John Wayne: A Giant Shadow

by C McGivern

  He was thriving in Glendale and the University of Southern California now offered him a football scholarship. Although the boy born in the mid-West and raised in the desert had never been to sea, indeed had hardly ever seen it, Duke had long maintained a secret dream of joining the navy. The dream was firmly rooted in the exciting sea-faring adventures he had enjoyed reading and had heard at his grandfather’s knee. He had never mentioned his plans to another soul, but much of his outstanding achievement at school had been specifically aimed at winning a place at Annapolis, the naval school. When the time came he was not accepted although his name was held for some time on their reserve list. He was heartbroken, “Not making it into the navy was one of the biggest disappointments of my life. Deep in my heart I was always a sailor. I loved the sea… never tired of it.” For weeks after his rejection he was quiet, withdrawn and moody. He believed all his effort at school had been wasted. Anyone else offered a scholarship at prestigious USC might have been overjoyed, Duke only tasted the humiliation.

  Although he was depressed his Mom had been planning a career in law for her smart boy for some time. USC had its renowned law school and the football scholarship would enable him to study at one of the best schools in the country. The black cloud began to lift; if he couldn’t join the Navy, perhaps he could finally do something to please her. He stopped sulking but later admitted that winning a football scholarship hardly thrilled him and rejection by Annapolis rankled for a long time, “I guess I never really got over it.”

  He had no option now but to settle down to football and law and he went away full of determination to succeed. He started his freshman year in September 1925 at the University of Southern California as a member of the Sigma Chi house, enrolled as a pre-law student. He was surprised to find himself a big shot right from the start. USC was a private and very expensive institution. Its members came from the families of the most prominent leaders in California. At the age of eighteen he arrived at college with a few dollars in his pocket and one suitcase containing his every possession. A friend recalled he had one suit, some shirts and ties, one jumper, some socks, underwear, and one extra pair of trousers.

  Still, no one at Sigma Chi seemed aware of the disparity and he was accepted into their elevated ranks straight away. By that time although he was physically huge he no longer felt like a freak, he was particularly ambitious and tenacious, and the fellows at Sigma Chi seemed to recognise his outstanding qualities. He was embraced and well-liked by his fraternity brothers.

  His scholarship paid tuition fees and provided him with one meal a day. Unlike the other boys he had to pay for everything else himself, there were no rich parents paving his way. He was hustling, playing football, studying law, feeding and clothing himself but the athletic department wanted him so badly they found him the work that would support him through the coming years. This may have been normal practice at other schools but Duke, initially working in the local telephone exchange, was very much in the minority at USC.

  Traditionally freshman year was one of torment and, like the rest of the year’s intake, Duke suffered at the hands of older students. He cleaned shoes, washed cars and ran errands. On one more serious occasion, when he had offended a senior, he was tied up, had a sack put over his head and was thrown into the communal bath which was full of iced water. He nearly drowned after being plunged into the freezing water three or four times in the practice known as “tubbing.” The custom was eventually banned following the death of a student but Duke went through the ritual a number of times during his years at college.

  He once filled his mouth with ketchup before being thrown into the bath, and as he was pushed under, he spat it out. He hoped his tormentors would think he was bleeding and pull him out quickly. Initially it did the trick, he was dragged to the surface and the sack was torn off. All would have been well if he hadn’t started laughing in the face of his tormentors. He was tubbed again with renewed vigour. Fellow freshman, Pexy Eccles, Duke’s old friend from Glendale, was his roommate and Duke involved him in so many pranks that he was regularly tubbed himself! Although they were both frequently beaten up for forgetting to call seniors “Sir,” Duke’s life settled into an acceptable rhythm and he loved college life, “It was all fun for me.”

  He was able to relax away from the stress of family life, surrounded by other young men, all like him, intent on having a good time. There was no pressure to try to please anyone or to be someone he wasn’t. At eighteen years of age, for the first time, he found value in himself as his fellow students applauded his special gifts. The rich playboys, who were only at college to while away a few years until they went to work in their father’s businesses, cared about him and liked having him around. The person they saw had enormous power even then and they respected multi-talented Duke.

  He was a first rate chess and card player, he was attractive, could make people laugh and was fun to be with, he could drink with the best of them and his athletic ability made him a star football player. All in all he was considered to be an acceptably good companion, even though his brothers found he had a hot and wild nature and was always ready to fight like a demon for the things he believed in. His temper became legendary amongst them although his outbursts rarely lasted. He exploded when crossed but was just as likely to throw a bear-like arm around the shoulders of his target in a gesture of reconciliation, smiling and begging forgiveness. He invested a lot of himself in Sigma Chi but there was also rich payback for his effort; naturally gracious, he was now rubbing shoulders with members of America’s highest society. He acquired polish, finesse and absorbed some of the confidence and charisma that seeped from their pores.

  He lived in a world of men but still found himself surrounded by girls. He enjoyed their company and liked what was on offer though he was still painfully shy, never a natural womaniser, and too deeply scarred by his mother to be completely at ease with them. The girls at USC were wildly attracted by his old-fashioned manners, and they loved his natural hesitancy. He was rarely alone and he and Pexy often double dated.

