by C McGivern
He did try to cut back in a half-hearted attempt at compromise, it wasn’t enough and Pilar warned him that she would be moving out of their home. Before carrying out her threat she made one last effort, pleading with him to go with her to see a marriage counsellor. The idea of talking openly to a stranger filled him with disgust, “I don’t believe in all that mumbo-jumbo. We are grown people and we ought to be able to settle our problems ourselves. Couches are only good for one thing. You never understood my need to work. That’s all that’s wrong between us and I don’t need a counsellor to tell me that.”
His wife left and the house fell silent. His children didn’t take sides but knew how badly he suffered. He needed them more than ever and Aissa said, “I’d never seen him so torn up, nor so lonely. We visited him frequently and tried our best to help him out.” Pilar expected they would get back together and knew he still loved her. She hoped they would be able to work things out. Mary told her he sat alone crying for three days after she removed her belongings. She had gone when he was away filming knowing he wouldn’t let her go had he been there. It was December, the time he most enjoyed sharing with his family. She knew she was destroying his vision of happiness and how disappointed and hurt he would be. But, although he was a sorry sight throughout the holiday period, life didn’t really change that much for him during the first months of separation. He had never spent much time at home. He still didn’t. Just because Pilar was no longer living at home he saw no reason to change his normal life’s patterns. He stayed away a little more, and worked even harder. All the time he was away he could pretend nothing had happened. He talked to her on the phone from location, just as he always had, and he supported each of her new ventures. If anything, although he felt adrift, he was more open and friendly with her than before. Still, he hardly looked forward to his future with anything other than the deepest anxiety and he bitterly resented the fact that Pilar wasn’t there to ease his way into old age.
The children were certain their dad couldn’t make it without her and were sure he would ask her to go back to him. Of course they didn’t know much about his colorful past. Historically when a wife became difficult she was replaced. He only loved one woman at a time, but he had to have a woman in his life and now he badly needed a replacement.
In the early 1970’s faithful Mary St John, the woman at his side longer than any other, decided it was time to retire. She personally interviewed and hand-picked the small, dark, bubbly and intelligent Pat Stacy as her replacement and then set about training her to work for a demanding, but very lovable boss. From 1972 she fazed herself out of his life and allowed her replacement to take over.
Pat worked out of his Batjac office at first and it was over a month before she was introduced to him, “I was surprised by his warmth, his sense of humor and his obvious gentleness.” The thirty-two year old was instantly attracted by his unassuming and kind manner and gradually relaxed in his company. More than that, she developed a crush on him and her eyes followed him hungrily whenever they worked together. Duke, of course, was instantly aware of her feelings, it was not uncommon for new members of staff to react to him in that way, and although he knew the impact he had on people, he never took advantage. He smiled, remained open and friendly but didn’t say anything untoward. He didn’t want to embarrass her. Whenever he caught her staring at him or jumping to perform trivial tasks he laughed and tried to ease the situation with humor. He introduced her to his wife and children. They all appeared so affectionate toward each other that she had been working for him for some time before she began to realize all was not well in the Wayne household and sensed his depression at the way things were turning out. And there was his replacement, waiting, ready, willing and able to pick up the pieces.
She began working at his home two days a week but was kept completely busy as his secretary; their relationship was all work. He gave no indication that he was looking for anything other than an efficient secretary and he remained completely impersonal toward her. But as Pat learned more about him she came to understand his needs and his fears; he became less the superstar boss, more a man in need of help. It was as inevitable as night follows day that he became involved with her but he took pains not to get too close too soon. He was scared to admit that he was attracted to a woman who was even younger than his wife and at first he was almost brusque in his dealings with her. He was unsure of himself but it wasn’t too long before he began to actively seek her company.
He was looking forward to starting work on his next venture, McQ, due to be shot in Seattle. Once more the Press was hot on his heels; Duke abandoning his natural environment of the Old West was newsworthy and they wondered if they were witnessing the end of an era. His name was synonymous with the Western where he rode tall in the saddle. Had things changed, or was he playing the natural descendant of John T Chance, taking the next logical step in bringing the American hero up to date? Wasn’t he a little long in the tooth for a new twist?
