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John Wayne

‘You can’t kill John Wayne!’ Hollywood legend’s death removed from script out of respect

John Wayne – who stars in classic The Longest Day airs from 4am on TCM on November 12 – is famed for being one of the most well-respected and well-loved actors of his generation. So much so, in fact, that his demise was removed from a script after a disagreement between its writer and director over the man himself.

Wayne, often nicknamed The Duke, remains one of Hollywood’s most enduring and popular figures, starring in some 180 films and TV productions. His status was cemented in 1970, when he earned the Oscar he craved for Best Actor, thanks to his role in True Grit.
And his popularity with fans also saw screenwriters and directors change scripts and plotlines in order to preserve characters portrayed by Wayne, including in the film In Harm’s Way, which led to a dispute between production staff.
Wayne aficionados were always keen on seeing their beloved star survive whatever encounters he faced on screen. And this even led In Harm’s Way screenwriter Wendell Mayes to alter his entire script to ensure his audience was left happy.
Mayes noted how he originally intended to kill off Wayne’s character in the 1965 film, which also starred Tinsel Town legend Kirk Douglas. However, after discussions, his wish was ultimately denied

John Wayne's death removed from script as mark of respect


‘You can’t kill John Wayne!’ Hollywood legend’s death removed from script as mark of respect (Image: GETTY)

John Wayne’s way to protect ‘man he loved more than anybody’ from humiliation

The Duke protected the “man he loved more than anybody” from an award night humiliation, by pretending to make the same mistake as his friend, unearthed accounts show.

The screenwriter spoke to Focus on Film regarding his experience of writing for, and working with, Wayne. And despite his own complaint about his script, he spoke highly of the western legend.
He said: “In a scene in which I know John Wayne is going to play a role, I will say to myself: ‘Well, John Wayne can’t say that line of dialogue,’ so I won’t write it.
“Now in In Harm’s Way, John Wayne was hired after the screenplay was written. It was not written for John Wayne and if I’d been writing it for him, there are certain speeches that I would not have written because I felt he could not read them.
“As it turned out, John Wayne was able to read the lines and read them very well indeed–so that I think it was a better film because I didn’t know he was going to play the role.”

John Wayne with Kirk Douglas
John Wayne and Kirk Douglas starred in a number of films together (Image: GETTY)

The screenwriter, who won New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Screenplay in 1959, noted how Wayne was “a great pro” who “never blows a line”, adding: “The other actors will blow lines, but he will stand there patiently, wait for them to get their lines, say his in his own way.”.
He went on to discuss his wish to kill off the star, which ended in a row with director Otto Preminger.
He continued: “I wanted Wayne to die and the son to live, and Otto wanted the son to die and Wayne to live. His argument was: ‘You can’t kill John Wayne!’.
“So, he won, and perhaps he’s right. You can cut a leg off, or an arm, or an ear, or something, you can maim him for life, but you can’t kill him.”

john wayne hollywood news
John Wayne is one of Hollywood’s most enduring figures (Image: GETTY)

While Wayne enjoyed a close relationship with many of the stars he worked with, according to his daughter Aissa, the Academy Award winner didn’t speak fondly of Hollywood legends Clark Gable or Gene Hackman.
She said in the 1991 book John Wayne: My Father: “My dad called Gable handsome but dumb at least four or five times, and now I wonder if it had something to do with my father’s friend, John Ford. During the filming of Mogambo, Ford and Gable had clashed again and again and the subsequent feud had simmered for years.
“In my father’s way of thinking, disloyalty to allies, support in any fashion for their enemies, was expressly forbidden. If Clark Gable took on John Ford, my father’s code demanded that John Wayne stand by his old pal.”
While Wayne enjoyed a close relationship with many of the stars he worked with, according to his daughter Aissa, the Academy Award winner didn’t speak fondly of Hollywood legends Clark Gable or Gene Hackman.
She said in the 1991 book John Wayne: My Father: “My dad called Gable handsome but dumb at least four or five times, and now I wonder if it had something to do with my father’s friend, John Ford. During the filming of Mogambo, Ford and Gable had clashed again and again and the subsequent feud had simmered for years.
“In my father’s way of thinking, disloyalty to allies, support in any fashion for their enemies, was expressly forbidden. If Clark Gable took on John Ford, my father’s code demanded that John Wayne stand by his old pal.”
She added: “Gene Hackman could never appear on-screen without my father skewering his performance.
“I wish I could tell you why he so harshly criticised Hackman, but he never went into detail. Although it’s pure speculation, had my father lived to see more of his work, I think his view of Mr Hackman would have changed. Back then, however, my father called Hackman ‘the worst actor in town. He’s awful’.”

