by Scott Eyman
Jack should be brusque and sure of himself in all physical situations because of the station of life that he has reached at a youthful age. He doesn’t need to be a mental giant—maybe a little short on logic, but must not be dull—must possess a definite sense of humor to help him through two or three melodramatic situations that arise.
DeMille walked into the conference room where screenwriters Jesse Lasky Jr., Alan Le May, and Charles Bennett were working and read Wayne’s letter out loud. Wayne’s analysis of the script was focused, intelligent, and, given DeMille’s distaste for assertive actors, outrageous.
The writers waited for DeMille to explode and vow never to hire that young pup as long as he lived. Instead he looked at his writers and said, “If an actor can see what’s wrong and work it out, why couldn’t you?” It was the beginning of a close relationship between two alpha males.
The script encored the central dynamic that DeMille had used on Union Pacific and North West Mounted Police: a stalwart hero (in Reap the Wild Wind he does origami), and a lusty, semiheroic figure who, through a single weakness of character, turns bad but atones by dying nobly (Robert Preston in the earlier films, Wayne in the new one). Nobody lovingly mounted dramatic clichés like DeMille . . . and in Technicolor! At the end of the picture, a giant squid is staked through the eye, and the explosion of ink envelops the divers. Simultaneously, on the surface of the ocean, a tsunami hits.
For DeMille, too much was never enough.
DeMille even allowed Wayne to select his own costume, including a show-stopping orange scarf. The Technicolor consultant decreed the orange scarf off-limits, but DeMille stepped in and said if Wayne wanted to wear an orange scarf, then by God he would wear an orange scarf.
“Wayne was one of the few actors DeMille never yelled at,” remembered Jesse Lasky Jr. “DeMille liked Wayne so much that he invited him to join him for lunch every day, which was an honor for any actor.” When a group of exhibitors was touring the set the day a shipboard donnybrook was to be filmed, DeMille interrupted the rehearsal. “John, I want you to show them how to play this scene,” he announced over the microphone.
Wayne demonstrated for the visitors how actors threw and took punches, then placed the actors and stuntmen and choreographed the fight scene. DeMille liked what he saw. “Action!” he called.
In Old California shows Republic trying to class up the Wayne franchise. He plays a dude druggist from Boston in a top hat and cane who says “Excuse me, pardon me” as he moves through the crowd. But he’s not a man to be messed with. When he orders a glass of milk, he says, “Plain. No rum. And no comments,” as he bends a coin between his fingers. Albert Dekker, as the boorish heavy, pushes him around not just once, but twice. Already the slow-to-anger Wayne persona is in place; we sit back comfortably, knowing that payback is coming.
The film functions as a sort of gentle parody of the image that was already beginning to coalesce. The script is unusually good for Republic, and most studios would have been happy to make it. Movies like In Old California show that while Republic didn’t do Wayne any favors, they didn’t do anything to hurt him either, mostly because his personality was unkillable.
Case in point: Reunion in France, for which Wayne was lent to MGM the same year as In Old California, in and of itself a hell of a note. As was normal for MGM, the script went through half a dozen hands, including Jan Lustig, Marvin Borowsky, Marc Connelly, and Charles Hoffman. One of the scripts ends with Wayne’s character skywriting “COURAGE” in the air over Occupied Paris. Despite direction by Jules Dassin and an uncredited guest bit by Charles Laughton, it’s a grievously awful film in which Joan Crawford plays a society butterfly in Paris (“Darling, my train leaves in less than an hour. Come with me to Biarritz!”) just before the Germans march in and spoil the social season. Because of the Germans, Crawford quickly converts to the cause of selflessness and French nationalism.
Wayne, playing a downed American flier, doesn’t make his entrance until the movie is forty-three minutes old. He seems to be enjoying himself, as well he might be—he’s at MGM, and a crummy movie at MGM was worth more than the unlikely possibility of an excellent movie at Republic.