“Well fellas,” he drawled, “I guess it was just time for a change.”
He was grateful that all the questions were about his pictures; thankfully none of them had scented the dramatic events taking place in his private life. He had been married so long and seemed so blissfully happy that they assumed things were going to stay that way. They never thought to question it. He had made exactly the same mistake himself. He was not his usual amiable self for the pack of news hounds. Filming was falling behind schedule, he didn’t like the story or the script, he was restless and on edge. As soon as the cry went up, “The sun’s out!” he raced to get in front of the camera, eager to get it over with. They were running late and all he had to do was play chess or listen to newspaper men commenting, “Why would a two-fisted hombre like Duke leave the wide open spaces to take refuge in a police station?” Well the two-fisted hombre was fed up and he hadn’t particularly wanted to leave the wide open spaces. More chess, lunch, lines, sun in, sun out, more talk with the Press;
“Why the sudden change Duke? Isn’t this a come down?”
“Certainly not. You have the wrong idea son. This is a promotion. McQ is a modern counterpart of all the lawmen I have ever played. Only the scenery is different, and it’s nice, I don’t have to fall off a horse. McQ is the same as Cahill or Big Jake, he’s a tough old bird who doesn’t indulge in the frivolities that other detectives like. Not that he’s a dirty policeman or unfeeling. But I have done civilian films before. I do own suits you know!”
When the sun set on another frustrating day he retreated to The Wild Goose, at rest in the harbor, where Pat was waiting to smooth things over. It was the first time Mary hadn’t accompanied him, the first time Pat took up her full responsibilities. She was excited to be working alone with him and he caught her enthusiasm, she was like a breath of fresh air. And slowly, as the days passed, his mood lifted. He began to feel a little better, less raw, less frayed.
During filming he was delighted when Pilar dropped by unexpectedly, then was just as suddenly thrown into despair when she told him she wasn’t staying because she had a tennis tournament to attend. She wanted him to look after their youngest daughter while she was away. “If that’s the way you want things,” he murmured. That was the way she wanted it. He felt as though he had been discarded and from that moment on he made little attempt to hide his attraction for his secretary. On the evening he was to attend the premiere of Cahill, US Marshall in Seattle, he invited her to go along with him. He was more informal than before, he joked and talked affably, and things were about to change. That night he took her for dinner after the show and they had a lot to drink. When they got back to The Goose he guided her toward his room without saying a word. He had already left for work when she woke the next morning but the crew showed no surprise when she sidled out of his room wrapped in one of his towels.
He remained friendly and relaxed toward her, he seemed to be easy and comfortable, but he didn’t invite her back to his bed. He liked her because she eased the dull
ache Pilar had left behind and she amused him but he felt guilty about what he’d done. He felt he had used both her and the situation.
When they got back to Newport life returned to normal. He became moody and withdrawn, and, missing his family badly, he toyed again with the idea of reconciliation. He made a half-hearted attempt to talk things over with her but Pilar was no longer prepared to live according to his dictates, “He would have given me anything money could buy. The only thing he couldn’t give was any degree of independence. He was no nearer understanding women toward the end of his life than he’d ever been.” Though deeply wounded by her continued rejection and, knowing his marriage hung in the balance, he blustered to the Press, “She can have a divorce any time she wants.” The self-assurance was a façade. He had always turned to work to ease his burdens but nothing he did now wiped out the loneliness he felt.
The only moments of relief he knew came from Pat who was willing to do anything for him. She offered an uncomplicated relationship and was perfectly happy to give up her identity to share his, she enjoyed his company, she idolized him. And although Duke never stopped loving or wanting Pilar, and continued to talk highly of her, he felt abandoned, confused, and missed having female warmth in his life. He turned to Pat and she stayed at his side, comforting him through his next, most difficult years. He and Pilar never divorced and he never openly declared any other relationship in his life.
