John Wayne

by C McGivern

  When the scene in which Duke’s boat is strafed by machine gun fire was filmed, the windshield shattered, spraying glass up into his face, cutting it deeply. Duke, never one to suffer fools gladly, chased the technician who had fitted a real glass windshield round the set with a hammer. Eventually Ford called a halt, sternly ordering Duke to leave his crew alone. He refused to take the star’s part or defend his interest. Duke felt humiliated and, for perhaps the first time, he rounded on Coach to argue heatedly as he tried to make his point. To spectators it was painfully obvious that he idolized the director, that he was hurt and needed and expected some words of comfort. Ford refused to give them; it would have been unmanly and weak. Duke had been angry because his face hurt, Ford really didn’t care. Pain seemed to go a long way to ensuring he got a good performance out of Duke and that was all that mattered to him. Duke suspected his deep affection was returned in some measure, that his talent was valued, but he always needed more tangible demonstrations of concern that were so rarely forthcoming from the Master.

  The war ended just before the film premiered. The critics were sure that no matter how artistic or well-made it was, people wouldn’t be willing to pay to see another war picture, they were sure it had come a few months too late. Fortunately for the success of the film Duke had demanded his part was expanded, giving it more emotion so it became more of a personal story and less of a documentary. Ford trusted Duke’s judgement on what the public wanted and had accepted a lesson from the pupil. When it was finally released, the Wayne formula worked in the film’s favor. He had assessed the country’s mood better than Ford or the critics and the public took no notice of anything other than that fact that here was another John Wayne adventure. It was business as usual at box-office.

  Ford had been immensely important to his early development but Duke was now establishing his own identity as he steadily came out of the director’s shadow. He needed him less, and even though he believed he owed everything to him and remained tied to him in his own consciousness, from that point on the relationship between them underwent subtle shifts. In 1945 Duke was still the best son and Ford the stern father, but as his stature grew in the industry it became less easy for the director to intimidate him. On the set of They Were Expendable Duke had discovered he could give voice to his own opinions, could make demands, could even argue, and his view would get some respect. The end of filming exactly coincided with his emerging position in Hollywood. He now held his future securely in his own hands. Ford’s influence declined and even Republic lost control as Duke saw that his popularity was not dependent on anyone else. The knowledge released him and allowed him to begin pouring his time and energy into his new obsession, making his own films.

  Yates, who trusted Duke’s judgement and was now scared of losing him, signed another agreement, giving him control of the films he made at Republic. He now worked as an independent within the security of the studio set up. One of his first actions under his new contract was to hire Mary as his personal assistant. She had been born in Missouri and had dreamed of a career in law but dropped out of school when she realized that America wasn’t ready for female lawyers, and in 1936 took a job in Republic’s typing pool instead.

  During the intervening years she and Duke built up a strong working relationship and when he told her in 1939 that he would one day ask her to be his PA she had known he would keep his word. Finally, in 1946 he offered the promised job and she went to work for him, remaining loyal to him from then on, standing by him through thick and thin, ever faithful, always there when he needed someone to talk to, always firmly on his side. She picked up the pieces after each of his romantic disasters, saw him through economic failure, was with him through every triumph and every disappointment, through political controversy and ill health. She worked for him as a paid member of his staff, she was also one of the best friends he ever had, bestowing an unwavering loyalty on him. She never faltered and Duke trusted her, “My father told me when I was a boy, not to expect gratitude or loyalty, and I’d never be disappointed. I knew he had been hurt many times. But I took his advice, and he was right.” In Mary’s case he was never let down. She never betrayed his trust, and she never hurt him. When she talked about him her eyes shone, and the reason for her devotion was simple, “You just couldn’t possibly encounter in one lifetime more than one human being like this. No matter how famous he became, he never thought he was anything special. Nothing ever altered our relationship. He is considerate of all his staff, of all his crew on every film. He knows everyone by name, who their families are, what their jobs are, what ailments each might have, he talks to each and every one of them every day. He has gathered around him a fairly regular staff and crew, and if any of them are ever in trouble he is always the first there offering his help, either financial, or whatever they might need. On McQ a stuntman turned a car over, it was Duke who ran the fastest to get him out. He completely spoils me, I have never had any desire to work anywhere else, no matter how much money I might be offered.”

  Mary watched him develop as a professional, “There’s a regular lifestyle he has worked out on location. Many of the crew have worked with him for years, they all make it easy for you when you’re a newcomer. It’s sort of like his family. Usually Mr Wayne has dinner with Luster Bayless, his wardrobe man, Dave Grayson, his make-up man, and Jack Casey who handles publicity. It’s usually early because he likes to get up so early the next morning.” She knew how he liked his day organized when he was on location and she made sure nothing got in his way. He loved her simply because she was as professional as he was himself, “When people you work with do their job and still have time to smile and get along with others… well, they’re the people I want around.”

  As he worked non-stop through the war planning his next moves and gathering around him the staff he wanted he was busy generating a safe position for himself within the industry. The result of his effort during those years produced dividends so much greater than any of them ever dreamed possible. By 1946 he was grossing over one million dollars a year, paid $175,000 per picture. He was full of plans for his blossoming career.

