by C McGivern
He was stronger now and his restless soul possessed amazing amounts of natural energy. He worked hard, went to school, to the library, played any sport on offer, rarely slept and always woke at four on the dot ready to start another action packed day. No demand was too great and he strove every minute of every day. He wanted to be the best at everything. He dedicated himself to that end and his unstinting effort made him special. His energy and ambition led to a new focus but he continued living with the legacy of being unwanted and unloved at home, bullied outside it. Still, in California his in-bred mid-western “Scotch-Irish” Morrison values and work ethics were gradually transformed into the All-American ones that so typified him for the rest of his life as he emerged from the trauma of his childhood to become a complex combination of ancestral characteristics just waiting for the chance to shine.
He busied himself, doing everything he could in a natural but futile desire to please as he struggled to make everybody, particularly his mother, like him. By the age of twelve he was fending for himself, doing a paper-round in the morning and delivering prescriptions after school. Nothing was enough to please the ever-dissatisfied Molly who now told him he had to earn even more money to help support his brother’s needs.
Fortunately Duke was thriving on the effort and directing his energy into something worthwhile made him feel good about himself, invigorated, as he discovered he had an unusual ability to make money and strength that none of his peers possessed. He never knew where the power came from. It was his natural gift, “I had to hustle all the time, I had to make it on my own, right from back then and support the others as well. I had to keep moving all the time.”
As a result of his mother’s acute embarrassment at relying on her twelve year old, she became increasingly harsh toward him. No matter what he did or how hard he tried, Duke never heard a word of thanks from her. He expected none and later said, “Hell, times were hard then. I didn’t mind if my folks needed my money. Dad would have given the shirt off his back to anyone who needed it.” He shared none of his mother’s resentment toward his father’s failures and the generosity of his spirit was part of his natural make-up. If Duke had money in his pocket he was willing to share it with anyone who needed it and a friend of the mature Duke, Iron Eyes Cody, said, “He was the hardest working man I ever knew. He was also the most immensely generous man, the softest touch in Hollywood.” If that was true of Duke the film star, it was equally true of the boy who fell for any tale of woe and was always willing to lend a hand where he could.
Although he worked like a man and accepted all the responsibilities of adulthood, he also found time for some childish pleasure. The boy who had never had an opportunity to socialize with his peers discovered he now made friends easily in the groups and sports clubs he joined. He particularly enjoyed himself when the neighborhood boys took to playing his own favorite game, Cowboys and Indians. By the purest luck he had arrived in the perfect place to play make-believe, the place for a future movie star to find his destiny. Duke began learning his craft right there out on the street with his new friends. He had lived with the tales of the Wild West, in the desert he had developed the skills necessary to survive on the frontier, but he was now just a stone’s throw from Hollywood and his future. His past made him what he was… the future awaited his arrival.
He became accustomed to seeing film crews at work as new studios sprang up all over his neighborhood, “All the kids were movie conscious in our town,” and because he was ever alert to the goings on around him, he absorbed everything. He stood spellbound, lost in wonder for hours, as he watched the stars and crews at work. Then, when he found his way into a theatre for the first time he was, like millions of others, amazed at the images that greeted his senses. He had always loved his books and been able to transfer himself into the stories he devoured. Movies made that even easier.
When he went to see a movie his imagination took over and he started living out the adventures in his mind, “Some of us even played at making movies ourselves. We had actors, a director and a cameraman. We used a cigar box with holes punched in it for the camera.” Going to the movie theatre became his big passion. He enjoyed all types of films and appreciated the full galaxy of stars and heroes. Two became his particular favorites; he was strangely attracted to the star of silent Westerns, Harry Carey, and he also idolized Douglas Fairbanks.
Although Carey and his family came to wield a big influence in Duke’s blossoming career when they met later, back in Glendale it was Fairbanks who most affected the boy, mainly because of the incredible stunts he performed in his pictures. When he was later transformed into John Wayne, Duke said he knew every scene Fairbanks ever played, word for word, “Once, as a kid, when it was my chance to be the leading man, I tried to copy a Fairbanks stunt I’d seen. I jumped out of a second-storey window... grabbed hold of a trellis and swung onto the vines growing there. I ruined a beautiful arbor. Stunt was a big success though... my friends were real impressed. Another time I climbed onto a neighbor’s roof and was holding onto the chimney when it gave way. I hurtled to the ground and the palm of my left hand still carries the scars… that was a big success also.”
Young Duke was often to be seen swinging through trees or leaping from roofs with a huge grin on his face before hitting the ground. The pretend-movie crew rarely joined in the heroics, preferring to watch him splatter himself instead, marvelling at the thud he made as he landed at their feet. In fact he planned each stunt carefully, practiced his new craft meticulously and had surprisingly few accidents. As he escaped into the movies, to his imaginary view of making them and into the world of the stuntman the pain of his reality dissolved away and Duke, lonely for so long, blossomed in the headily exciting atmosphere of Glendale, “Those were the happiest days of my life.”
