Posted on 12/31/2005 7:16:50 PM PST by Pokey78
Read post 6. He ain't a cowboy.
And how does your quote disagee with my poat?
I had the fortune to live in Wyoming for five years. My first place was in Jelm, in the foothills of the Snowy Range about 25 miles SW of Laramie. I rented an isolated cabin on the Little Laramie R., abutting the national forest, where at night you couldn't see another man-made light except for those at the UW observatory on top Mt. Jelm. You could easily count more than 100 head of pronghorn on each morning's commute into Laramie.
I remember visiting a bar in Jelm one afternoon with my lovely first wife--she was knock-dead gorgeous. In walked a cowboy and I couldn't keep my eyes off him. I thought, "Damn, this is the real Marlboro Man!" He was the real thing--full garb (the real deal, dirtied by cows and hard work) and skin weathered like leather by the climatic extremes encountered by ranching a lifetime above 7,000 feet.
I haven't spent much time in Sheridan, but I suspect much of the populace there is mostly very colorful and genuine. Something to be observed and admired while it's still here. Nothing homophilic about it.
You bet yer arse! It's a matter of honor, dignity, and character. You can find those words in the dictionary.
Rock Hudson did some westerns back in the fifties, long before the public knew he was a homosexual. One unintentionally funny scene with Hudson is in the movie BEND OF THE RIVER, starring Jimmy Stewart. Hudson plays a newcomer in town. When asked where he comes from he says San Francisco, which comes off as hilarous today, knowing what we now know about Hudson.
Unforgettable
John Wayne
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.
Wayne would have considered himself a liberal in the classical sense of the term, not the leftist commie sense of the term.
Okay...you been watching "Repo Man" again...
Thank you for posting that, Sand Rat...
I subscribe to that fellow's point of view! The Hollywood attempt to Homo every aspect of American life is glaring.
Can you imagine the Duke in "Rooster Cogburn" getting in touch with his softer side?
Yeah Baby!
Sounds about right--or two pro football coaches who look across a crowded field and...or, ultimately a queer President and his first partner---UGGGgggg! The horrible possibilities just keep on..
vaudine
Precisely.
Has anyone heard the story about John Wayne in the Sixties when he visited a Veterans Hospital in California (I think), there was a large group of vocal anti-war protesters outside.
He apparently began talking to them, telling them it wasn't right to protest at that place at that time, that the men inside did not deserve to be subjected to that treatment.
The protestors all slinked away with their posters by their sides.
I do not recall where I saw this story related...has anyone else heard it?
I never read that before. Thanks.
I suppose I'll ping this out tomorrow.
Blech.
"Sure I wave the American flag. Do you know a better flag to wave? Sure I love my country with all her faults. I'm not ashamed of that, never have been, never will be."
-John Wayne
Nope. Still means the same to me.
"he revised his definition"
Doesn't sound like John Wayne to revise his definition to follow that laid down by "this so-called new Liberal group"
Suggest you read the quote again
An old cowboy sat down at the bar and ordered a drink. As he sat sipping his drink, a young woman sat down next to him. She turned to the cowboy and asked, "Are you a real cowboy?"
He replied, "Well, I've spent my whole life, breaking colts, working cows, going to rodeos, fixing fences, pulling calves, bailing hay, doctoring calves, cleaning my barn, fixing flats, working on tractors, and feeding my dogs, so I guess I am a cowboy."
She said, "I'm a lesbian. I spend my whole day thinking about women. As soon as I get up in the morning, I think about women. When I shower, I think about women. When I watch TV, I think about women. I even think about women when I eat. It seems that everything makes me think of women."
The two sat sipping in silence.
A little while later, a man sat down on the other side of the old cowboy and asked, "Are you a real cowboy?"
He replied, "I always thought I was, but I just found out I'm a lesbian."
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