In the crucial year of 1942, Wayne made a picture for Cecil B. DeMille, two pictures with Marlene Dietrich (The Spoilers and Pittsburgh), a picture at MGM, and two at his home studio of Republic: In Old California and Flying Tigers, a patchwork script about Claire Chennault’s air group that featured some of the best miniature work Hollywood could produce. They all made money, in some cases a great deal of it. It was in 1942 that Hollywood and the public came to the simultaneous realization that John Wayne was more than John Ford’s protégé; he was a genuine leading man.
* * *
1. One version appeared in Motion Picture magazine in December 1952: “Josephine is a very devout Catholic, a woman wrapped up in church work and more charities than she is really able to find time for or afford. John is not a Catholic, and while many of his wife’s projects were dear to him, and he admired her staunch religious fervor, he became an outsider in his own family and, like any man will, he drifted.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hugh Krampe was seventeen when he enlisted in the Marines in 1943. He was in boot camp in San Diego when he began participating in the Friday night fights called “smokers”—tobacco companies handed out two and three packs of cigarettes to each soldier attending the fights. Platoons would put sixty-four pieces of paper in a hat, with one marked “boxer.” The man that drew the fatal slip would square off against another guy in another platoon who drew the same slip.
Krampe was six foot one and 155 pounds, lean and mean, so he felt pretty confident when he drew the slip marked “boxer.” Then he climbed into the ring that had been erected on an outdoor stage and saw his competition: “He was about six-five, 255 pounds, black, a former tackle on the Texas A&M football team. A giant.” Krampe quickly began to calculate his rapidly increasing risk of mortality.
The announcer proclaimed that the assembled Marines had a special treat; that there would be a guest referee for this first round only, the well-known movie star John Wayne.
“John Wayne climbed into the ring and got between us. He looked at me, then he looked at the other guy and took it all in. ‘Do you want to fight Queensbury rules, or John Wayne rules?’ he asked us. Well, what choice did we have? We said ‘John Wayne rules.’ And he said ‘Good.’ And then he gave me a little wink, got out of the ring and sat down and hit the gong to start the round. In other words, there was no referee.
“He knew what I knew—that my only hope of surviving was not to fight but to outrun that big son of a bitch, which is what I proceeded to do. And he wouldn’t let the timekeeper hit the gong to end the round. The round just kept going on and on.”
Krampe was never sure if the fight—such as it was—lasted eight minutes or twenty minutes. All he knew was that after chasing him and fruitlessly swinging for a long, long time, the man from Texas A&M collapsed from exhaustion and an equally exhausted Krampe fell on top of him. He was the winner, sort of, and received a copper bracelet for his troubles.
Krampe remembered the experience all his long life. Shortly thereafter, he became one of the youngest drill instructors in Marine Corps history. Under the name Hugh O’Brian, he became a TV star in the 1950s and, more than thirty years after the match in San Diego, would be part of John Wayne’s last movie.
Just before he began work on Reap the Wild Wind, Wayne filled out his Selective Service questionnaire. He gave his name as “Marion Mitchell Morrison (John Wayne).” On June 24, 1941, the draft board classified him 3-A (registrant with dependents).
That’s how it stayed until December 3, 1943, when he was reclassified 2-A, after a deferment claim was filed by a third party—undoubtedly Herbert Yates and Republic. The 2-A classification meant that the registrant had a talent or skill not replaceable by another person, a corollary to the government’s rating of the film business as an essential industry for reaso
ns of propaganda and morale.
Wayne’s 2-A classification was good for six months, but another third-party request for a deferment was filed a couple of weeks later. Yet another third-party deferment request was filed on April 16, 1944, but the December 1943 deferment had run out before the board could classify the request, so Wayne was classified 1-A on May 3, 1944. On June 12, the April deferment request was acted upon, and Wayne was again downgraded to 2-A. Third-party deferments continued to be filed until May 1945, just as the war was ending, at which time Wayne was classified 4-A: deferred by reason of age. At this point, Wayne was thirty-eight years old.