The theatre became his first love but wasn’t his only escape and he continued to enjoy reading books of all kinds. He had been able to read before he started school, encouraged and helped by doting grandparents, and later became, “A confirmed and avid reader. I’ve loved reading all my life; I spent hours alone, lost in the libraries of California.” In those libraries he discovered the novels of Zane Grey and the stories which carried him back, time and again, to the Wild West. In a library, sharing endless adventures with his stoic heroes, or a theatre, watching a screen ablaze with them, Duke found he didn’t need anybody else and for the boy who had always craved company he found welcome relief from his isolation. But whilst he might allow himself to retreat into a fantasy world, he could never live there. Always a realist, he easily moved from reality to fantasy and back again, to suit himself and his own needs. He allowed himself the respite of escape from time to time but his feet remained planted firmly on the ground. He always knew that however successful he was at hiding in his books and films, they could never provide real compensation for the emptiness and insecurity he had carried inside for so long.
He was growing up fast, become more thoughtful, he was wise beyond his years, and now, as he established the habit of flitting between reality and fantasy he discovered that he was possessed of a wonderful gift himself, and though it was still unformed in Glendale he began developing it to suit his own needs. It was his natural gift, always there, and only loaned out later as he learned to act in the hands of John Ford and the other great directors.
He suddenly recognized that a number of different characteristics made up his very complex persona. He didn’t understand then who or what he was perhaps, but he knew he had a rare ability to separate aspects of his personality at will, so he could become a different character for each of the different people who inhabited his life. For his teachers he could be the serious, studious reader with a voracious appetite for knowledge, getting excellent marks in all subjects. His public persona was conservative, serious, mature, reserved and ever anxious to please. He was extremely successful in these presentations, but there were many other facets. Hidden deep was the soft, sensitive dreamer who existed in the theatres and
libraries. For classmates and friends he became the daredevil, willing to undertake any stunt and to take on any physical risk, one later recalled, “Duke never showed any fear and some of his stunts were really wild.”
When he entered High School in 1921 he was already over six feet and, mainly because of his size and willingness, he was selected for the school football team. He excelled in his academic studies but now became increasingly involved with the football crowd and what he called, “The roughest gang of guys in Glendale High School.” He never shared the complete person with anyone. He deliberately compartmentalised his life and allowed no overlap. With the footballers he was a typical teenager, drinking prohibition liquor and playing practical jokes, with them he shared his sense of humour, vile temper, and worse language.
There was one area of his sectarian life that he found some difficulty with. By the age of fourteen he was tall, limber, had piercing blue eyes and dark waving hair swept straight back from his face. He had the warm lopsided grin and girls started following him around the basket-ball courts to watch, “The handsomest thing” they had seen. He was described at the time as, “So good looking he would stop traffic.” One commented that his earliest films didn’t do his looks justice, “He was unusually tall and rugged but he retained the shy, sensitive look. The films and photographs of that time never effectively showed his eyes, the colour of the Californian sky, a bright and vibrant blue, always full of fun, laughter and understanding. He was irresistible, gentle, warm, more tolerant than other boys, and he carried the vulnerable, haunted look even then.” He noticed the girls but wasn’t quite ready and he gave no sign that he was particularly interested. He left them bewildered by his polite indifference, shy wariness and impeccable manners.
His mother had often screamed at Dad for flirting, no one was ever going to accuse him of that and he kept his distance from every girl who smiled coyly up at him. He worked had at “keeping his distance,” and though he was popular with them he remained uncomfortable and bashful in the presence of women all the rest of his life, never understanding what they wanted of him. After watching his parents and listening to their never-ending arguments, he took great care around people, never allowing anyone, male or female, to become too close, too soon, “Too much squawking at home left its legacy I guess.” The girls went crazy for a date but they would have to wait a long time for him. When Marion became “Duke” he acquired a degree of confidence and self-belief that had enabled him to begin to emerge into a brave new world. He believed it had been the change of name that made the big difference in his life, “Until I got the dog’s name I was Marion. As I spent many a night in the dog basket it seemed appropriate. I liked the sound of my new name.” From then on the first thing out of his mouth when he met strangers was, “Just call me Duke.” But having it didn’t render him any less shy or uncertain in situations he didn’t understand. One thing was certain, girls were a complete mystery, he kept his mouth shut around them and tried, for the time being at least, to steer a clear path to safety.
Everyone, in each of the very separate groups, seemed to respect him and enjoyed being with him. He continued making huge efforts to please and to keep his life tidily in its separate compartments. Round and round he went in ever decreasing circles, until the only people he ever really satisfied were the movie-going public, his fans. Over the years the gap between his public and private lives narrowed as he deliberately blurred the edges, but he always retained the separate units that were the structures of his life. When John Wayne’s screen persona was at its height, the hell-raising, masculine and macho image who was polite but distant from women, socially liberal, but politically conservative, was an image instantly recognisable to those who had known him during the Glendale years.