  Then Ford came home from the war offering him the chance to star in his next series of pictures which would reflect his mythical vision of the strange beauty of war and the way men bonded and interacted during conflict. Naturally Duke was the biggest part of his plan, for with him came receipts. He wanted to paint the picture but needed Duke to ensure people came to see it; he too had learned a valuable lesson from They Were Expendable, it seemed the public could never get enough of John Wayne. He wanted to use him now in a series of films, not based on The Second World War, but on tales of the United States Cavalry, in stories set back in time and employing the western imagery that he so loved. He believed that the impending death of any soldier must arouse great emotion in the characters involved and also in the watching public. He knew his old pupil was adept at evoking such emotion but had been surprised to discover he had also somehow become the embodiment of the American fighting man. And Duke found he had to put his own plans on the back burner. Throughout the war he had unfailingly portrayed men true to a code, men of honor and courage. His performance had forged an unbreakable bond with his audience. When he starred in a film they knew what to expect. It was those expectations that Ford wanted to tap into.

  As a man Duke had been shy and lonely most of his life, a man of simple pleasures, easily moved to either tears or laughter, happiness or anger, and though he tried to live according to his own strict moral code, he was really nothing like the hero of his films and he found the expectations of Ford and his public weighed heavily as he strove to meet their demands. Increasingly, living the dream involved adapting his personality, toughening up to become the man everyone wanted him to be. Many Hollywood stars become legends, but few of those legends ever reflect the real person the way his came to. He was by no means perfect. He had legendary weaknesses and it took the most tremendous willpower to live his life according t
o the expectations of others, took heroic effort even when he was not always a real hero.

  And he was far from the hero at home where his life had come to resemble a chaotic soap-opera. He and Chata were either loving and tremendously tender toward each other, or they were screaming and fighting, both hot tempered and stubborn. When they divorced Chata sited one incident when she had been inside the house. She heard a loud noise coming from the back and went to investigate. She found Duke repeatedly throwing a patio table against the door because she hadn’t gone out to him when he called her. He never denied his violent streak, but it was rare for him to direct it at anyone but himself. Chata found to her cost that ignoring him unfailingly ignited the short fuse.

  The one thing she did that always drove him crazy was run back to Mexico just when he wanted to talk things over with her. Everyone who knew him, knew his fiery, wild temper and became accustomed to the sudden flare up, followed by the almost instant apology, and his burning desire to put things right. He couldn’t follow his normal course of action with his wife, because she never waited for the charming apology. Once he raised his voice, Chata flew, “Mrs Wayne made it a practice to find every excuse to stay away from me. I loved her deeply, but we were like a pair of volatile chemicals continually thrown together to create a series of almighty explosions, each one destroyed us a little bit more.”

  They were both consuming vast amounts of alcohol. When they drank together she stirred him to the greatest anger, and despite his own natural softness, he exploded violently also. Luckily, neither usually had much recollection of such incidents, though she once accused him of dragging her off the bed by her hair. When Chata got drunk she enraged him. When she was drunk she told him about her other men and played on his weaknesses, pushing him, stinging his ego and hurting him until he could take no more. Then he lashed out, usually verbally, sometimes physically, in self defense. Her actions were all designed to arouse his jealousy and stimulate him into showing how much he cared. All she did was arouse his blind rage and she said, “He often bashed me.” In fact the evidence all pointed the other way and he later implied that her mother was the one in the household who generally did the beating. He insisted he couldn’t remember ever hitting Chata but he was never quite sure what depths he sank to when he was drunk. The thought that he might have struck her haunted many of his darkest dreams. The reality was that they carried the equal bruises of a fragile marriage.

  Love was always the prime mover in Duke’s life. When he went home after exerting enormous amounts of self-discipline on location, he wanted nothing more than to relax, make love all night and have some quiet fun playing cards or chess during the day. Chata, who had been waiting longingly for his return, burned to go out and party as soon as he walked through the door. It became a constant problem for him because he hated the Hollywood gatherings that she favored. When he gave in and took her out, he drank heavily to alleviate the boredom, usually remaining just sober enough to be embarrassed by her outrageous behavior.

  At the first hint of trouble he started shouting at her to stop showing him up. He anticipated a scene and almost triggered it himself in his desperate attempts to keep her quiet and all their wildest fights inevitably began at parties in front of his friends. He felt deep shame as he warded her blows off, forced to defend himself without honor as she kicked and scratched like a wildcat. Other guests supported his claim that the only time he was ever rough was in his own defense. However he knew he wasn’t always the innocent party, or the injured one either. And whenever he contemplated his life with Chata it was with regret.