In practice, the government’s preference toward the movie industry meant that almost any actor or studio employee deemed important could receive an occupational deferment. Stars who served in combat usually enlisted. But many actors didn’t want to claim deferments.
Like Wayne, Gene Autry was under contract to Republic. Autry was thirty-five at the time of Pearl Harbor, married with no children, albeit with three dependents (two sisters and a brother). Autry related how Herbert Yates tried to talk him out of enlisting: “This is an essential industry. We can go to Washington and get you a deferment. You won’t be touched.” But Autry told Yates, “I can’t stay out. It would make me look bad and the movie business look bad.”
Describing his thought processes, Autry wrote “There was nothing noble about it. I would have much rather kept counting my money and firing blanks. But there didn’t seem to me to be any choice. If you were healthy, and able, you either served or you learned how to shave in the dark.”
Autry went into the Army Air Corps in 1942, which only made Yates more determined to keep Wayne at Republic. Truthfully, every studio head was panicked about having their prime corporate assets disappear for a couple of years (at best). Mickey Rooney remembered that “L. B. Mayer didn’t want me going into the service; he didn’t want anybody going into the service.” MGM had withheld a telegram from General Hap Arnold, the Air Force chief of staff, offering Clark Gable “a highly important commission.” Even though he was over forty, Gable enlisted in the Air Force in August 1942—Gable’s friend Robert Stack believed he was suicidal over the death of his wife, Carole Lombard. Gable went through a grueling basic training in Miami with men half his age and flew a number of bombing missions as an aerial gunner.
Many actors refused the deferments they could have had for the asking—Henry Fonda was thirty-seven years old with three children when he enlisted in the Air Corps in 1942. Robert Montgomery enlisted in the Navy, as did Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Tyrone Power enlisted in the Marines, William Holden went into the Army. Stars that didn’t go—Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, James Cagney, among others—were over forty.
Over the years, a fairly extensive list of reasons would be offered by Wayne and family members regarding his rigorously maintained noncombatant status, ranging from old football injuries to extensive dependents. It’s certainly true that in the early days of the war, Selective Service made an effort not to disrupt families, but as the war ground on, and local draft boards had to meet increased quotas, it became normal for fathers to be inducted. By 1944, manpower needs were so extensive that distinctions between men who were fathers and men who weren’t had ceased to exist as far as Selective Service was concerned.
Amidst the profusion of reasons for Wayne not going into the service, the one that appears to be the most medically valid was the presence of a recurring ear infection. “He had an ear infection actually caused from . . . that film he made called Reap the Wild Wind,” said Michael Wayne. “It never left and every time he’d get in the water it would come back. So he was actually 4F.”
As studio archives attest, Wayne did indeed have a recurring ear infection, but then he didn’t have to go into the Navy.
Yet, contrary to those who feel it convenient to regard Wayne as a classic case of war wimp, it is clear that he did make some effort to get into the service. On August 2, 1943, he filled out an application for the OSS, under the name “Marion Robert Morrison (John Wayne).” The application stated that his nickname was Duke, that he was six feet three and three quarters inches tall, that he weighed 212 pounds, and that he used intoxicants “moderately.”
His memberships were listed as Sigma Chi fraternity, the Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of Radio Artists, and the Hollywood Athletic Club. His foreign language was Latin, with a “slight” proficiency in speaking and a “fair” proficiency in reading. Sports and hobbies were listed as “swimming, above average; small boat sailing, average; football, played college ball at University of Southern California; squash and tennis, fair; deep-sea fishing, 7 marlin in two years; hunting, good field shot; horseback riding, have done falls and posse riding in pictures, not as easy as it sounds.”
His character references were impeccable and calculated to appeal to Wild Bill Donovan, the founder of the OSS: Commander John Ford, and Commander Frank Wead. Also used as references were Bö Roos, MGM producer and screenwriter James Kevin McGuinness, and Robert Smith, managing editor of the Los Angeles Daily News.
Wayne’s current Selective Service classification was left blank, and under particular qualifications he noted “Having a natural inclination and being suited physically and mentally to outdoor activity and having the ability to get along with any class of people might have a particular bearing on the position in which I might be of value to the Service.”
