by C McGivern
He starred with Sigrid Gurie in Three Faces West for Republic, and she was only one of many to fall hopelessly in love with him. Gurie was possibly his first experience with a European woman and more specifically with a liberated Scandinavian, although there had been whispered suggestions that he had been involved with Osa Massen, the coach called in to help him with his accent for The Long Voyage Home. He had certainly enjoyed all the lessons he received from the experienced Miss Massen. With a few noticeable exceptions Duke appeared to be inhibited around American women, and always remained more at ease in the company of foreign ones, he felt safer and more confident. He was happier talking to small, delicate Latin Americans or Europeans, and particularly the Scandinavians that now crossed his path at every turn. Though he eventually married three Latin women he said that was because he preferred to take his holidays in South America, and they were simply the women that he happened to meet when he was under no pressure.
As his confidence grew, as he began to believe in himself and to trust his own instincts. He no longer shuffled around the Republic offices looking lost and unhappy. He was increasingly seen standing around, relaxed, laughing with film crews or other actors, or more likely now, actresses. He moved on in his private life too. His brief encounters with Miss Masson and Sigrid Gurie paved the way for his next adventure with another strong European who was overtly sexy. Marlene Dietrich was an unexpected event in his life, but she was definitely the next adventure!
Their first meeting was pure Hollywood, directed and orchestrated by the film colony itself. The German star was the sex symbol of the forties, a powerful and magnetic personality, noted for her intelligence and ability to get what she wanted. She had been hired by Joe Pasternak for the Universal Pictures’ movie Seven Sinners, and he and director, Tay Garnett, were looking for a big, rugged he-man to play opposite her. Garnett had Duke in mind but was overheard commenting to Pasternak, “T’aint goin’ to be easy.”
Dietrich herself had overall casting approval, she would not be dictated to and she was known to be choosy. Pasternak and Garnett cleverly arranged for Duke to be around the studio on a day they knew she would also be there; they hoped she would notice him and select him herself. But when the paths of the two stars crossed the executives were bitterly disappointed and she walked straight past Duke as if he didn’t exist. The director shook is head in dismay; he would have to think of someone else. Then Dietrich paused, turned slowly, looked Duke over from top to toe, taking in every detail, and whispered, “Daddy, buy me that.” Duke was bought and paid for and his immediate fate was sealed by the purchase.
He was ordered to report to Miss Dietrich’s dressing room straight away. She was, at that time, very much the superstar. He never considered himself in such terms and he did as he was told, going to the meeting in some trepidation. He knocked on her door and was told to enter by a deep sultry voice. He ambled in and was shocked when she locked the door behind him. She turned to face him and whispered seductively, “I wonder what the time is.” Before he had time to answer she lifted her skirt up to the thigh and he had his first glimpse of the watch she wore there on a black garter. He was rooted to the spot, and felt every bit the big dumb oaf that Ford called him, blushing and saying nothing. She added, like a line from a film, “Oh, it’s early, we have plenty of time.”
“I just did what any other red-blooded male would have done in the circumstances!” Duke confessed. He said later that the Hollywood of the thirties and forties was a combination of Peyton Place and Sodom and Gomorrah, and added that its stars, despite being forced by their contracts to lead exemplary public lives, behaved like stallions let loose in a mare’s barn in private. Duke’s own background and personality made such behavior difficult for him and his mother’s attitude toward his father continued to affect his own actions, as did his early run in with Harry Cohn. For many years he had resolutely avoided temptation despite his unhappy marriage and his overly romantic nature, but Dietrich knew what she wanted, he was powerless and didn’t resist her allure. She liberated him from his past in every sense, making an affair inevitable from the moment he first laid eyes on her and she made her momentous choice.
