John Wayne

John Wayne lost his fortune twice, both times in a way you could lose, too

If all-powerful movie star John Wayne can lose his life savings not once but twice to people he trusted, what chance do you have?
In a Watchdog tradition, every December I profile a prominent American who got snookered, looking for clues to how to make sure the same financial tragedy doesn’t happen to us.
I started in 2019 with my personal hero, Benjamin Franklin, who as a 19-year-old printer believed a British governor’s promises to set him up in a London print shop. Franklin never got a penny.

In 2020, I wanted to know if circus master P.T. Barnum actually said a sucker is born every minute. Turns out a competitor said that about him. Barnum said a customer is born every minute. Barnum lost half a million dollars in a failed clock factory scam. He filed for bankruptcy.

Last year, I studied the life of Dallas founder John Neely Bryan, Dallas’ first known white resident who also served as the town’s chief promoter. He didn’t get scammed. No, he did the scamming. He promoted Dallas as a great city to come and stay, but when travelers arrived they were stunned to see two small log cabins and a population of about 12. To lessen the sting, he offered every visitor free whiskey, bear meat and honey.
Manager for the stars
John Wayne’s final financial unraveling began with a 1965 shopping trip to the Neiman-Marcus store in Dallas. But I’ll get to that.

Let’s start during World War II when Wayne hired Bo Roos to be his business manager.
“With his hair slicked straight back, his mouth full of straight white teeth and his perfect tan, Roos was pure Hollywood,” write Randy Roberts and James S. Olson in their book John Wayne: American, which served as the basis for this story.

The husky blue-eyed man whose name was pronounced Boo was quick to smile and make a new friend. He gave off the aura of a European aristocrat. His car contained one of the very first mobile phones.
His clients included stars Joan Crawford, the Andrews Sisters and Marlene Dietrich, who recommended him. They were friends who drank together, went fishing and hunting and swapped stories. Wayne assumed Bo would protect his millions, maybe even make it grow.

Bo once said, “I’ve been called a gambler. … I’m only good for the client who wants action for his money.”
John Wayne may have been great as a Hollywood cowboy, but when it came to his money, he...

John Wayne may have been great as a Hollywood cowboy, but when it came to his money, he couldn’t shoot straight. Here he is in True Grit, for which he won an Academy Award.(Archives / AP)

Wayne first figured something was wrong when one of the investments Bo made for him attracted a slew of bounced checks and foreclosure notices. Wayne chewed him out, and Bo promised to improve Wayne’s cash flow.
The losses didn’t stop. Bo invested $700,000 in Panama. Wayne lost it plus a million more in that scheme.
As a major film star in the 1950s, he was broke. He found out when he and his wife ran up a $3,500 bill at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York. He told the clerk to charge it to Bo.
Three months later Wayne got an overdue notice.
“Bo!” he shouted, but it sounded like Boo. “Could you please pay the bill? I look like a [blankety] deadbeat.”
He sent his trusted secretary, Mary St. John, to Bo’s office, to check on his portfolio.
“Roos tried to stall her,” the authors write, insisting she come back at a more convenient time. But Mary was tenacious, demanding access to the file. When she saw it she was shocked. It was almost empty.
A few days later Wayne met with him and asked, “Bo, exactly how much money do I have?”
“Well Duke,” he said, using Wayne’s nickname, “not a great deal of cash.”
“Just tell me how much money I could raise if I had to.”
“That’ll take a couple of weeks,” Bo said.
When they met again, Bo still couldn’t answer.
Wayne slammed his fist on Bo’s desk and shouted, “I’ve given you a [blankety blank] fortune over the years. It’s a simple question.”
Without looking him in the eye, Bo confessed. “It’s all gone.”
Accountants who later checked the books declared that Bo didn’t steal it. He lost it through “gross mismanagement.”
Wayne wasn’t the only one. Like Wayne, Red Skelton didn’t check his financial statements, schedule in-person meetings and personally inspect investments. That was their undoing.
An arbitrator advised Wayne not to go to court because the publicity about his don’t-ask-questions style would make him look like a “complete ignoramus.” Plus, Bo was bankrupt, too.
“Just forget about it and start all over,” he advised.
A second time
Wayne wanted a manager whom he could trust. He decided to go with his son-in-law Don LaCava. His job: Invest conservatively and don’t lose money.
On that fateful 1965 trip to Dallas, Wayne, who treasured his annual Neiman-Marcus catalog, spent $30,000 at that store and others.
When the bill came, his son-in-law chewed him out: “How could you spend so much money? You don’t have this kind of money in the bank. How am I supposed to pay these bills?”
Wayne reminded he had given him millions. “There better well be money in the bank to pay these bills.”
LaCava had invested in bad real estate, dry oil wells and more.
Wayne fired him.
It was getting to be a thing.
Bo’s 1973 obituary in The New York Times mentioned “his cold blue eyes and pencil mustache,” but not that he lost his clients millions. Although there was a brief mention of ventures “not all of which were successful.”
With both men, the No. 1 movie star didn’t check his financial statements, schedule in person meetings and personally inspect investments. Do you?
John Wayne made about 200 movies, and he was usually paid handsomely. But he didn’t watch his money managers like a hawk, and they left him with birdseed.(Archives / AP)

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.