Katherine Hepburn once remarked about the legend, "As an actor he has an extraordinary gift. A unique naturalness. A very subtle capacity to think and express and caress the camera - the audience. A secret between them." Legendary producer Hal Wallis was more concise, "No film actor had greater integrity or stature. He represented the American folk hero at his best."
Stagecoach - 1939
Wyoming Outlaw - 1939
Conflict - 1936
The Dawn Rider - 1935
Westard Ho - 1935
Randy Rides Alone - 1934
Man From Monterey - 1933
Men Are Like That - 1931
The Big Trail - 1930After making some 130 films, John Wayne graduated from B-movie actor to A-list action star with the release of Stagecoach in 1939, directed by the legendary John Ford. Over the next decade he went on to star in hits like Seven Sinners, Flying Tigers, Back to Bataan, They Were Expendable, Dakota, Fort Apache, Red River and Sands of Iwo Jima.
Sands of Iwo Jima - 1949
Wake of the Red Witch - 1949
3 Godfathers - 1949
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon - 1949
Red River - 1948
Fort Apache - 1948
Angel and the Badman - 1947
Dakota - 1945
They Were Expendable - 1945
Tall in the Saddle - 1944
The Spoilers - 1942
Lady for a Night - 1942
Shepherd of the Hills - 1941
The Long Voyage Home - 1940John Wayne was the biggest box-office attraction in 1950, 1951 and the third most popular star of 1952. And no wonder, those three years brought Hondo, Flying Leathernecks, Operation Pacific, Rio Grande and other triumphs to the big screen.
By the mid-fifties, the number of actors under contract to the major studios fell by two thirds but Wayne was wisely co-producing his own films for Republic Pictures since 1946. To maximize his independence after the triumphant release of The Quiet Man (also directed by John Ford), Wayne left Republic in 1952 to start his own production company, Batjac.
Rio Bravo - 1959
The Horse Soldiers - 1959
Barbarian And The Geisha - 1958
The Wings of Eagles - 1957
The Searchers - 1956
The Conqueror - 1956
The High and the Mighty - 1954
Island In The Sky - 1953
Hondo - 1953
Trouble Along The Way - 1953
The Quiet Man - 1952
Flying Leathernecks - 1951
Operation Pacific - 1951
Rio Grande - 1950At the same time, he was wrestling with a messy divorce trial attracting headlines across the nation. Chata Wayne, an earthy Latin drunkard, did everything she could to destroy her husband publicly, hurling unfounded allegations that he manhandled and beat her during drunken rages.
Duke denied it, emphatically saying, "In fact, I was woman-handled. On many occasions I had to protect myself from her temper."
Chata charged her husband with punching her in the nose and other acts of physical cruelty, accusing him of "clobbering" her in exotic locales all over the world. Wayne denied everything until the judge grew so sick of hearing their salacious accusations that he forced the couple's lawyers to come to terms with no further trial.
"Our marriage was like shaking two volatile chemicals in a jar," John Wayne admitted to the public.
Chata Wayne obtained her divorce and her big money settlement. She fled the country, only to be discovered dead a year later, broke and alone in a Mexico City hotel room, "surrounded by empty liquor bottles." Duke married his third and last wife actress Pilar Palette in 1954.
TELEVISION
Outside of minor cameos on shows like This Is Your Life in 1952 and Climax! in 1954, John Wayne avoided making many television appearances during the early-fifties; he had a film career with a remarkably consistent audience base and didn't see the need for small screen exposure. At least not at first.
Besides, John Wayne was already a major TV star by default. Local stations, desperate for any content to fill their days and nights, began running his 1930s and 1940s westerns because the major movie studios wouldn't license their product to TV. Republic, on the other hand, was eager to do so.
In 1953, John Wayne waded into the television pool with his first major guest role on The Milton Berle Show. It was not a happy experience. "The idea was that I keep sayin' 'I am not going to be one of these movie stars that goes on television just to get publicity for his latest movie,'" Wayne told TV Guide, "and then have this big electric sign on my back and every time I turn around I press the button in my pants and it flashes HONDO."
It got the desired laughs, but Wayne was left feeling foolish - because of that experience, he reasoned he "didn't belong in television." That didn't stop the networks from approaching Duke with series and anthology proposals. He turned them all down.
Wayne briefly considered starring in a western series for the fall of 1955 - playing Marshall Dillon on CBS's Gunsmoke. The network offered him a sweetheart deal with a two million dollar guarantee.
While it's true this radio to TV transplant would have been a sure thing for both parties, he opted instead to recommend one of his co-stars for the role - James Arness. To help launch the series, John Wayne filmed an introduction for the first episode.
Gunsmoke initiated a wave of 'adult' westerns on television and ran for twenty years in primetime. It's fortunate for moviegoers that he passed on the role, think of all the great films (like The Searchers in 1956) that wouldn't have been made had Wayne taken that role.