He had first fallen into tender, romantic love at the age of nineteen but had found his wife cold toward him, at the very least, she was not as passionate by nature as he was himself. In Dietrich he found the exact opposite and a bed mate ideally suited to his needs. But she became much more to him than that and he was soon hopelessly and deeply in love with her. She made a habit of telling him she believed in him and in his work, she was interested in him, and nobody, least of all Josie, had ever encouraged him like that before. It was a new experience and the care she showered on him had immediately positive results. Before she entered his life, he felt mistreated and misused by a string of women, but she made big John Wayne feel all man, a real man, in his own terms. Marlene even enjoyed cooking for him, they liked similar foods and whilst she had never been a big drinker she never minded that he drank a lot. She accepted him as he was and he appreciated every aspect of the life they shared, most importantly, their singular interest in, and dedication to, making films. For them both their work was their life and though they shared many interests; they loved to go to football matches and fights together, they went fishing and hunting and for long drives, neither had any hobby that distracted them from the movies. Outsiders believed that when Wayne and Dietrich were together they were locked in passionate embraces; in fact they were just as likely to be running current movies and analyzing them critically.
They worked together on three movies, Seven Sinners, The Spoilers,and Pittsburgh and his work benefited enormously from his association with her. As a man he benefited more, and he was grateful for the happiness she brought into his life. The two of them were so alike that their relationship was one of great friendship and more, it was a meeting of mind and body. He believed that she was his perfect woman, and she meant the world to him. In every area of his life that mattered he had found a perfect mate and friend. She brought him the intellectual, emotional and physical stimulation he had yearned for. He allowed her to take control and she wielded huge influence in both his bed and his business matters. He rarely discussed the relationship other than to mention softly that she was the most intriguing woman he had ever known, but friends believed he wanted to marry his best friend, his equal partner.
Strangely, given his track record, and despite rarely talking about her, he made no attempt to hide the affair, it would have been both dishonest and impossible for him, and he was deeply in love. They regularly went out together in public, a generally acceptable custom in Hollywood, and, although he didn’t flaunt the relationship, they were often seen in restaurants together. When he took her out for dinner he made sure they were surrounded by other people, and the relationship never became public property in the same way her affair with Gary Cooper had, but he wanted to be with her, and he didn’t want to hide his feelings for her. Whilst they worked together on the set of The Spoilers he and Marlene had a minor argument. He knocked into her as he turned to walk away from the quarrel and she fell awkwardly. He was really sorry, and begged her forgiveness as he reached down to pull her up, but Marlene didn’t mind. She made a fist and pretended to hit him, and he hugged her, pulling her tightly against his chest, refusing to let her go until she laughed, and kissed him. This was a rare reported occasion of anyone seeing him “getting personal” in public.
In fact he got personal all his life; he loved nothing more than to be hugged and kissed whether in private or public, especially by his children and grandchildren, or really by anyone else who wanted a hug or a kiss. His tree trunk arms were often thrown round the shoulders of a by-stander, he was often seen bending to plant a huge kiss on the cheek of a fan. The small bodies of his children were always seen crawling all over him, on set, or as he played cards, fiddling with his ears, mouth, nose and hair. There are a million treasured pictures of John Wayne getting personal. But whilst he wa
s with Marlene, his public relations people were hard at work, still busy portraying him as Duke the family man, “If he suspects one of the kids has one degree fever, he goes wild.” That was true, but the creation of the legend had begun. He was no longer the family man he was painted for the public. Whilst he was obsessively building his career, his home and his family life had crumbled into the abyss. “I don’t know when, or even if, I stopped loving Josie.” But he knew the pain started the instant he ceased to be the centre of her universe. He had needed her to share his interests and his friends. Instead she filled her own life with religion, “I felt like I had to get permission from the Priest when I wanted to kiss her.”
