by C McGivern
His family might have resented his superstardom, but he resented it more deeply himself, he felt isolated in it and he suffered the consequences as profoundly as they did. At least they had each other, he had no one to turn to, no one to share his feelings or his fears with. Who but another super-icon could possibly understand what he was going through then? He had left Hollywood to move to the beach and he no longer had easy access to the clubs or bars where he might have been able to talk things over with Sinatra or Martin. All his closest friends were gone and since moving to Newport he had made few new ones, and none that were involved in the movie industry or were likely to understand. He was lonelier than ever at a time the whole world seemed to adore him and longed to associate themselves with his strength and were clamoring to see his powerful image. Again, the irony of his situation wasn’t lost on him.
As he outpaced his family his options in life seemed to be reduced. He was obsessed with the business of making films and from now on he turned his full attention to the fans and they got the best of him, he had little left for anyone else. He dedicated himself to them and remained unswerving in his loyalty. In return, his new persona won their committed devotion and was carried to new heights and also to its conclusion. He hadn’t purposely created it, all he had done was manage to live through a terrible ordeal and the new John Wayne was very much the invention of those members of the Press who had gone down to Durango to watch Katie Elder being made. His legion of fans perceived him as tougher than before, more courageous, more enduring. Duke laughed cynically; here they were talking about him as though he was immortal, when his illness had made him all too aware of his own mortality, they had turned him into an icon at the very time he had been forced to acknowledge his own humanity.
He had been sitting around worrying about things for too long and it was getting him nowhere. He shook himself, he needed a familiar distraction, it was time for movie action. Having somehow managed to survive the trauma of Katie Elder, he was feeling stronger and when old friend Howard Hawks offered him another chance he jumped at El Dorado, his third film of 1965. At first glance it was just another “John Wayne” but it went far beyond that, telling a tale of male friendship, disability and growing old. McLeod, Duke’s adversary in the film, though on the wrong side of the law, is an idealist and believes in the professional honor of the gunfighter. Duke as Thornton, another gunfighter, knows there is no such thing as professional honor for a gun man, there is only pain, suffering and eventually, death. He has no illusions. His friend, the sheriff is a drunk, his girlfriend has a damaged reputation, his own life is full of pain after being shot in the back. His gun hand is often paralyzed, the result of the bullet still lodged near his spine. The lives of Thornton and the sheriff are threatened, and their only hope is to work together. Both men are experienced and survive only because they are willing to use any dirty trick available in the fight. El Dorado ends with the two friends limping down the street together, both wounded, both alive.
The film meant everything to Duke whose own goals were much the same; getting his work done anyway he could, and staying alive to fight another day. And audiences loved it. Within a year it had taken $12 million.
After his financial disaster with Bo Roos, Duke needed a new business manager. He didn’t have the time or the inclination to sort the mess out for himself, but he did need someone he could trust; if possible, a member of his own family, to act on his behalf. He targeted son-in-law Donald La Cava, husband of his daughter, Toni. La Cava already worked at Batjac and intended going into production, but Duke decided he was the ideal man for the job, and he put him in charge of his money instead. He had no financial background and Duke had no high hopes of him, he just wanted someone he trusted looking after his interests, “I don’t expect you to make money. Just be dammed sure you don’t lose any more.”
He turned his attention away from illness and loneliness to concentrate on rebuilding his collapsed fortune. He had lost almost everything he had ever earned and was still in serious financial difficulty. He knew the only way to recover his position was through hard work and during 1965 and 1966 he turned out a high number of films, all of which made a lot of money. He personally commanded $1million per picture plus a percentage of profit and he felt he was finally earning his just rewards. He believed that between his hard work and La Cava’s careful banking things should begin to look up.