  He still kept his life in neat and tidy compartments but gradually, inevitably, there was increasing tension between his “good boy” persona and the laughing, hard drinking, hell-raiser he became at Sigma Chi. He found value in both but personally felt more at ease in his new role. He was increasingly relieved to be able to leave behind the good boy his mother had raised. She had never seen value in anything he had tried to do, but even now he was free to choose his own path, he remained driven onwards, probably he reflected, by her inherent will and determination.

  As a member of the USC Trojan freshman football team Duke was a big success. Each afternoon consisted of gruelling training sessions under the tutelage of Coach Howard Jones, a man puritanical in his approach to the game. He spelt the rules out, “No smoking, no liquor, and no women … absolutely no women,” and Duke knew what was expected of him on the field. He loved every minute he spent there, even though he couldn’t, in all honesty, say he lived according to Coach Jones’ code. In return for the pleasure football gave him he received broken bones, sprained tendons and torn muscle; it didn’t matter because he was in his natural element.

  Duke idolized his coach, the personification of honesty and decency, and Jones was equally attracted by the skills of the gifted footballer, taking a deep interest in his life. He offered the direction Duke had so desperately needed from his parents and was one of many who recognized how special the youngster was. Duke himself was so naïve he didn’t realize how strange it was for people like the football coach to pay such close attention to a student. Whilst he never understood his own charisma, so evident even as a teenager, he did enjoy its rewards. He was never happier than when people warmed to him, he needed to be surrounded by humanity, craved company, and inevitably, without knowing how or why, people were drawn to him, seeing “something” in the sky blue eyes of the tall, shy boy.

  Tickets for USC Trojan matches were at a premium during those years, inter
est in the all-conquering team ran high, and the cash-strapped young Duke could have sold his allocation on for fifty dollars a pair, as most of his richer team mates did. He gave his to his dad, despite the fact he could hardly afford to eat and survived training and match days on his one free meal a day. He knew his father wouldn’t have taken them if he had known their value and he wanted him there at the games. It gave him the greatest pleasure to see his proud dad as he cheered the team on to its phenomenal successes.

  And Clyde supported in good company. Everyone in town wanted to see the matches. Tom Mix, the great western film star, was another loyal and dedicated fan who begged for tickets. Coach Jones did a deal and, in exchange for a box for the season, the star provided summer jobs for some of the players. Fate was again smiling on Duke when he was sent over to the Fox Lot that summer. Movies about college football were popular at the time and the producers often used members of college teams as extras. Duke began earning good money in front of the camera but no one at college ever heard him say he had any desire to go into films, his only interest was making enough to buy the food to satisfy his enormous appetite.

  Mix spotted Duke immediately, told him he had a future in movies, promised him a bigger role in his next film and told him he wanted him to start work as his personal trainer! It was too good to be true. Unfortunately, the ever-naive Duke believed everything he was told and took Mix at his word. The film star proved to be less honorable than the football player and when Duke reported for work he found himself assigned to a gang moving props around the set. This was the job, there was nothing more, and he retained the bitterness he tasted then long after summer was through. Mix had got him work, as promised, but not in the movies, not as a trainer, and he never even looked in Duke’s direction again. Always so easily hurt with his fragile sense of dignity, he confessed to feeling wounded but added, “It was bread and butter to me and I guess I had no feeling for the business then… Just the same, I was mad as hell with Mix.”

  But Fate took a firm hand in all that followed and the mythological journey was about to begin in earnest. Up to now Duke had been no more than a bit player in a normal world inhabited by mere mortals. He had not led a perfect nor exemplary life, he had been far from happy, his achievements might have been extraordinary, but he was just a boy, having the same experiences any other might until the hero’s legendary adventure engulfed him when he was discovered by the man who became his lifelong mentor. Halfway through the summer of 1928 he reported to the set of Mother MacCree where he was assigned to the film being directed by John Ford. Duke, the young vacation worker, knew his movies, and had spent hours in the theatres of California, enthralled by the director’s work which had already played a big part in his young life. Ford’s films had provided much of the bedrock of his childish dreams of escape. Now, he was excited and awed at the thought of working alongside a man he considered a hero.

  Yet it was Ford who ended up the more enthralled. Duke went to the set, full of eager anticipation, and found a replica of an Irish village, complete with chickens, ducks and geese. His task was to keep the poultry in some sort of order and await direction. When Ford shouted, he was to release them from their pens and when he shouted “Right” he was somehow to get them all back in again. He was handed a pole to help in the rounding up operation. On Ford’s first signal Duke opened the gates and whacked at the birds, encouraging them out of the pen. Ford required another take and back the birds were shepherded. “Action,” out he pushed them again, another take and another. And so his day went, chasing the birds up and down.

  The chickens and ducks hid under the cottages, the geese attacked him and pecked at his legs ferociously, honking and annoying the director. Duke was flustered but refused to give in and he hustled the birds all day. Unfortunately, he wasn’t fast enough to please Ford, who called, “Action” every time he got the geese rounded up. After a few days of the same, he was frustrated and anger was simmering the day Ford chose to notice him.