Marlene walked in, picked up the pieces and put him back together, filling all the voids in his life. He had embarked on several affairs before meeting her, but his behavior had left him feeling cheap and dirty. Many years later although he confessed to the cook on his boat, “When I was young I was screwin’ everything I could get hold of,” his affairs never became the stuff of legend. Mary said, “Duke was deeply romantic. He never really understood women. He put them on a pedestal but he was generally uncomfortable with them, they scared him. And he became madder than hell when a leading lady took liberties with him during a love scene. He complained bitterly when they did. And many of them tried. The more famous he became, the more it happened to him, but their obvious desire gave him no pleasure.” There had been the famous incident when he had been making The Conqueror with Susan Hayward who groped him in front of the crew. He hated to feel used by anyone, hated to feel as though he was out of control, and he was storming angry to have been taken advantage of when he couldn’t do anything about it. The scene, just as shot, including the look of shock on his face, remained in the film. He never became accustomed to such advances and, although he by no means rejected all his opportunities, his extramarital activity was, almost non-existent by the standards of the day and the world he happened to inhabit.
Still Josephine worried about the scandal she now saw brewing. Up to this point if he’d had any affairs he’d been discreet, but now she saw articles in the Press about Marlene and her husband at every turn. As Dietrich was often described as a woman who devoured men with an insatiable appetite, usually spitting them back out again in rapid succession, Josie was naturally disturbed. Mary St John said Dietrich was as romantic as a cash register, that she moved rapidly on from one man to the next and she always felt the romance between Dietrich and her boss meant nothing to her, but that he was obviously crazy about her.
In 1979 an interviewer asked him if he had ever fallen in love with any of his leading ladies, “Well, yeah, Marlene Dietrich” came back the reply, without thought or hesitation. To his closest male friend, Ward Bond he was more explicit, “She was the best lay I ever had.” He continued, all his life to think of her in those terms.
Despite Mary saying she moved from one man to the next quickly, their affair lasted over three years. Other stars thought it was cute when she brought him picnic lunches out to location. Those occasions were some of the only times he had ever been distracted from his work. Once when he had been racing back to the set from her hotel he crashed his car. He was unhurt and returned to the hotel in the same haste after shooting finished that night.
The relationship finished as suddenly as it started, ending on a bitter note. He refused to tell anyone what happened between them, but she wrote in her autobiography that she simply got bored with him, that it was time to move on to the next man; she called him “nice, but dull.” Many believed he ended the affair, shattered when he discovered she was bi-sexual. Once it was over they went to great lengths to avoid each other for many years …
… When the Duke invited guests to dinner they arrived at 2686 Bayshore Drive promptly. Everyone knew he was not a man to be kept waiting, and not even his greatest friends, nor the closest members of his family would run the risk of wilfully earning his displeasure. They would all be hurrying toward his home, and he didn’t have long to get showered, changed, and to prepare himself for the evening and the ordeal that was to come later. He had continued talking to Pat for some time, dwelling on wonderful, warm memories, but if they didn’t both get moving soon people would arrive before things were just as he wanted them. He directed Pat to further efforts in the kitchen even though he could already detect delicious smells coming from that direction. Together they had created the exact look he wanted in the house.
The tree stood full and tall in the corner, dressed by his own hand as usual, and all the decorations and trimmings were tasteful and after his own style. He felt the most enormous satisfaction in everything that now met his eyes as he looked slowly and appreciatively around him. Once again he checked all the minutest of details, nothing was to be out of place … everything about his home had to feel just right on this most memorable of Christmas Nights.
For some reason beyond his understanding, or even thought, he wandered back into his den, the sixty foot study that said everything about him, rather than to the shower. He had always been happy that visitors to his home were suitably impressed by the aura of that room when he showed them around, in fact, by his aura that filled it. As soon as he entered he felt himself relax, comforted by its warm familiarity. That room was, and always had been, the only place where he truly felt at home; he had built it himself and filled it with his own life force. It was light, airy, spacious, just the right size for him, and it was full to bursting with special moments from his life, awards, decorations, even a phial of sand taken from the beaches of Iwo Jima and sent to him by the Marines, and of course, there, mounted on a specially made plinth, his one Academy Award; the most treasured possession, swamped amongst so many treasured possessions earned during a lifetime of endeavor.
