Posted on 06/11/2009 11:10:44 AM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the passing of John Wayne. To honor this great man, National Review’s John J. Miller has put together a terrific tribute. I was very pleased to be asked to contribute along with Andrew Klavan and our very own Leo Grin, Michael Long, Andrew Leigh, Andy Levy, S. T. Karnick, and others. I urge you to check it out.
It was Maureen O’Hara who said “John Wayne is the United States of America,” and that he was. Honorable, generous, brave, selfless, aware of his own flaws… The great thing about being a John Wayne fan is that he survives all attempts at deconstruction. His timeless work obviously speaks for itself, but the man himself has withstood the toughest of all critics, time. John Wayne doesn’t disappoint.
(Excerpt) Read more at bighollywood.breitbart.com ...
And one of the gun manufacturers have come out with the John Wayne specials collector guns. They’re beautiful.
I don’t think The Duke would care for the direction this Country is headed.
ping
>>> It was Maureen O’Hara who said “John Wayne is the United States of America,” <<<
Yep, both have passed away.
John Wayne: “The sky is blue, the grass is green, get off your butt and join the Marines!”
Been there, done that, got a lot of t-shirts for it! ;)
I’m in my late 30s so Clint Eastwood was my guy growing up, but utmost respect to John Wayne.
I love this guy...my father, who is now dead, looked and acted so much like the characters the Duke played that people would comment on it often. I watch the Duke when I miss my father.
Wow - when did Maureen O’Hara pass away? Somehow I missed that!!
On the road the other day on the back of a horse trailer it said”The driver of this truck believes in God,John Wayne,and America”Loved it.
I remember when he died , some friends of mine and i had just graduated from high school and were at the beach.
whew, 30 years, scary how fast it goes by.
Maureen O’Hara is still living. Talent like hers and Wayne’s are sadly missing from the movie scene today.
My six Wayne favorites:
1. RED RIVER
2. HONDO
3.FORT APACHE
4.SANDS OF IWO JIMA
5. STAGECOACH
6. RIO GRANDE
THE DUKE
Ghengis Cogburn
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Oh, Wayne was a Marine?
One of my favorites is The Wings of Eagles. It's the life story of Frank 'Spig' Wead, one of the original naval aviators who later wrote screenplays for John Ford.
Yeah, Wayne played a real Marine in that one, very brave.
You forgot the one he should have gotten the Oscar for....The Searchers.
I think Wayne himself said that was the worst of his films, bar none.
Having watched “North to Alaska” and “Jet Pilot”, that’s saying something.
Yeah, the United States used to be John Wayne. It seems lately it’s more Andy Dick.
Not a John Wayne fan I take it?...PEE Wee Herman more your bag?
Maureen O’Hara, soon to be 89, is alive, well and living in the Virgin Islands.
But I am also a grown-up who realizes that Wayne the man fell far short of the heroes he played on screen at the most crucial time in our history. There were a lot of better established, older Hollywood actors who threw their careers to the wind (read about Robert Montegomery some time) and laid their lives on the line for the flag that you want to wrap around Wayne. He stayed home.
That fact can't be changed, it can't be excused and for me it can't be forgiven.
The guy was an icon, no doubt about that. But he was iconic for the heroic roles he played not the life he led.
You make one hundred movies or so, you’re bound to have some clunkers in there. My personal favorites are just about anything he did with John Ford - Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Rio Grande, The Searchers, The Quiet Man, and another one not very well known and in which he only played a supporting role, The Long Voyage Home.
The 101ST in St Mere Eglise - I’ll be visiting there in July!
Agreed, those are all great.
_______________________________________
So what (if true)? The USNA is a four year gig. The war was over in three and a half years. Why didn't he follow the example of everyone from Tyrone Power to Desi Arnaz (who wasn't even a citizen) and just join?
He didn't even though older men with more children did. He stayed in Hollywood and got paid. No honor in that.
Admire his work but remember that his work was pretending to be something he wasn't.
Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Leslie Howard who died serving in the British forces, David Niven who served in the Royal Army and on and on.
BTW, Wayne starred with Robert Montgomery in another John Ford flick, They Were Expendable. It's a very accurate portrayal of a PT boat squadron in The Phillippines in the early months of the Pacific War. The Montgomery character is based on the real naval hero John Bulkeley.
