to join soldiers invading an island.
“I turned around and there alongside me was Duke. I said, ‘What the devil are you doing here?’ And he said, ‘I want to go and see what’s going on,’” Stofft said. “There was actual fighting and he was part of that.”
Wayne applied to the CIA’s precursor, the Office of Strategic Services, but was never accepted. His wife Pilar wrote that he would become a “superpatriot” to atone for this.
He starred in patriotic films like “The Green Berets” and “The Alamo,” and classic Westerns like “El Dorado” and “Rio Bravo.” He brought a new grit to the industry, which had been stuck in the habit of simply pitting “white hats” against “black hats.”
“The heavy was allowed to hit the hero in the head with a chair or throw a kerosene lamp at him or kick him in the stomach, but the hero could only knock the villain down politely and then wait,” Wayne said. “I changed all that. I threw chairs and lamps. I fought hard and I fought dirty. I fought to win.”
Wayne applied this in other areas of his life, supporting conservative causes and pushing against Hollywood’s left-wing current.
“I thought I was a liberal,” he said. “I came up terribly surprised one time when I found that I was a right-wing, conservative extremist.”
Wayne founded the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals in 1944 to obstruct efforts by “communist, fascist, and other totalitarian-minded groups to pervert this powerful medium.” He strongly supported Republican Sen. Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee, even playing the role of a HUAC investigator in the 1952 movie “Big Jim McClain.” Wayne criticized communist teaching in schools.
“You’re being conned into Keynesian socialism,” Wayne said. “It isn’t going to stop the selfishness of human behavior. It isn’t going to stop the greed.”
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, a film buff, allegedly tried to kill Wayne for his on-screen persona and his off-screen anti-communism, according to the book “John Wayne – The Man Behind the Myth.” Author Michael Munn wrote that Stalin sent two KGB assassins after Wayne in 1951, but the FBI intercepted them in Hollywood, according to The Guardian. They brought the men to Wayne, who made them defect by staging a mock execution on the beach. Munn wrote that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev apologized to Wayne in 1958 for the plots.
While these claims are disputed, Munn cited popular actor Orson Welles, who supposedly heard of the plots from imprisoned Soviet filmmakers. Welles disliked Wayne, so would have nothing to gain from spreading these rumors.
Wayne’s status as an American icon, however, is undisputed. He acted consistently with principle and true grit.
“I want to play a real man in all my films, and I define manhood simply,” Wayne said. “Men should be tough, fair, and courageous. Never petty, never looking for a fight, but never backing down from one either.”

John Wayne

Why John Wayne Turned Down the Chance to Work With Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood and John Wayne are the two biggest legends in the history of Western movies, however, they never worked together. The duo did have the opportunity to work together once in the 1970s. Here’s why the film never came to fruition.

How John Wayne responded when Clint Eastwood tried to work with him

Firstly, a little background. According to the book John Wayne: The Life and Legend, it all starts with Larry Cohen. Though Cohen is not a widely known director like Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino, he’s a huge name to fans of B movies. He directed famous B movies like The Stuff, Q: The Winged Serpent, It’s Alive, and God Told Me To. He also wrote a script called The Hostiles shortly after Eastwood released his classic High Plains Drifter.

The Hostiles was about a gambler who wins half of an estate of an older man. The gambler and the older man have to work together despite the fact that they don’t like each other. Eastwood optioned the screenplay with the intent of playing the gambler alongside Wayne as the older man.

Eastwood sent a copy of the script of The Hostiles to Wayne. Although Eastwood felt the script was imperfect, he saw its potential. However, Wayne was not interested. Eastwood pitched the film to Wayne a second time and Wayne responded with a letter. Wayne’s letter complained about High Plains Drifter. Wayne was offended by the film and its portrayal of the Old West as a cruel, violent place.

John Wayne

Ann-Margret Refused to Call John Wayne ‘Duke’ While Introducing 1 of His Movies

Ann-Margret once starred in one of John Wayne’s lesser-known movies. However, she refused to call him by his popular moniker Duke. Here’s a look at the film they made together — and why she declined to call him by a nickname.

The one time Ann-Margret and John Wayne made a movie together

Ann-Margret is probably most known for her work in musicals, specifically Bye Bye Birdie, Viva Las Vegas, and The Who’s Tommy. However, she also dabbled in the Western genre. She starred alongside Wayne in the mostly forgotten movie The Train Robbers.