There was the “Fifty Years of Hard-Work Wall” which was covered with faded, slightly blurred old photographs, old memories, a wall worth a fortune to him for he had earned his fortune creating it. There were framed poems hanging there, written by his children and given pride of place, and which undoubtedly meant more to him than anything else because they represented his most valued prize, love. He never took the wall for granted, and now once more he found himself stopping before it, looking at it carefully, with both his hands pushed into his waistband for comfort as he felt another wave of pain begin. He leant slightly forward to ease it, and the action took his face close to an old color photograph…
“Jesus! There’s a picture!”
He spoke with all the wonder of someone who hadn’t seen the four young men captured in a frozen moment of laughter on a fishing boat before. He found himself looking at his own handsome face, at Ward Bond, Henry Fonda and John Ford, who were all staring straight back at him, laughing. “It was taken by Gregg Toland down at Baja, Gulf of Cortez… each of us was a professional, every damn one of us had hundreds of dollars’ worth of camera and film with us… and that’s the only photograph left… Jesus …”
It was said with infinite sadness to himself and the ghosts who shared the room with him, it was said with pain, and he breathed, “It’s getting to the point where I know more dead people than alive…”
“Duke, are you going to get changed or not?” Pat was standing quietly in the doorway watching, she felt a need to rouse him from his memories. He took no notice as he sat back down at his desk and began doodling endless straight lines on a pad, ripping off each sheet as he filled it, to start a fresh page. He said nothing more for a long time. It was rare for him to lose sight of what was expected of him and he recognized suddenly that he had to fulfil his promises; it was of the utmost importance to him not to fail those expectations tonight.
Tonight he wanted, above all else, to provide everything that the people coming to his home anticipated. It would be the very last time they would come, the last time he would do this. He shook his head slowly as if to clear his thoughts, and he looked straight at her, “It has such a sadness in memory… but I’ve always tried to look straight ahead Pat… I gu
ess you’re right… Better go get ready… avoid the reminiscing huh? … Just keep looking ahead?” And of course that was exactly where he would rather not look, what he longed to avoid… if only time could have stood still as it had in Gregg Toland’s photograph.
As he rose to his feet he could feel the mood of despair lifting from his shoulders, felt the dark despondency ease from around his heart, felt himself coming back to life, suddenly, once more seeing clearly what was expected, and he began to feel the familiar buzz that never failed him, as he began to get himself into character, as he began to prepare for the role he would play tonight for his chosen audience. Tonight he would be the endearing, charming, courteous and affable Duke, the man who ensured the comfort of all who ever stepped over his threshold.
He took the loose polo shirt off in the warmth of his own room, and discarded it thoughtlessly, screwing it up into a ball before throwing it on the floor, someone else could pick it up later. He walked across the room and suddenly caught sight of his image in the huge mirror and was shocked by what he saw and he quickly averted his eyes, getting on hurriedly with the business at hand. The pants were unzipped and pulled off and left in another heap at his feet. Soft white towels were piled on a chair in the corner and he took one as he stripped off, then he wrapped another around his neck for he couldn’t bear to see himself again, even by chance, as he crossed the room.
He had been a mountain of sun-bronzed flesh not many months before as he sailed down into the warm Mexican waters on his boat, lying contentedly snoring on its decks. He had been a giant of a man who unconsciously seemed to overshadow everything and everybody around him, even as he dozed, curled up for comfort, on a couch at the back of his boat.
Since his last brush with cancer he had struggled constantly against the massive weight gains that he seemed powerless to prevent. He couldn’t take the same amount of exercise he had before losing much of his left lung, and he’d always loved his food, any food, especially that prepared by his favorite cook aboard his boat. He devoured massive heaps of anything that came his way. He had always been so skinny that it never mattered what he ate until 1964 when the pounds piled remorselessly on, and one studio after another had demanded diets of one type or another, so he would look fit for their films. He had followed each one of them religiously, because that was what was required of him. How he hated all of them, sometimes complaining that he only existed at all on watermelon and gristle. He felt deprived and unhappy when he couldn’t have candy, donuts, steaks, ice cream, when he had been limited instead to salad and fruit, and worse still, high protein milk drinks.