One of the films he agreed to work on in 1966 was Cast a Giant Shadow. Everything about the project suited Duke and he earned a good salary making a cameo appearance in Israel alongside Kirk Douglas. More importantly the quick trip allowed him time to stop-over in London to visit old friends, ballerina Margot Fonteyn and her husband Dr Roberto Arias, a Panamanian international lawyer, diplomat and journalist. At the time Arias was a patient in Stoke Mandeville Hospital, a British spinal injury unit.
The production manager on the film, Cecil F Ford, had been ordered to meet Wayne at London’s Heathrow Airport and to make sure no newspapers were informed about the visit. Ford later wrote, “I was horrified to see the airport full of reporters. The emerging passengers looked like pygmies next to Wayne. He was smiling until he noticed the press and a momentary frown flitted across his face. ‘Let’s get this over quickly, I must get to the hospital quickly,’ he said as he approached the gathered newsmen. He pulled out a cigarette in fine style and said with a big grin, ‘OK fellas. Let’s have you.’”
Ford said that he panicked when he heard Wayne, “Hospital? Urgent? The lung? Was Wayne being photographed for the last time? My mind went blank. I had no idea where the hospital was. I rushed off to grab the driver. He didn’t know where it was either. A photographer approached and said he knew where it was and he would lead us in his car. But I knew Wayne wanted no press. I dried. Wayne was already walking toward the car. The photographer got in his and we followed.
“Terrible thoughts struck me. Would we make it in time? The great John Wayne dying in the car in an English country lane, the great John Wayne lying on a stretcher… oh the press.
“’How far is the hospital?’ he suddenly asked.”
Ford guessed, “About two miles?”
Duke said he’d like to stop somewhere to get washed and brushed up before meeting the doctor and he asked the driver “Buddy pull up at that roadhouse.” Ford commented that it was the smallest pub he’d ever been in and that Duke had to bend down to squeeze in.
“The regulars stared at us in amazement. Wayne just smiled, ‘Hiya. Get ‘em up all round landlord. I’ll have a Scotch on the rocks… a big one.’ Apparently Duke was in no rush to meet his maker and soon the bar was a seething mass of happy people, full of ale and song.”
“’Where’s the john?’ Duke eventually roared.
“’The John?’ asked the landlord.
“’The can, the men’s room,’ Wayne bellowed. The landlord replied, “Ah. It’ll be outside, straight out the door.”
The men’s room consisted of a painted white wall and Ford said, “He took up his position and I whispered to him, ‘The hospital?’”
“Ah yes, mustn’t keep the doctor waiting. Let’s go.”
As they got into the car Duke received a loving farewell from the locals. Ford asked Wayne the name of the doctor so he could dash ahead and get everything sorted out for him.
“Doctor Roberto Arias; a dear friend. Promised I’d call as soon as I got here.”
Ford said that as they pulled into the grounds of the hospital Fonteyn rushed out to greet him and flung her arms round Wayne. “Half an hour later they returned, arm-in-arm, laughing and joking. She kissed him a fond farewell. Duke then asked to go back to the pub. With the help of the regulars we drank it dry and Duke demonstrated how to push a full pint pot the whole length of the bar to a queue of grateful recipients at the far end. He suddenly asked me where I lived and when I said a village called Little Gaddesden he said, ‘Never heard of it. Take me to it. Got any children?’
“Yes, three little girls.�
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‘Great. Let’s go.’ He turned to the locals and shouted, ‘Hope to see you all again.’ As if Newport Beach was just down the road.”
For Ford and the pub regulars the episode had been astonishing but for John Wayne it had just been business as usual. There weren’t many locations on the planet that he could visit without meeting that kind of reception and he was well used to the reactions of fans. Luckily he seemed to enjoy the occasions and even now similar tales of his openness and availability continue to emerge from all round the world.