Agreed!..... (from post 33)
Ford intentionally rubbed Wayne's nose in it by listing the WW2 rank of Montegomery and others in that movie's credits. Wayne was one of the few who had nothing to show.
You may idolize the actor Wayne, as for me, I'll save my respect for guys like Ford and Montegomery (and dozens of others from that time who embarassed you hero by their actions).
I’m not diagnosing it as much as you are. I am simply watching a movie without pretense as most kids did back then on Saturday afternoon.....
Doesn’t it strike you that the GOP could seize upon an opportunity? That is, after the destructiveness of obozo admin (let’s hope it’s like Jimmah Cahter’s one-term admin), our country needs a hero not a RINO like McPain but a smart, wise, politically-savvy person of heroic proportions that’s not afraid of calling a “spade” a “spade”. Unfortunately, the leaders of the GOP have been institutionalized by the DC environment. They’re there only to keep their jobs. A real disappointment. This leads ordinary people like you and me to see our own hero like John “Duke” Wayne.
John Wayne biography - a tribute to John Wayne by Ronald Reagan
Unforgettable John Wayne
biography by Ronald Reagan
courtesy of Readers Digest - October 1979
We called him DUKE, and he was every bit the giant off screen he was on.
Everything about him-his stature, his style, his convictions-conveyed
enduring strength, and no one who observed his struggle in those final
days could doubt that strength was real. Yet there was more. To my wife,
Nancy, “Duke Wayne was the most gentle, tender person I ever knew.”
In 1960, as president of the Screen Actors’ Guild, I was deeply embroiled
in a bitter labor dispute between the Guild and the motion picture
industry. When we called a strike, the film industry unleashed a series of
stinging personal attacks on me - criticism my wife found difficult to
take.
At 7:30 one morning the phone rang and Nancy heard Duke’s booming voice:
“I’ve been readin’ what these damn columnists are saying about Ron. He can
take care of himself, but I’ve been worrying about how all this is
affecting you.” Virtually every morning until the strike was settled
several weeks later, he phoned her. When a mass meeting was called to
discuss settlement terms, he left a dinner party so that he could escort
Nancy and sit at her side. It was, she said, like being next to a force
bigger than life.
Countless others were also touched by his strength. Although it would take
the critics 40 years to recognize what John Wayne was, the movie going
public knew all along. In this country and around the world, Duke was the
most popular box-office star of all time. For an incredible 25 years he
was rated at or around the top in box-office appeal. His films grossed
$700 million-a record no performer in Hollywood has come close to
matching. Yet John Wayne was more than an actor; he was a force around
which films were made. As Elizabeth Taylor Warner stated last May when
testifying in favor of the special gold medal Congress struck for him: “He
gave the whole world the image of what an American should be.”
Stagecoach to Stardom
He was born Marion Michael Morrison in Winterset, Iowa. When Marion was
six, the family moved to California. There he picked up the nickname Duke
- after his Airedale. He rose at 4 a.m. to deliver newspapers, and after
school and football practice he made deliveries for local stores. He was
an A student, president of the Latin Society, head of his senior class and
an all-state guard on a championship football team.
Duke had hoped to attend the U.S. Naval Academy and was named as an
alternate selection to Annapolis, but the first choice took the
appointment. Instead, he accepted a full scholarship to play football at
the University of Southern California. There coach Howard Jones, who often
found summer jobs in the movie industry for his players, got Duke work in
the summer of 1926 as an assistant prop man on the set of a movie directed
by John Ford.
One day, Ford, a notorious taskmaster with a rough-and-ready sense of
humor, spotted the tall USC guard on his set and asked Duke to bend over
and demonstrate his ball stance. With a deft kick, knocked Duke’s arms
from his body and the young athlete on his face. Picking himself Duke said
in that voice which then commanded attention, “Let’s try that once again.”
This time Duke sent Ford flying. Ford erupted in laughter, and the two
began a personal and professional friendship which would last a lifetime.
From his job in props, Duke worked his way into roles on the screen.