Pat only wanted to be with him, she was happy to play hostess to his friends and would willingly have married him had he asked. He never did, he thought she was much too young, and more importantly, that he was much too old for another marriage. He openly took her out but told everyone they were friends and professional associates. His image always firmly at the back of his mind, he never let her stay overnight at his house and said, “Sure, I’ve taken her out a couple of times. But there’s no particular romance… I’m past the age of romance. I’m getting smart enough to know.”
The death of John Ford had left him deeply traumatized and the last thing he had wanted was to loose Pilar as well, but in Seattle he resigned himself to the inevitable. Mary St John explained, “Mr Wayne misses having a woman in the house. He’s very much a family man. He’s also a one woman man. He tried very hard to save the marriage to Pilar. I’ll say that for him.”
In 1972 he was distracted from his personal heartache by the call for a strictly defined code of decency in Hollywood. Duke, who hated so much of what was being turned out, saw the code as being too close to censorship, and when the industry called for his support against it he gave it unreservedly. He argued against the proposals made by the Californian conservatives in several radio speeches and when their plans were defeated they turned against the darling of the Right, for his part in their downfall. But he was only dabbling in politics and his interest came to an abrupt end in 1973, the year of the Watergate scandal.
As the news first broke he switched the TV channel back and forth, sometimes watching more than one set at a time. He shouted at the screen, flying into a rage and throwing things, “Those bastards have to be cute to know ahead of time what the president is going to do.” Nixon was a personal friend and when he said he had no involvement Duke saw no reason to doubt him. All through 1974 as the incident unfolded he stood by the beleaguered President, calling for reporters to get off his back and let him do his job. He believed in the system and was sure Nixon stood above reproof. When he resigned in disgrace, up to his neck in lies, Duke, who had gone out on a limb for him, could hardly believe it and was deeply shocked, “Damn. He lied to me.”
Until 1976, when he began campaigning on behalf of Gerald Ford, he kept a low profile in the political arena. When Jimmy Carter came to power he didn’t dwell on the disappointment of another Republican failure, and was delighted when the President-elect invited him to the pre-inaugural festivities in Washington. Carter, it turned out, was a great John Wayne fan! At the gala, Duke congratulated him graciously, “I am privileged to be present and accounted for in this capital of freedom, to watch a common man take on uncommon responsibilities that he has won fair and square by stating his case to the American people… I’m considered a member of the opposition, the loyal opposition. Accent on the “loyal.” I’d have it no other way.” Later that evening Carter left the receiving line when he saw Duke enter the room and the Republican and the Democrat had a long friendly talk. Duke was impressed by Carter’s sincerity; it made a refreshing change and gave him heart for the future.
The two men were political opponents however and they maintained a lengthy, albeit consistently polite, correspondence. Carter was always one of the first to congratulate Duke when he won yet another award. They forged an unexpectedly warm friendship and shared much common ground. Duke proved time and again that he wasn’t a doctrinaire conservative, often to the despair of the Right. He came in for heavy criticism over his stance on the Panama Canal Treaty, when he sided with Carter. America had seized control of the Panama Canal Zone in 1903, and Roosevelt admitted he stole it. The zone was a strategically valuable piece of territory controlled by the US, which effectively cut Panama in half. By the 1960’s the Panamanians were vociferously demanding their land back. Resentment against America escalated and in 1964 exploded in the “flag riots” when some Panamanian students tried to raise their flag at a high school inside the American zone. This led to a fight with American students in which 21 Panamanian students and three Americans died.