Always generous, he paid for every tab wherever he happened to be, despite his on-going personal concerns about money. Because he enjoyed contact with the public and fully understood what was expected of film stars in general and himself in particular, he refused to let the image falter for a second. He delighted in his privileged position but was also aware that if he was ever considered mean spirited his whole career could suffer. His generosity came naturally but he also understood its worth as part of his professional persona. Unfortunately his free-giving spirit extended far beyond buying a few rounds of drinks in bars and was partly the reason he rarely managed to save any money.
In October 1966 he flew to Dallas with Pilar to do some early Christmas shopping. On the journey he scanned a variety of catalogues for ideas. He loved to shop, and it was often the arrival of a new store catalogue that triggered a wild spree. He had been fascinated by them since he was a small boy, “When I was young I used to dream that one day I’d have enough money to order everything in the catalogue. They became an obsession with me.” As an adult he continued to enjoy pouring over their pages, deep in thought, marking off anything he fancied or noting down ideas for gifts. Once his choices had been made he usually asked Mary to order the things and send off his money. He rarely bought anything for himself, but he selected an endless stream of gadgets, novelties, paperweights, nautical equipment, kitchen items, shoe racks, flashlights, anything that caught his fancy. He sent away for so much that unopened boxes had to be piled high, stored in warehouses on the dock. The packages remained stacked there until he gave them away, usually to members of his crew or staff. Many of them disappeared, but he never cared, the fun was in searching the catalogue in the knowledge that now he could have whatever he wanted. Once he had paid the cheque he lost all interest in his purchases.
In Dallas he and Pilar spent thousands of dollars. They enjoyed wandering through the stores looking at furniture, smelling perfumes, handling accessories. Duke never took armed guards along as other stars did, he simply ambled round smiling, and hardly noticed the amazed stares of other shoppers. He rarely got into conversations but was happy to wish everyone “Good day,” or “Howdy,” as he stood in line to pay for his goods just like a regular human being. Pilar said, “He was actually very good at shopping. He could accurately judge the sizes of friends and children and he unfailingly chose colors that suited them.” He swamped his acquaintances with gifts and anyone who got a surprise package from some strange foreign destination would be right to assume it was from him, they would know he had been out shopping and thinking about them. Duke went home from Dallas having spent well over thirty thousand dollars.
Throughout November the bills piled up in La Cava’s office. Eventually he drove over to see his father-in-law, “How could you spend so much money? You don’t have that kind of money. How am I supposed to pay these?” Duke replied stonily, “There goddam well better be money to pay them. I’ve turned over millions of dollars to you… there goddam well better be enough.” His blood froze the instant he saw La Cava’s face, the scene was all too familiar, he had been down this same road before. Unpaid bills had first alerted him to Roos’ failure; surely his own family couldn’t have done that to him again? He was rocked to his foundations, but there certainly wasn’t enough money in the bank to pay October’s bills. He had slaved his guts out after his operations to restore his finances, he had earned millions since 1964, yet here he was once again, with nothing left. La Cava was fired on the spot, but in fact detailed investigation showed things were not as bad this time as before, and his investments at least were all doing fine. All the profits he’d made over the last few years had been ploughed into his successful Arizona cotton farm, and he wasn’t in the red, he simply had no cash available to pay for the shopping binge. He would just have to keep on working to pay these bills, and in some ways the disaster gave him just the excuse he needed to carry on doing what he wanted to do anyway.
Duke had made one new friend in Newport. Frosty, a white Samoyed, had replaced Blackie in his affections after the death of the little dachshund. He missed him almost as much as he missed all his other lost friends, but even as a puppy, Frosty had Duke just where he wanted him, and knew exactly how to get his own way. Early every morning as the boss took his breakfast alone on the patio, Frosty growled and nipped his ankles until he picked him up, sat him at the table and served him coffee and scraps of bacon. Duke enjoyed the company of dogs and at one time kept four at his Bayshore house, though he complained, “The whole bunch couldn’t corner a rat if each was armed with a Colt .45.” Visitors had to fight their way through a tail-wagging, slobbering welcoming committee. He loved all of them, even though his gardeners and visitors generally didn’t.