During the Depression he played in grade-B westerns until John Ford
finally convinced United Artists to give him the role of the Ringo Kid in
his classic film Stagecoach. John Wayne was on the road to stardom. He
quickly established his versatility in a variety of major roles: a young
seaman in Eugene O’Neill’s - The Long Voyage Home, a tragic captain in
Reap the Wild Wind, a rodeo rider in the comedy - A Lady Takes a Chance.
When war broke out, John Wayne tried to enlist but was rejected because of
an old football injury to his shoulder, his age (34), and his status as a
married father of four. He flew to Washington to plead that he be allowed
to join the Navy but was turned down. So he poured himself into the war
effort by making inspirational war films - among them The Fighting
Seabees, Back to Bataan and They Were Expendable. To those back home and
others around the world he became a symbol of the determined American
fighting man.
Duke could not be kept from the front lines. In 1944 he spent three months
touring forward positions in the Pacific theater. Appropriately, it was a
wartime film, Sands of Iwo Jima which turned him into a superstar. Years
after the war, when Emperor Hirohito of Japan visited the United States,
he sought out John Wayne, paying tribute to the one who represented our
nation’s success in combat.
As one of the true innovators of the film industry, Duke tossed aside the
model of the white-suited cowboy/good guy, creating instead a tougher,
deeper-dimensioned western hero. He discovered Monument Valley, the film
setting in the Arizona - Utah desert where a host of movie classics were
filmed. He perfected the choreographic techniques and stuntman tricks
which brought realism to screen fighting. At the same time he decried
blood and gore in films. He would say. “It’s filth and bad taste.”
“I Sure As Hell Did!”
In the 1940s, Duke was one of the few stars with the courage to expose the
determined bid by a band of communists to take control of the film
industry. Through a series of violent strikes and systematic blacklisting,
these people were at times dangerously close to reaching their goal. With
theatrical employee’s union leader Brewer, playwright Morrie and others,
he formed the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American
Ideals to challenge this insidious campaign. Subsequent Congressional
investigations in I947 clearly proved both the communist plot and the
importance of what Duke and his friends did.
In that period, during my first term as president of the Actors’ Guild, I
was confronted with an attempt by many of these same leftists to assume
leadership of the union. At a mass meeting I watched rather helplessly as
they filibustered, waiting for our majority to leave so they could gain
control. Somewhere in the crowd I heard a call for adjournment, and I
seized on this as a means to end the attempted takeover. But the other
side demanded I identify the one who moved for adjournment.
I looked over the audience, realizing that there were few willing to be
publicly identified as opponents of the far left. Then I saw Duke and
said, “Why I believe John Wayne made the motion.” I heard his strong voice
reply, “I sure as hell did!” The meeting and the radicals’ campaign was
over.
Later, when such personalities as actor Larry Parks came forward to admit
their Communist Party backgrounds, there were those who wanted to see them
punished. Not Duke. “It takes courage to admit you’re wrong,” he said, and
he publicly battled attempts to ostracize those who had come clean.
Duke also had the last word over those who warned that his battle against
communism in Hollywood would ruin his career. Many times he would proudly
boast, “I was 32nd in the box-office polls when I accepted the presidency
of the Alliance. When I left office eight years later, somehow the folks
who buy tickets had made me number one.
Duke went to Vietnam in the early days of the war. He scorned VIP
treatment, insisting that he visit the troops in the field. Once he even
had his helicopter land in the midst of a battle. When he returned, he
vowed to make a film about the heroism of Special Forces soldiers.
The public jammed theaters to see the resulting film, The Green Berets.
The critics, however, delivered some of the harshest reviews ever given a
motion picture. The New Yorker bitterly condemned the man who made the
film. The New York Times called it “unspeakable ... rotten ... stupid.”
Yet John Wayne was undaunted. “That little clique back there in the East
has taken great personal satisfaction reviewing my politics instead of my
pictures,” he often said. “But one day those doctrinaire liberals will
wake up to find the pendulum has swung the other way.
Foul-Weather Friend
I never once saw Duke display hatred toward those who scorned him. Oh, he
could use some pretty salty language, but he would not tolerate pettiness
and hate. He was human all right: he drank enough whiskey to float a PT
boat, though he never drank on the job. His work habits were legendary in
Hollywood - he was virtually always the first to arrive on the set and the
last to leave.