Wayne was also known as The Duke or just Duke. According to USA Today, the nickname was derived from his childhood dog. It stuck with him for many years. It continues to be used today — even on the box covers of the DVDs for his movies.

John Wayne | Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

During an interview with Interview Magazine, Ann-Margret explained why she didn’t refer to the Rio Bravo star by this famous name. “When I came to this country, first of all, mother and I didn’t know English,” she said. “I would curtsey, then say, ‘Thank you,’ and then when I was leaving, curtsey. For example, we went to Dallas to introduce a film I did with John Wayne. And I never called him Duke. I just couldn’t. That’s the way I was raised. When you meet someone, you say either Mr. or Mrs. or Miss. You stand up.”

Ann-Margret revealed she treated other famous people in much the same way. For example, she worked with director George Sidney on Bye Bye Birdie and Viva Las Vegas. She always called him Mr. Sidney.

What Ann-Margret thought about John Wayne

Ann-Margret refused to use Wayne’s most famous moniker. However, she had a positive view of the actor. During an interview with Fox News, she was asked what she expected when she met Wayne. “Oh, I didn’t know what to expect,” she revealed. “But when he hugged me, it’s like the world was hugging me. He was so big and wide with that booming voice.

“We were shooting in Durango, Mexico and my parents came down to visit me,” she added. “He was so great with my parents. So absolutely welcoming and gentle with them. And anybody who was great to my parents was on a throne in my eyes.”

How the world reacted to ‘The Train Robbers’

Wayne starred in many classic Westerns, including The Searchers, Stagecoach, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. However, The Train Robbers is mostly forgotten. It didn’t gain a cult following like Once Upon a Time in the West or Dead Man. It wasn’t a critical success either, garnering a 33% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, Ann-Margret had some fond memories of making the film — even if she refused to call Wayne by his famous nickname.

John Wayne

True Crime on Amazon Prime: ‘Lorena’ Reexamines a 90s Tabloid Sensation

True crime might not be the first type of show that comes to mind when you think of the offerings on Amazon Prime Video. The perpetually buzzy genre is usually more associated with the likes of Netflix and HBO.

However, the streaming service boasts at least one standout docuseries from 2019. It’s one that can scratch the true crime itch for fans, but also give them a much needed new perspective on a well-worn tabloid sensation from the 1990s.

‘Lorena’ was produced by Jordan Peele of ‘Get Out’ fame

Jordan Peele, Head of Amazon Studios Jennifer Salke, and Lorena Gallo attend the 'Lorena' Premiere during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Jordan Peele, Head of Amazon Studios Jennifer Salke, and Lorena Gallo attend the ‘Lorena’ Premiere during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. | Rich Fury/Getty Images

Lorena, as the simple, to-the-point title suggests, chronicles the sordid story of Lorena and Jon Bobbit. The series was produced by Jordan Peele, the comedian-turned-director best known for Get Out and Us, and released on Amazon Prime Video in early 2019 following a premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

In 1993, Lorena Bobbitt infamously cut her husband, John Wayne Bobbitt’s penis off in his sleep with a kitchen carving knife. She drove off with it, tossed it out the car window into a field, and eventually called 911 to report the incident. After a search followed by 9.5 hours of surgery, John Bobbitt was able to get his penis reattached and functioning normally.

Thanks in large part to the salacious and sexual nature of the Bobbittss story, it quickly became a tabloid and late-night talk show sensation. Sadly, as one might expect from a male-dominated culture, the media spectacle largely focused on John Bobbitt as a sympathetic victim and cast Lorena as a hysterical victim. John Bobbitt went on to become something of a cult figure for a time, even starring in two pornographic films.

Part of the mission statement of Lorena, the series, was to use the true crime format to recontextualize the Lorena Bobbitt story. Despite the prevailing perception of the incident beforehand, in reality, John Bobbitt had subjected Lorena to years of domestic abuse and rape, up to and including the night of her attack.

John Bobbitt was eventually acquitted on rape charges. Lorena Bobbitt was found not guilty by a jury for reasons of insanity.

“25 years later, Lorena is a groundbreaking re-investigation of the deep moral issues and painful human tragedies buried at the heart of this infamous American scandal,” Amazon’s official description of the series reads, as reported by Deadline. “Lost in the tabloid coverage and jokes was the opportunity for a national discussion on domestic and sexual assault in America.”

Lorena saw a positive reaction upon its release, currently boasting an 82% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It was the biggest project yet from director Joshua Rofé, who previously helmed Lost for Life, a documentary about juvenile offenders sentenced to life in prison.