MAKING PEACE WITH TELEVISON
Recognizing the potential TV had to reach into middle America - and therefore boost his box office - Duke chose to kick off the 1955-56 season of I Love Lucy (his favorite TV show). In that famous two-part episode, Lucy steals John Wayne's footprints from the sidewalk in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater - giving Wayne a chance to plug his latest motion picture, Blood Alley, on the nation's top-rated program.
Next up on TV was a dramatic role on Screen Director's Playhouse airing December 7, 1955, directed and introduced by his mentor John Ford (who helmed many of Wayne's best films). The teleplay, entitled Rookie of the Year, was shot at the Hal Roach Studios with Duke as reporter Mike Cronin; the program also featured Ward Bond and son Patrick Wayne as a young baseball player.
Apart from reruns of his old movies, John Wayne appeared on the tube in commercials for Camel cigarettes in the mid-fifties, speaking highly of the product: "Mild and good tasting pack after pack. And I know, I've been smokin' 'em for twenty years."
Truth in advertising - at that time Wayne was a five pack-a-day smoker of unfiltered Camels and had been for over thirty years. He also advertised Gillete razors on screen with his son Patrick.
Duke was a presenter on the 30th and 31st Academy Award telecasts in 1958 and 1959 but by this point, his box office drawing power was in serious decline after years on top. With the exception of the brilliant Rio Bravo, it looked like John Wayne might be on his way out to pasture as the sixties unfolded.
John Wayne produced, directed and starred in the 1960 film that he intended to be his epic masterpiece - The Alamo.
Nearly a decade in the making, over budget and plagued with myriad production delays, Duke broke Hollywood rule number one and put up his own money - and every dollar he could borrow - to make the film. "I have everything I own in this picture - except my necktie."
His reasons for making The Alamo were heartfelt and patriotic, "This picture is America. I hope that seeing the battle of the Alamo will remind Americans that liberty and freedom don't come cheap. This picture, well, I guess making it has made me feel useful to my country."
This was similar to what Mel Gibson risked to make The Passion of the Christ in 2004.
This activity coincided with the discovery that the star had been ill advised (if not blatantly ripped off) by his financial advisor. John Wayne was very nearly broke.
"I suddenly found out after 25 years I was starting out all over again," Wayne confessed to The Saturday Evening Post. "I would just about break even if I sold everything right now."
The Alamo was the biggest budgeted movie of the day. The New York Times wrote, "Few Hollywood films, even the great biblical spectacles, have had such extensive preparation for production."
In an all-out effort to promote the film, John Wayne stepped up his TV appearances. In 1960, Wayne was seen in a TV documentary (The Spirit of the Alamo), poked fun at his rock solid image on The Jack Benny Show, and presented the Best Director award at the 32nd Annual Academy Awards.
The Alamo lost millions in its initial run but earned six Oscar nominations.
After his spectacular showing in The Searchers, Wayne's trusty costar / cohort Ward Bond (one of director John Ford's favorite supporting players) launched a hit western series of his own in 1957, Wagon Train.
True Grit - 1969
Hellfighters - 1969
The Green Berets - 1968
El Dorado - 1967
Cast A Giant Shadow - 1966
The Sons of Katie Elder - 1965
McLintock! - 1963
The Longest Day - 1962
Hatari! - 1962
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - 1962
The Comancheros - 1961
North to Alaska - 1960John Ford despised television. He complained that Ward Bond was a "prostitute" for taking the series, openly ridiculing Wayne's idea to do a small part on Wagon Train in 1960 as "idiotic."
"I've given up on Bond, the big, ugly, stupid gorilla," Ford told stuntman "Bad Chuck" Roberson. "But I thought Mr. Wayne had a bit more intelligence."
That bluster didn't stop Ford from going along with Wayne to direct the Civil War themed episode of Wagon Train. In the storyline, entitled The Colter Craven Story, John Wayne (credited as Michael Morris, his real name) appeared briefly as Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman.
This would turn out to be the last ride for longtime friends Ward Bond (seen right), John Ford and John Wayne. Bond collapsed from a heart attack just days after the filming, midway through the 1960-61 season of Wagon Train.
In 1961, John Wayne was guest host of The Dick Powell Show for an episode called Third Side of the Coin.
Duke always preferred working with people he had a history with, especially on TV. Another example of this was Wayne's appearance on Alcoa Premiere's broadcast of The Flashing Spikes, a comedy costarring Jimmy Stewart, Harry Carey, Jr., and son Pat Wayne.
Again directed by John Ford, Wayne played a boisterous umpire in the small screen production about a scandal-plagued former Major League pitcher who mentors a rookie phenom. It aired in October, 1962.