Wayne followed up, going to Washington to interview with Donovan personally. Irene Nelson was one of Donovan’s secretaries and remembered that “I couldn’t believe [Wayne] was sitting there, right next to me at my desk.”
What happened next is less a matter of record, more a matter of inference. According to Wayne, Ford introduced him to Donovan after first telling Donovan that Wayne would be good for something like the small boat work Sterling Hayden was doing in Cairo and Yugoslavia (Hayden was a superb sailor and organized a splinter fleet of schooners and caïques to run the German blockade). Wayne said that he had three pictures to make first and then wanted to “get in.” Donovan introduced him to a major whose name Wayne couldn’t remember.
Fade out.
Fade in.
Wayne has finished the three pictures and his marriage is on the rocks. He calls the major but has difficulty finding him. When he finally makes connections, the major is a colonel and asks why Wayne didn’t answer the letter.
“A letter?” asked Wayne.
“I sent you a letter,” said the colonel, “and said we were getting too many lieutenants and if you wanted to get in, you better get back here.”
In this telling, it was Josie’s fault for not forwarding the letter. But Irene Nelson, Donovan’s secretary, said that Donovan didn’t take Wayne because he didn’t think he had any of the outside interests that might qualify him for undercover work.
Between the documents and an anecdotal mélange of excuses including recurring ailments or missed communications, it’s possible to figure out a likely scenario.
In Wayne’s letters to John Ford during the first two years of the war, he speaks often of his desire to finish just a few more pictures before he enlists, and in a handwritten, undated letter that’s been provisionally ascribed to May 1942, he comes right out and asks for help: “Dear Pappy, Have you any suggestions on how I should get in? Can I get assigned to your outfit and if I could would you want me? How about the Marines? You have Army and Navy men under you—have you any Marines or how about a Seabee or what would you suggest? . . . I just hate to ask favors, but for Christ sake you can suggest can’t you!!!”
There is no response from Ford in either his or Wayne’s papers.
Wayne made thirteen pictures during World War II at four different studios, and his hard work during the war years, not to mention the attendant lack of competition from stars who were in the service, meant that his career was given a huge boost simply by his presence. The poor boy from Glendale was either deeply embarrassed by Donovan’s indifference to the off
er of his services, or, alternatively, couldn’t tear himself away from his ascending success.
This could have been overlooked if Wayne had hurled himself into war work, as, for instance, John Garfield did in starting the Hollywood Canteen, or as Bob Hope did in ceaselessly entertaining the troops. But according to Mary Ford, who was at the Canteen all the time—she ran the kitchen—Wayne’s attendance was spotty. Besides making movies, he was divorcing his first wife, courting his second, and spending a lot of time with Ward Bond and other assorted cronies.
It’s probable that Wayne was emotionally committed to working under Ford’s command, was embarrassed about Donovan shying away from him at the height of the war, and simply wasn’t willing to enlist and take his chances. Certainly, he had an image of himself as an officer under Ford. But, as he would say, “I would have had to go in as a private. I took a dim view of that.”
Right after Christmas in 1943, Wayne embarked on a major USO tour to the southwest Pacific, from Brisbane, Australia, to New Guinea to New Britain, playing several shows a day and visiting hospitals. The tour lasted for several months, in a tough theater—New Guinea consisted of hard rock, soft mud, and natives who thought nothing of dining on human flesh if the supply of wild pigs ran low. As Keith Honaker, a soldier in New Britain, said, “Going into battle was a diversion for us. We had absolutely nothing to do from the standpoint of recreation—we didn’t even get newspapers, very seldom got any letters.”
Wayne would claim that the only time he was ever truly frightened in his life came in a very rough flight over the Coral Sea. “I thought it was pretty stormy, and when it became more than uncomfortable, I looked back at a bunch of fighter pilots that were being shipped to Nadzab, and I saw that their faces were paler than the moon.” Since the professionals were scared, Wayne felt he had leave to be terrified.