  1947 became a year of emotional turmoil at home. He was forty and deeply unhappy in his marriage. Both his age and his unhappiness led to a great outpouring of physical and emotional activity as he once more turned to work for release. The result was three of the best films he ever made, Fort Apache, Three Godfathers, and Red River. He had assumed he was in the twilight of his career; as it turned out he was at the blaze of his noon. In this single year he became an actor, acknowledged finally even by his fiercest critics, after almost twenty years in the business. The average studio life of film stars was short, perhaps five years, some superstars like Gable, managed to last fifteen, and then there was Duke, already twenty years down the line and only just about to become the biggest box-office sensation of all time. Everything that took place before was only a prelude to what followed now, and which amazingly continued to the time he could no longer work due to ill-health, some fifty years after first meeting John Ford on the set of Mother MacRee. 1947 was the miracle year that changed his life forever. He had never been able to find any explanation for what happened. His energy had been drained by his domestic situation and his continuous arguments at Republic, he was depressed by the reception of his first production, Angel and the Badman, yet somehow what he turned out against all the odds then took him to the top of his profession and gave him a position of huge power in Hollywood.

  Each picture was far from the routine western he had previously been associated with, each was highly wrought and complex, and in them he was directed by two very demanding men who required huge amounts of effort. With utter indifference to his mental fatigue and physical exhaustion he threw himself at their demands to create not one but three great films. From somewhere he had acquired a self-discipline that enabled him to perform the miracle, but neither he nor the directors ever knew how he managed it.

  Fort Apache, a Ford movie, was shot entirely on location in Monument Valley, and starred Duke, Henry Fonda and Shirley Temple. The location was rugged, and even the two biggest stars of the day shared a shower block with forty other men. Duke continued to enjoy the camaraderie and Michael Wayne later said of his dad, “He knew what space he occupied. He told me, “When you start believing your own bullshit, that’s when you’re in big trouble.” Duke enjoyed the silent, peaceful nights, where the only sound came from the film crew and raucous stars, and said, “Very occasionally, out in the distance, you could hear Indians singing their traditional songs … I just loved it out there after the pressure I was under at home. Took me some weeks before I could start to relax in that wonderful atmosphere and I guess Jack found me a little more difficult than normal … ”

  Duke played Captain York, a charismatic leader of men. Fonda represented the politics of the army. Together they provided the imagery of personal appeal versus a system of explicit law. A passionate, warm, friendly man, York was flexible toward his men. He didn’t live by regulation, nor did he expect the soldiers to. Fonda, as Colonel Thursday, was strict, disciplined, and constantly criticizes York and the men, although he was ignorant of the West and its ways. With no knowledge of the Indian, he believed humiliation and conquest were necessary to deal with them. York got along with them through respect and understanding. Thursday wanted to wipe the Apache out for good, and planned to use York as a decoy, forcing him to break his word to Cochise to trap him. When he refuses his orders, Thursday tells him there is no such thing as honor when dealing with Indians, York replies, “There is to me.”

  A student later asked him what he had been thinking about when he did the scene where he threw down his gauntlet at Thursday’s feet, “I meant it. My honor was being forsaken, I had made certain suggestions that the Indians had agreed to, and this bastard was double-crossing them. It’s a funny thing, the Indians now are against me, but I believe I always gave the Indian his human dignity in my films. I never allowed myself at any time to do anything that would take their dignity away from them, and that to me, is the most important thing in a man.”

  Shirley Temple and her new husband John Agar also starred in the film and Ford was his usual aggressive self to the newcomers. Agar hated the experience and was on the point of quitting after a particularly harrowing day. He was already packing his things when Duke raced to the rescue. He had been watching Agar for days and recognized the signs of trouble.

  “Mr Wayne I just can’t take any more. I can’t stand him another day.”
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br />   “Now just hold on a minute there. Mr Ford insulting you don’t mean he don’t like you or admire you. It’s when he doesn’t insult you need to worry. Let me tell you about what he did to me on Stagecoach, and on plenty other occasions too.” He explained Ford’s technique to get the performance he wanted, telling Agar that it didn’t matter to him whether he was dealing with a newcomer or a veteran. He told him it would soon be his turn to meet Ford’s displeasure and that he should just get on with his job. He ran over Agar’s lines with him, as Yak had done with him so long ago, went out riding with him and gave him some of the other lessons he had received from the stuntman. In fact, although Ford didn’t turn on him, Duke believed the only reason he was left alone was because Coach knew how depressed he was about Chata.

  When Ward Bond arrived on location he paid the pilot of the light aircraft to buzz the set before landing. Duke glanced up, knowing who it was, and commented knowingly to Agar, “Well, I guess you can relax now, he’s found another whipping boy!” Duke treated most young stars with warm, good natured generosity. Agar went on to star in many of his next films and remained completely loyal, willing to do anything for Duke, “I’d go to hell and back for him. No one ever worked harder than him. I’m not sure who I admire most, John Wayne the person, or John Wayne the dedicated actor. Let’s just say he is about the best human being I have ever known.”

  Fort Apache, a film about combat, military tradition and belief in absolute order, was largely based on Ford’s own World War 2 experiences. Some years after making it he was asked, ““When the legend becomes fact print the legend” is a line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance; it could equally apply to Fort Apache; do you agree with the sentiment?”