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John Wayne

John Wayne Let ‘Liberty Valance’ Director John Ford Bully Him for 1 Reason

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, John Wayne helps James Stewart stand up to the title outlaw. Wayne was the ultimate tough guy in movies but in real life, there was one man who always kept him in his place. It just so happened that Wayne made 14 movies with that man, director John Ford. Their last was the classic Liberty Valance, and Wayne was still taking Ford’s bullying then.

Paramount Home Entertainment released The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance on 4K UHD on May 17. The 4K edition of the film is so clear you would think the world was really black and white in 1962 and they just captured it on film. The home video release also includes a new interview with Leonard Maltin explaining Wayne’s relationship with Ford, and some archival material with his co-star James Stewart backing it up.

John Wayne was in good company taking John Ford’s abuse in ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’ or any film

Maltin explained that Wayne was hardly singled out by Ford. It was Ford’s reputation. 

“John Ford is the only filmmaker to have four Academy Awards for Best Director so he was held in the highest esteem by critics, pundits, and the audience too because he made films for the people,” Maltin said. “John Wayne’s eldest son Michael once told me he thought John Ford was a great director between action and cut. Aside from that, he was an absolutely quixotic, cantankerous, sometimes outright mean-spirited guy. He teased and goaded everyone on the set and he was especially nasty to his protege, John Wayne.”

According to Maltin, Wayne just took it because he credited his whole career to Ford. Wayne became the king of westerns after that.

“But Wayne was eternally grateful to Ford for giving him his first great opportunity in this film Stagecoach so he never talked back,” Maltin said

Bullying might have gotten the best performance out of John Wayne in ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’

Ford’s grandson, Dan Ford, is also in the bonus features. He explained how his grandfather’s bullying behind the scenes may have helped Wayne’s performance in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

“Ford would use anything he could to get what he wanted out of an actor,” Dan said. “If he wanted to put him down, which is basically where John Wayne is in this movie the whole way through, he’s put down. He’s the guy who doesn’t get the girl, he’s the guy that plays the drunk, he’s the guy who only has one function. That’s to kill Liberty Valance. He’s an action hero but he’s not really the lead. Jimmy Stewart’s the hero. Ford would probably work on Wayne to keep him in that frame of mind.”

The late director and film historian Peter Bogdanovich is also included on the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance 4K UHD. Bogdanovich reminds fans that Ford would have wanted to take Wayne down a peg.

“People wonder why he was so tough on John Wayne,” Bogdanovich said. “Well, John Wayne was a huge star so it was Ford’s way of showing his control by attacking him and by minimizing him.”

Jimmy Stewart finally got it on ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’

Stewart tells this story of working on The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Wayne marveled that Stewart had made it through most of the shoot without getting on Ford’s bad side. 

“Remember in Liberty Valance, Duke came up to me and said, ‘Jesus, here we are, we’ve got three more days on the picture and you’ve never been in the barrel. Everybody else gets it and everything and you come out of it clear. What are you doing? Are you bucking for something?’” Stewart said. “I said, ‘I don’t know.’”

