Posted on 08/06/2005 12:40:58 PM PDT by Wolfstar
Yes it is! Isn't the Reagan the largest aircraft carrier ever built? If I were a dictator I don't think I could sleep very well knowing that that baby is parked on my coast ;)
So, what was the story with John Wayne and WWII. He was no longer a kid then, but not too old. I noticed Tall in the Saddle was made during the war.
Did he have injuries from his days as a stunt man that kept him out of the war?
Jonny, I forgot to mention another of my all-time favorite Duke films, The Searchers. That performance should have earned him an Oscar. Jeff Hunter was also excellent in that film, and should have gotten the best supporting actor Oscar for that role. I don't know who and what won the Oscars for 1956, but Duke and Hunter deserved the awards.
What I like about Red River is the way he gets started building the ranch at the beginning and the cattle drive scenes on the trail and the excitement of the town when the cattle make it to Abilene.
Always fun to see Harry Carey Jr.
Are you referring to the fight between Wayne and Clift at the end and how the fight ended?
Does she still have the same captain as the man who was at the president's funeral last year?
Yes. It was due for deployment earlier but there was a problem and some weeks of repair have had to be made.
The Nimitz based here and its strike force is off Iraq now.
I am close enough to North Island Naval Air Base that
I heard the C-5 take off with the two Scorpio robot subs
and the Navy crew to help bring up the Russian sub.
That is one major Plane.
I think she is the largest. Pol, do you know if the Reagan is the largest carrier ever built?
And I agree, Jonny. Wherever she sails, the bad guys would have to shudder and have some sleepless nights.
So, what was the story with John Wayne and WWII
That is one of the reasons I never cared for that guy.
He claimed a football injury. I know people who served
in WWII with major problems. A second cousin was
almost tatally blind in one eye and served in Italy during
the war
"Wouldn't want to melt all that makeup, now would we."
LOL! You got that right! They're hard enough on the eyes and ears as it is.
Ronald Reagan had really bad eyesight. He insisted on joining anyway, but they wouldn't let him near a battlefield. Afraid he'd lose his contact lenses and shoot our guys by mistake.
Best picture for 1955 (awarded in 1956) was "Around The World In 80 Days". Wow. It even beat "The Ten Commandments".
I've also read that Wayne was exempted because of his family status--he had two or three kids and he was the sole provider. I could be wrong.
Interesting. Who watches Around the World in 80 Days anymore?
But people are always rewatching The Ten Commandments and the Searchers.
thanks very much for this great post.
I'm not 100% certain, but believe a football injury caused him to be classified 4F.
You all might enjoy this John Wayne annecdote from the Internet Movie Database:
One evening before a shoot he was trying to get some sleep in a Las Vegas hotel. The suite directly below his was that of Frank Sinatra (never a good friend of Wayne), who was having a party. The noise kept Wayne awake, and each time he made a complaining phone call it quieted temporarily, but each time eventually grew louder. At last, Duke appeared at Sinatra's door and told Frank to stop the noise. A Sinatra bodyguard of Wayne's size approached saying, "Nobody talks to Mr. Sinatra that way." Wayne looked at the man, turned as though to leave, then backhanded the bodyguard, who fell to the floor, where Wayne knocked him out by crashing a chair on top of him. The party noise stopped.
Thanks for adding some more great photos, CA. A commander-in-chief who not only takes his job seriously, but actually loves the military. After x42, who wouldathunk it.
I am sure it is the largest. A link to the ship's site
http://www.reagan.navy.mil/
Capability
Top speed exceeds 30 knots
Powered by two nuclear reactors that can operate for more than 20 years without refueling
Expected to operate in the fleet for about 50 years
Carries over 80 combat aircraft
Three arresting cables can stop a 28-ton aircraft going 150 miles per hour in less than 400 feet
Size
Towers 20 stories above the waterline
1092 feet long; nearly as long as the Empire State Building is tall
Flight deck covers 4.5 acres
4 bronze propellers, each 21 feet across and weighing 66,200 pounds
2 rudders, each 29 by 22 feet and weighing 50 tons
4 high speed aircraft elevators, each over 4,000 square feet
Interesting. The C-5 is a monster plane. Am praying for those Russian sailors to make it.
Not me! I don't think I've ever seen it once, and I have no desire to.
The other Best Picture nominees were "Giant", "The King And I" and "Friendly Persuasion".
George Stevens won Best Director for "Giant".
Best Actor went to Yul Brenner for "The King And I".
Best Actress went to Ingrid Bergman for "Anastasia".
'55 was a watershed year for movies. Another one of my favorites "Bad Day At Black Rock" was made that year and it was snubbed by the Academy. Shows what they know.
I found these comments by Cecil at a talk site on John Wayne:
At the time of Pearl Harbor, Wayne was 34 years old. His marriage was on the rocks but he still had four kids to support. His career was taking off, in large part on the strength of his work in the classic western Stagecoach (1939). But he wasn't rich. Should he chuck it all and enlist? Many of Hollywood's big names, such as Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, and Clark Gable, did just that. (Fonda, Wills points out, was 37 at the time and had a wife and three kids.) But these were established stars. Wayne knew that if he took a few years off for military service, there was a good chance that by the time he got back he'd be over the hill.
Besides, he specialized in the kind of movies a nation at war wanted to see, in which a rugged American hero overcame great odds. Recognizing that Hollywood was an important part of the war effort, Washington had told California draft boards to go easy on actors. Perhaps rationalizing that he could do more good at home, Wayne obtained 3-A status, "deferred for [family] dependency reasons." He told friends he'd enlist after he made just one or two more movies.
The real question is why he never did so. Wayne cranked out thirteen movies during the war, many with war-related themes. Most of the films were enormously successful and within a short time the Duke was one of America's most popular stars. His bankability now firmly established, he could have joined the military, secure in the knowledge that Hollywood would welcome him back later. He even made a half-hearted effort to sign up, sending in the paperwork to enlist in the naval photography unit commanded by a good friend, director John Ford.
But he didn't follow through. Nobody really knows why; Wayne didn't like to talk about it. A guy who prided himself on doing his own stunts, he doesn't seem to have lacked physical courage. One suspects he just found it was a lot more fun being a Hollywood hero than the real kind. Many movie star-soldiers had enlisted in the first flush of patriotism after Pearl Harbor. As the war ground on, slogging it out in the trenches seemed a lot less exciting. The movies, on the other hand, had put Wayne well on the way to becoming a legend. "Wayne increasingly came to embody the American fighting man," Wills writes. In late 1943 and early 1944 he entertained the troops in the Pacific theater as part of a USO tour. An intelligence bigshot asked him to give his impression of Douglas MacArthur. He was fawned over by the press when he got back. Meanwhile, he was having a torrid affair with a beautiful Mexican woman. How could military service compare with that?
In 1944, Wayne received a 2-A classification, "deferred in support of [the] national . . . interest." A month later the Selective Service decided to revoke many previous deferments and reclassified him 1-A. But Wayne's studio appealed and got his 2-A status reinstated until after the war ended.
People who knew Wayne say he felt bad about not having served. (During the war he'd gotten into a few fights with servicemen who wondered why he wasn't in uniform.) Some think his guilty conscience was one reason he became such a superpatriot later. The fact remains that the man who came to symbolize American patriotism and pride had a chance to do more than just act the part, and he let it pass
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