Before he found stardom his most amazing exploits were performed on the football field as a member of the Glendale team of 1924-25. The team was acknowledged as something very special indeed and was talked about long after Duke left. Within the team he was ruthless. He had to win and was not prepared to give an inch on the field. Stubborn streak to the fore, others found that once he had made up his mind nothing could shift him from his path.
Football taught him many valuable lessons, “It was the greatest equaliser I ever found. It was one of the few places where ability, and only ability counted, one on one, the best man won every time. Neither the colour of your skin, nor the size of your bank balance mattered.” Duke was considered special in the setting of school football. Though he was still very thin and school photographs showed him with long curly hair, sensitive, gentle eyes, and almost poetic good looks, Duke had the broad shoulders and narrow hips of the natural athlete. He was also a rugged player and opponents hated coming up against his tough, imposing figure. Duke was able to hide all his old anxieties behind a smiling demeanour in the completely masculine world of football. It was where he came fully to life and where he was at ease.
He might have been relaxed there but at the same time he found he had new needs and, although he kept it close to his chest, he finally began to reciprocate the keen interest of the girls who dogged his every step. He was inexperienced and naïve perhaps, he couldn’t talk about his feelings, but Duke was a hot-blooded male and eager to learn. He never openly romanced any of the girls as his more worldly-wise friends did, but all that meant was he was successful at keeping his romantic life separate from everything else. He had also made the discovery that was to change his life.
Whilst America choked on its Prohibition laws, Duke found bootleg liquor. He loved it and the powerful effect it had on him. The shy youth found it liberating and he started drinking before going out dancing at the weekend and found himself suddenly able to fulfil his potential with those girls who thought him one of the most handsome men they had ever seen. He began to escort Polly Ann Young, sister of actress Loretta, to local dances and he recalled his first regular date fondly.
In the scheme of great romances theirs actually didn’t last very long, mainly because he always wanted to do an awful lot more than just dance with her. His shyness had prevented him even talking to girls for a long time, now he found it difficult to admit, even to himself, that he enjoyed their company. There was a catch. Without a drink he remained the tongue-tied child he’d always been, and before going dancing with Polly he had to drink… a lot. Polly was smug at first, out of all the girls he could have had she was the one he escorted, but eventually she was forced to sever the relationship, warned off by concerned parents who smelt the alcohol on his breath.
Still Duke was well and truly over his bashfulness. Now he took the greatest pleasure, “Picking up a certain type of gal on a Saturday night! I was already a serious drinker. That part of my life was no fit place for Polly. She wanted to dance, to be seen on my arm… But hell, Saturday nights were there to mix with the rough guys from Glendale and with girls who wanted to do more than dance.”
Drinking allowed Duke to feel like the man he wanted to be. He knew he was lucky because it didn’t seem to matter how much he consumed he never suffered as his friends did, either from hangovers or from lack of desire for those certain girls. He later admitted smilingly, “I did get backache from falling over so often.” He was drinking heavily most weekends but kept his love of alcohol out of other areas of his life, though here maybe he was less successful with the now well-honed technique of compartmentalising. Even his teachers were aware of his drinking, “Owing to the life he led I was never surprised he fell asleep so often in class. I was always amazed that his grades never seemed to suffer and that he maintained the standards he set himself for academic excellence.” He enjoyed drinking because it enabled him to talk easily to others and made him less self-conscious and the social aspects related to alcohol consumption drew him in deeper. He drank to excess and used the effect of alcohol for his own ends, but he didn’t let it take over his life. He wasn’t alone in the discovery that liquor numbed the senses and most of his friends, both at school, and later in the film world w
ere heavy drinkers. Many of them became sorry alcoholics whilst he somehow managed to avoid the crippling dependency that later decimated his inner circle of friends.
Whilst still in high school he joined the Stage Society as prop boy where he helped build sets, acquired lamps, tables or anything else that was needed. School productions were a source of never ending amusement to him. Once he was to ring a bell offstage to simulate the sound of a telephone that a boy on stage would answer. He didn’t like him and deliberately “forgot” to put a phone out on the table. The audience roared with laughter at the red-faced star who had nothing to answer when the phone rang.
Duke himself was convulsed with laughter at the success of his prank until his teacher caught up with him and gave him hell. He hung his head in shame and admitted that maybe it had not been so funny after all, anyway not worth the verbal beating he got for his effort. He never did anything like it again in front of that teacher but never lost his propensity for playing practical jokes either. He often landed in deep trouble as a result of boyish pranks, always worked out in the minutest detail so that they hit their targets like flaming arrows. But on that one occasion he took note. He was already on his way to becoming a professional, already willing to learn from his mistakes.
He had joined the Stage Society because it was another place he could escape to. He had no desire to act in any of the productions. Acting was his idea of hell, “One thing you are never going to be is an actor.” He was happy arranging everything, he took his work seriously, and learned how important detail was to any production; if the job was done badly it affected everyone else involved. A happy coincidence then for millions of film fans that the path of that particular young prop boy eventually led him into acting despite all his best efforts to avoid it.