The canal became less important to America once they began to maintain separate Pacific and Atlantic fleets and Duke lent his support to the left, offering his aid to President Carter. When negotiations were successfully concluded, he wrote to the Panamanian president to congratulate him. The letter threw him into another political minefield, and hate mail began pouring into his office once again. He was called a traitor and a commie bastard by the right wing, he admitted, “I really caught hell over that one!” The Republicans felt their hero had deserted them in their hour of need. He was shocked by the depth of the anger unleashed against him by those who had called themselves his friends. He was hurt when they spoke about him as if he had sold out, but he refused to back down and stubbornly clung to beliefs based on his extensive reading and his own understanding of the situation, “Giving back something that is no longer important to America would give a sense of nationhood to Panama, as well as a sense of gratitude to America. Also it would be an act calculated to protect national security and eliminate a painful vestige of colonialism. It would improve US relations with South America.”
Leading Republicans had found an issue which could have brought Carter down if Duke had added his weight to the cause. He’d let them down and now he found himself out of step with the right wing and with old friend Ronald Reagan. When the treaty was finally ratified, by just a one vote margin, President Carter wrote to thank the man who claimed to have no interest in politics for his effort and his steadfast support.
The name John Wayne did not appear in the 1975 top ten box-office star list for the first time since the 1940’s, “I guess it’s a sign everything must change, everything has to come to an end. Only a goddamn fool would think that anything is forever.” He was injured in a way no film critic had ever managed to wound him. Then in 1976 his declining status was brought home even more painfully when he was not asked to present any award at the Oscars.
Duke had never given in to anything in his life, he had adapted to ill health, financial difficulty, continuously recovered from critical beatings and had been resilient in the face of every family crisis. But now he faced the most savage enemy of all, old age. He found its advance difficult to deal with, “There’s no such thing as growing old gracefully, it’s all deterioration, decay. You just can’t give in to it.” He had to carry on, doing the best he could. He had abused his body all his life and in 1976 he bragged that he had never really been ill. No one understood how his body had stood up to what he did to it, he had remained illogically healthy despite smoking up to s
ix packs of cigarettes a day, washed down with any alcohol he could get, and eating foods loaded with fats. He had always worked too hard, rarely got sufficient sleep, and was always involved in any devilment to be found. He was about to pay the price.
His problems could be traced back to a cold day in New England in 1974, where he stopped off on his way to London to film a Glenn Campbell special and take part in a talk show to promote McQ and the upcoming Brannigan. In 1973 the editor of The Harvard Lampoon had sent a tongue-in-cheek invitation, “You think you’re tough. You’re not so tough. You’ve never dared to set foot in the wilderness of Cambridge territory. We dare you to have it out, head-on, with the young whelps here who would call the supposedly unbeatable John Wayne the biggest fraud in history.” He, the great right-winger, was being challenged to enter the most traditionally radical and hostile territory on earth. When he received the invitation he laughed and wrote back, “I accept with pleasure your challenge to bring my new motion picture, McQ, into the pseudo-intellectual swamps of Harvard Square. I was most happy to find that my age and balding head and gray hair had not made cowards out of the purported gentlemen of the mother college, (sorry to note that there is a weakness in your breeding, but there is a ray of hope in the fact that you are conscious of it.) May the good Lord keep you well until I get there.” When he set out from home he told Pat he would ring to let her know if he got out in one piece.
On January 15 1974 he rode into Harvard Square at “High Noon” on top of an armored personnel carrier. It was icy and snowing, some of the kids threw snowballs. After McQ was shown he gave an impromptu press conference for the students. It turned into one of the best performances he ever gave and he enjoyed it as much as anything he had ever done.
He ad-libbed the whole session, flying by the seat of his pants all night. One student asked him why he wore a phony toupee, “It isn’t phony. It’s real hair. Of course it’s not mine, but it’s real.” Another, “Has President Nixon ever given you any suggestions for your movies?” was answered, “No, they’ve all been successful.” He responded all night in the same light vein and the students loved it, and warmed to him, recognizing the special kind of courage it took to answer questions without knowing what was going to be coming at him and when it was a safe bet that much of it would be hostile. He didn’t falter and it was a precious moment that lived on in all their memories. He was thrilled, excited and deeply touched by the reception he was given.