Stewart’s tenure as golden boy on the set of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was about to come to an end anyway. 

Well, that very day, he came up and Woody Strode, at the end with the funeral, Woody Strode had on a blue overalls. He came up to me and said, ‘What do you think of Woody’s outfit?” For some reason, I’ll never know why. I said, ‘It looks a little like Uncle Remus, doesn’t it?’ That’s all. He said, ‘Oh?’ He called everybody together, called the whole company together, and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, what do you think of Woody’s outfit?’ They all said fine, fine. He said, ‘Well, there’s an actor in the company that doesn’t like it. I wanted to point him out to you. Now that you know this actor doesn’t approve of Woody’s costume, now we can all go back to work, thank you very much.’ This lasted until the end of the picture with me. 

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John Wayne

A John Wayne Movie Classic Actually Reduced His Role From the Story It’s Based On

The John Wayne movie classic The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has many memorable moments. The most noteworthy is the whole theme of “print the legend.” Wayne makes an impression as Shinbone cowboy Tom Doniphon, who played a pivotal role in the life of Senator Ransom (James Stewart). It turns out the adaptation of Dorothy M. Johnson’s short story gave Doniphon even less to do in the movie, but Wayne still made those moments count.

[Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.]

Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance on 4K UHD on May 19. The 4K edition makes the black and white movie so sharp that the shadows in the title shooting scene are extra dark and moody. In the bonus features, historian Scott Eyman explains how the adaptation reduced Wayne’s role. 

‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’ story became a John Wayne’s movie

Adapting a short story into a two hour film often requires embellishing the source material. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance actually streamlined it. Scott Eyman wrote a biography of director John Ford, so he knew all about the differences between the story and the film. 

“The point of the story is basically the same point as the film,” Eyman said. “The execution is quite different. Ford and his writers altered one crucial aspect. In the story, the John Wayne character is kind of the fairy godfather to the Jimmy Stewart character, keeps nudging him along on the road from frontier lawyer to United States senator, constantly showing him the way and helping him out.”

‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’ isn’t completely a John Wayne movie

The western begins with Ransom attending the funeral of Doniphon. When reporters ask how he knew Doniphon, the story flashes back to Ransom’s arrival in Shinbone. Outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) roughed him up and terrorized the town. 

When Doniphon was around, that was enough to keep Valance in line. Doniphon tried to convince Ransom to pick up a gun to defend himself, but Ransom wanted to use the law to address Valance. Finally, Valance confronted Ransom in the street. Ransom pulled the trigger of his gun and shot Valance dead, or so it seemed.

At the end of the film, Doniphon reveals he was standing in the shadows and fired his gun at the same time. Now, it makes much more sense that experienced gunslinger Doniphon hit his target than amateur shooter Ransom. But, Doniphon let Ransom have the credit, and the heroic act set him on a course for political success. When the reporters heard the truth, they killed the story, stating, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is both a Wayne movie and a Stewart movie. Both have equal parts, though the story centers around Stewart’s character with Wayne’s coming in for backup.

‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’ made its point 

The film adaptation made its point without making Doniphon directly involved in every aspect of Ransom’s life. It proved to be a signature role for Wayne, too.

“That doesn’t happen in the film,” Eyman said. “Basically, the John Wayne character in the film commits two acts that alter Ransom Stoddard’s life and that’s all and that’s enough. So it made the Wayne character a little less proactive in the film as opposed to the story.”

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John Wayne

Who Is John Wayne? Meet The Iconic Cowboy of Western Films

John Wayne’s actual name is Marion Robert Morrison. He’s nicknamed Duke in the entertainment industry and was an American actor and filmmaker. John was one of those late actors whose career started in the 1920s silent era and pioneered the Golden Age of Hollywood. Eventually, he was the forerunner of the American New Wave of film and television. The cowboy icon has appeared in an impressive total of 179 films and television productions. This has established him among the top box office draws in three decades.