The grounds of his home were littered with the remains of his newspapers lying in chewed-up soggy heaps, the bushes and shrubs were torn up and piles of waste were left all over the lawn. Duke laughed when welcoming guests, “Christ, watch where you walk, I’ve seen horses that crap less than those dogs.” He was often found gazing longingly into his neighbor’s perfectly groomed grounds muttering, “Makes mine look like a goddamn jungle. Still, I like the more natural look!”
He was still not particularly comfortable in his new surroundings and he continued to miss the people who had shared his work and his life for so long. Until they moved to Newport his free time was dictated by his career, he read scripts, attended meetings, spent hours with John Ford or any other director or producer who happened to be in town. In Newport he felt torn out of the only life he had ever known or wanted.
He had gone to Newport to be close to his beloved ocean and now it and The Wild Goose remained his best escape from the monotony that plagued him. He was free to be himself there, could hide from prying eyes and cameras and he didn’t have to put on the John Wayne act out at sea. He could allow his increasingly fat stomach to protrude out of an open shirt, he could leave the hairpiece on the side, and drink tequila until it poured out of his ears. He delighted in sitting with his crew, trading stories with the men who had been with him the longest, mostly he enjoyed just listening to them. When Pilar didn’t sail with them the stories became X-rated.
And she went with him less and less frequently, telling him his beautiful minesweeper felt like a prison to her. Now when Pilar took herself off to play tennis he wandered down to the port on his own, pottered around, made suggestions for improvements to his boat, planned overhauls, or sat talking with other boat owners, but he remained sad and empty.
Then, in the late sixties, he again turned to politics, taking some pleasure immersing himself in some gentle activity. He said politics and politicians came way down his list of priorities, but in fact he had more than a passing interest in both. He steadfastly refused all offers of public office in the choicest of terms, but on the other hand, he was always willing to give his wholehearted backing to any candidate, either of the Left or Right, who took his fancy. For a man with no interest he dedicated many hours to writing long complex letters to various politicians, offering suggestions for their campaigns. He wasn’t a man to mince words or gestures, an attribute that frequently plunged him into hot and deep water, now he found himself out of step with American popular culture and attitudes. Many felt his patriotism maudlin, and he acquired the label “reactionary.”
Whilst he remained a champion to some, people became afraid to claim the dinosaur as their own. The instant he started another flirtation with po
litics he again found critics everywhere and despite his much publicized ill health and the warmth of the public reaction to it, many believed his outdated attitudes held no validity in the modern world. Surgery had cut short his efforts on behalf of Senator Goldwater, but by 1966 he felt strong enough to start campaigning again, this time on behalf of Ronald Reagan. When his old friend became the target of a vicious hate campaign Duke worried about the effect it would have on Nancy and he wrote to her offering his solid support through whatever came her way. She retained a deep fondness for him in return for the help he gave her and her husband over many years and said, “John Wayne was the most gentle, tender person I ever knew.”
His boat and his renewed interest in politics were valuable distractions to him when he was bored, but he also suddenly and unexpectedly began receiving vast numbers of scripts and offers of work, and from the late-sixties onward he started rediscovering some of his old enthusiasm for life. Then, just as he was restoring his own life, two thousand soldiers were sent off to Vietnam, and he was thrown into the middle of yet another controversy, another battle, another war.
On a hot day in August 1965 he and Mary were strolling through the grounds of the USC campus, relaxing and talking about how it had all changed since the days when he was a student there. As they stood on the lawns outside the library he became aware of a commotion close by. Some students had set up a table and posters protesting about the war in Vietnam. They were heckling a young marine as he walked past. Duke’s interest was caught by the soldier whose chest was covered in medals. He noticed he had an arm missing, and guessed he had been at the college to sign on to go back to school. He rushed over to escort him back to his car, and he thanked him for serving his country. He waved as the boy drove away.