  The director was tall, strong, scruffy, energetic and ultimately in control of everything going on around him and Duke recalled, “He reminded me of an angry eagle.” He was only just hanging on to his temper himself when Ford approached him in an inauspicious start to the legend.

  “Hey, you, Morrison.” …

  “Yes sir?”

  “Are you one of those USC football boys?” …

  “Yes sir.”

  “What’s your position?” …

  “Running guard.”

  “Please assume your position.”…

  He did as he was told, crouching down, mystified, his palms on the floor and one knee down, in classic football stance, head up, back straight. Ford lunged at him and, without warning, kicked his hands out from under him sending him crashing, face down, into the dirt. It hurt and Duke didn’t see the funny side of it, and he took his revenge as soon as he managed to stand up. He offered to try again. This time he ran straight at the older man and, in a flying tackle, kneed him squarely in the chest. When Ford fell into the dust a hush came over the set, but he only laughed as he got up and slowly brushed himself down. No other man would have dared to do that to him.

  He didn’t know Duke wouldn’t have dared either if he hadn’t been so angry. After the incident he commented drily, “I really liked the big kid’s style. He wasn’t like the others guys, just hanging around. You could always see he was working toward something. I immediately invited him to lunch.” It was a dramatic beginning to the relationship between an unknown prop boy and a legendary film director, the stuff films might be made of, and the beginning of the story in which Duke was lifted and transformed, by a wave of Ford’s magical wand, into the realms of superstardom. On that day he was ashamed of himself and shocked to realize he had knocked his idol over but all Ford said was, “Let’s get back to work.”

  Duke believed Ford was a genius and from that moment on he worshipped him. He saw a tough, durable character, able to take the knocks, get up and get on with life and at that time Ford appeared to be exactly the type of man he wanted to be himself. When young Duke was unsure of his own family a strong, father figure had miraculously turned up. Their lives became entwined and a bond was forged then that tied their destinies together, linking their successes and failures right through Hollywood’s most glorious years.

  Even though he idolized Ford, Duke understood, from that first meeting, that the director enjoyed humiliating people. It was only the first of many incidents where Ford tormented him causing his wild anger to flare, but he never again reacted as he had done on that day. He had been surprised that Ford hadn’t thrown him off the set, he was more surprised to find himself involved in a strange, but lasting, friendship, “It has been the most profound relationship of my life. Were it not for John Ford’s belief in me as an actor, I would still be playing cowboy sheriffs in third rate westerns.” However it was also a relationship that never altered much from that of master and pupil, neither ever seeming to want it to become anything more. There were long periods when they were prickly toward each other, but Ford also admitted, “He is the son I would have liked to have, he is my favorite boy.”

  Later, recalling that day and the golden years that followed, Duke said, “I watched the way he handled people, the way he managed to get the best his actors had to give in every damned scene. I’d never seen a genius at work before, but I knew I was seeing one now. The man was a great artist, a perfectionist, and I wanted to be like him. He was like a rapier darting in and out, getting what he wanted, when he wanted it. I think he could have been anything he wanted to be, especially in the military field. Jack could handle personalities. He was also the finest editor I’ve ever seen. When Dudley Nichols was doing Stagecoach he’d make him write a scene five or six times till Nichols was just about drenched. And then he’d find three lines out of the three scenes. He knew how to draw lines out that gave character and progress the story at the same time. I wanted to be as good as he was.”

  Just as h
e had absorbed polish from his rich friends at college, he now seemed to soak up and take on many of Ford’s characteristics. He hoped some of the genius would rub off on him. At Fox he was given ample opportunity to observe, learn and become close to the great man. The one Ford characteristic he steadfastly refused to draw on was his pleasure in belittling others, it was a part of the director that made Duke squirm in embarrassment. He accepted that was how the old man was and allowed him to have his fun, “The man was a genius, and that was all there was to it as far as I was concerned, nothing else mattered.”

  Their meeting might have been pre-ordained, coinciding precisely as it did with the talking picture revolution. Ford’s career had been established in the era of silent film, but now he was actively searching out actors with good voices to feed into the new sensation. Duke, the vacation worker, had startled his every sense. Even as he picked himself up after Duke’s flying tackle he noticed something that intrigued him. He saw the skinny frame alright, spotted the exceptional good looks certainly, but the director’s eye also caught the vulnerability that could not be hidden. He knew instantly that the camera would pick it up. He watched him closely after the initial confrontation and noticed it was always there, in wonderfully expressive eyes, around the sensitive mouth, and that his whole body reflected it. He was young and extremely awkward, not in his body movement which was fluid and almost feline then, but in his very being. Ford sensed an overwhelming discomfort and the director was, as ever, precise in his perception. But so much more important to Ford right then was the voice, obviously the most important attribute at the advent of the talkie. As soon as the director heard the rich, deep, expressive voice he was tremendously affected. He stored all the information about Duke in his film director’s mind. He needed no screen tests and it didn’t even matter to him if he could act or not, “He was clumsy around me but I could tell the big dumb oaf had something special. I believed I was going to be able to use him but right then he was too skinny and too pretty to do much with. I offered him bit parts from time to time so I could keep an eye on him.”