Early Life

Born on May 26, 1907, at Winterset, Iowa, John Wayne’s birth was featured in Winterset Madisonian on page 4 of May 30, 1907 edition, where it was reported he weighed 13 lbs. (around 6 kg). The actor claimed that his middle name, Robert, was changed to Michael because his parents decided to name his brother Robert, but no legal documents supported his claim.

His grandfather was an American Civil War veteran named Marion Mitchell Morrison, while his father is Clyde Leonard Morrison, a pharmacist. Meanwhile, his mother’s name was Mary “Molly” Alberta Brown, who had Scottish, English, and Irish ancestry. He was raised in Presbyterian.

John Wayne initially wanted to attend the U.S. Naval Academy, but he was not accepted. Instead, he went to the University of Southern California (USC) and majored in pre-law. John went to play on the USC football team but lost his athletic scholarship when he got injured in a bodysurfing accident. Because of this, he had no funds for schooling, thus had to leave the university.

Acting Career

The unfortunate incident of his university life was the push John Wayne needed to start his career in entertainment. He was first hired as a prop boy and extra as a recommendation by silent western film star Tom Mix to his director John Ford. Later on, he moved to support roles in a movie when he established a longtime friendship with Ford. 

Moreover, the first time he was given on-screen credit as “Duke Morrison” happened in the 1929 film Words and Music under Fox Film Corporation. His first big break was in The Big Trail in 1930 when the director Raoul Walsh saw him moving furniture in the studio as a prop boy and cast him as a starring role. He did well on that project, and so, the Fox Studios chief Winfield Sheehan discussed his screen name. The actor suggested “Anthony Wayne,” but Sheehan rejected the idea because it sounded “too Italian.” The second suggestion was “John Wayne,” which was approved, and then his pay was raised to $105 a week.

Thanks to the Stagecoach film in 1939, John Wayne became a household name. The film, directed by John Ford, shot John in mainstream stardom. Even with the breaking out of World War II, John’s career soared, and he won several awards in the 1970 Academy Awards as Best Actor. 1953, 1966, and 1970 Golden Globe Awards gave him Henrietta Award, Cecil B. DeMille Award, and Best Actor for Motion Picture Drama, among other notable accolades.

Marriages And Personal Life

The actor was married three times and divorced twice. His first wife was Josephine Alicia Saenz, his second wife was Esperanza Baur, and his third wife, Pilar Pallete. He had seven children, four from Josephine and three from Pilar. According to reports, his first child Michael Wayne didn’t take his divorcing and new wives lightly because their relationship became harsh at some point. Several of John Wayne’s children worked in film and television. His children also contributed a lot to the productions.

Moreover, the biographer of John Wayne, Michael Munn, chronicled the actor’s drinking habits. This has affected his performance, and some shooting schedules were aligned to it. Sam O’Steen’s Cut to the Chase memoir wrote how the studio directors knew to shoot John’s scene before noon comes as he’s practically a mean drunk by the afternoon. Besides drinking problems, he had been a chain smoker of cigarettes since he’s a young adult and was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1964. Furthermore, he underwent successful surgery to remove his entire left lung and four ribs. Five years later, he was declared cancer-free.

Death

John Wayne was declared cancer-free, but then he still died of stomach cancer on June 11, 1979. His remains were buried in the Pacific View Memorial Park found in Newport Beach. According to Patrick Wayne and his priest grandson Matthew Munoz, Wayne converted to Roman Catholicism before he died.

Strangely, many cast and crew from the film The Conqueror in 1956 developed different forms of cancer at various times, including the stars like John Wayne, Agnes Moorehead, Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendariz, and director Dick Powell. It was shot in southwest Utah, to the east and downwind of recent US government nuclear weapons tests in southeastern Nevada.

John Wayne is an American actor who may have the ups and downs in life, but he’s still a Cowboy icon of Western films, no doubt.

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