His torturous schedule plus the great personal pleasure he derived from
hunting and deep-sea fishing or drinking and card-playing with his friends
may have cost him a couple of marriages; but you had only to see his seven
children and 21 grandchildren to realize that Duke found time to be a good
father. He often said, “I have tried to live my life so that my family
would love me and my friends respect me. The others can do whatever the
hell they please.”
To him, a handshake was a binding contract. When he was in the hospital
for the last time and sold his yacht, The Wild Goose, for an amount far
below its market value, he learned the engines needed minor repairs. He
ordered those engines overhauled at a cost to him of $40,000 because he
had told the new owner the boat was in good shape.
Duke’s generosity and loyalty stood out in a city rarely known for either.
When a friend needed work, that person went on his payroll. When a friend
needed help, Duke’s wallet was open. He also was loyal to his fans. One
writer tells of the night he and Duke were in Dallas for the premiere of
Chisum. Returning late to his hotel, Duke found a message from a woman who
said her little girl lay critically ill in a local hospital. The woman
wrote, “It would mean so much to her if you could pay her just a brief
visit.” At 3 o’clock in the morning he took off for the hospital where he
visited the astonished child and every other patient on the hospital floor
who happened to be awake.
I saw his loyalty in action many times. I remember that when Duke and
Jimmy Stewart were on their way to my second inauguration as governor of
California they encountered a crowd of demonstrators under the banner of
the Vietcong flag. Jimmy had just lost a son in Vietnam. Duke excused
himself for a moment and walked into the crowd. In a moment there was no
Vietcong flag.
Final Curtain
Like any good John Wayne film, Duke’s career had a gratifying ending. In
the 1970s a new era of critics began to recognize the unique quality of
his acting. The turning point had been the film True Grit. When the
Academy gave him an Oscar for best actor of 1969, many said it was based
on the accomplishments of his entire career. Others said it was
Hollywood’s way of admitting that it had been wrong to deny him Academy
Awards for a host of previous films. There is truth, I think, to both
these views.
Yet who can forget the climax of the film? The grizzled old marshal
confronts the four outlaws and calls out: “I mean to kill you or see you
hanged at Judge Parker’s convenience. Which will it be?” “Bold talk for a
one-eyed fat man,” their leader sneers. Then Duke cries, “Fill your hand,
you son of a bitch!” and, reins in his teeth, charges at them firing with
both guns. Four villains did not live to menace another day.
“Foolishness?” wrote Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mike Royko, describing
the thrill this scene gave him. “Maybe. But I hope we never become so
programmed that nobody has the damn-the-risk spirit.”
Fifteen years ago when Duke lost a lung in his first bout with cancer,
studio press agents tried to conceal the nature of his illness. When Duke
discovered this, he went before the public and showed us that a man can
fight this dread disease. He went on to raise millions of dollars for
private cancer research. Typically, he snorted: “We’ve got too much at
stake to give government a monopoly in the fight against cancer.”
Earlier this year, when doctors told Duke there was no hope, he urged them
to use his body for experimental medical research, to further the search
for a cure. He refused painkillers so he could be alert as he spent his
last days with his children. When John Wayne died on June 11, a Tokyo
newspaper ran the headline, “Mr. America passes on.”
“There’s right and there’s wrong,” Duke said in The Alamo. “You gotta do
one or the other. You do the one and you’re living. You do the other and
you may be walking around but in reality you’re dead.”
Duke Wayne symbolized just this, the force of the American will to do what
is right in the world. He could have left no greater legacy.
Agree sad really same goes for the Gipper.
Robert Montegomery was a PT Boat skipper in the Pacific. While based on a different PT Boat sailor, Montegomery was just being what he was...a genuine hero.
I hadn’t heard of Miss O’Hara passing. I think she’s still kicking. According to Wiki and IMDB, no date of death is listed.
War is a young mans game, as I found out in Viet Nam.
The Quiet Man
Just go into ignore mode and don't let them rain on the parade, so to speak.
Thanks for posting this. John Wayne is still one of my favorites and always will be.
I enjoyed The Searchers and The Quiet Man also. I haven’t seen the Wings of Eagles,except for a small part of it.There are very few of his movies that I haven’t enjoyed.
Other Duke favorites: Back to Bataan,The Comancheros,The Alamo,and The Longest Day.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.