John Wayne's box-office receipts might have been sagging in the early sixties, but many of his motion pictures continued to be genuinely exciting, even if it sometimes looked like they were edited with a tomahawk.
Thanks to the success of How the West Was Won in 1962 and McLintock in 1963, John Wayne was back on top - just in time to face his most serious crisis.
In 1964, Duke was diagnosed with lung cancer; he was 57 years old.
In Hollywood, perception is everything - and at that time, lung cancer in any form was tantamount to a death sentence. That's why John Wayne tried to conceal the truth from the press at first; the official story was that he was in the hospital treating an old football injury.
After two six-hour operations that left him with a 28-inch gash across his chest, Doctors removed Wayne's left lung.
In a true act of bravery, Duke decided to come clean in an interview with journalists, announcing, "I've had lung cancer, the big C. But I've beaten the son of a bitch. Maybe I can give some poor bastard a little hope by being honest. I want people to know cancer can be licked." While this was far from certain, that statement served two goals - it got him back to work and gave hope to millions of Americans suffering with the same affliction.
"My advisors all told me that the public doesn't want its movie heroes associated with serious illness like cancer, that it destroys their image," Duke told the press. "Well, I don't care much about images, and, anyway, I would have thought there was a lot better image in the fact that John Wayne had cancer and licked it."
When reporters asked if he was up to resuming his line of work, he replied, "I'd better be. I didn't get famous for making drawing room comedies!"
Less that four months after the operation, still having considerable trouble breathing, John Wayne embarked on one of his most strenuous roles ever, gunfighter John Elder in The Sons of Katie Elder. It was a part that required Wayne to ride hard, fall off horses and repeatedly dive into frigid mountain waters.
"On location in Durango, Mexico, he amazed me," the film's producer Hal Wallis stated in his autobiography. "Even though he was functioning on one lung and had a terrible scar running down his back (sic), he showed no sign of illness or weakness. He did this own riding, roped in steers, rounded up cattle, and handled the fight scenes without a double. Only occasionally, in high country, was he short of breath."
Back at full strength, John Wayne resumed starring in one or two films a year for the rest of the decade but was reticent to do TV again until he appeared on the second episode of The Dean Martin Show in 1965.
He was reluctant to do the Martin show at first, but Duke and Dean had become close friends when they costarred in Rio Bravo and The Sons of Katie Elder. Needing to kick off his series with all the star power he could muster, Martin asked him to do the show as a favor.
Here's an exchange from that show:
Martin: "You know, one of the biggest kicks of my life was our first picture together."
Wayne: "Yeah, Rio Bravo. He played the part of a drunken sheriff who had lost his nerve - and during the picture I rehabilitated him."
Martin: "And I'll never forgive you for that."
The taping went so well it changed Wayne's viewpoint concerning television from that point forward. He even made time for two major sitcom appearances (on the highest-rated shows, of course) - starring as 'himself' on The Lucy Show in November, 1966 and on a very funny episode of The Beverly Hillbillies in 1967.
Merv Griffin traveled to the set of War Wagon in 1967 to film an interview with a drunken Duke down in Mexico. There was a lot of chatter about Wayne's hard drinking on location, but he played so many inebriated, debaucherous characters it hardly mattered if he was smashed or not.
"I drink for comradeship," Wayne stated plainly, "and when I drink for comradeship, I don't bother to keep count."
One of Wayne's most popular releases, Hondo (1953), was made into a one-hour weekly series in the fall of 1967 with Ralph Taeger starring as Cavalry scout Hondo Lane.
The series also featured Kathie Brown, Noah Berry, Jr. and Buddy Foster (Mayberry RFD). Michael Pate returned in the role he played in the original film, Chief Vittorio.
Hondo's dog Sam, who ended up on the wrong end of an Indian's lance in the movie, was resurrected in the TV version which was cancelled after only three months. Two episodes were edited together to make a feature film, Hondo and the Apaches.
By the mid-sixties, John Wayne had taught two generations of rednecks (and just plain folks) what it meant to be a man with his steely-eyed pronouncements, terse responses, rugged individualism and a tendency to play absentee fathers who kept their guns and dogs close at hand; men for whom a fist-fight seemed a reasonable way to get acquainted.
"When I started I knew I was no actor and I went to work on this Wayne thing," Duke told a reporter in 1962. "It was as deliberate and studied a projection as you'll ever see. I figured I needed a gimmick, so I dreamed up the drawl, the squint and a way of moving meant to suggest that I wasn't looking for trouble but would just as soon throw a bottle at your head as not. It was a hit-and-miss project for a while, but it began to develop."
Besides being serious about his craft, John Wayne was unapolgetically patriotic. "Sure I wave the American flag," he told the press in the mid-sixties. "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."
One of the sixties' most outspoken conservatives and a vocal proponent of the war in Vietnam, Wayne characterized his pro-war stance this way - "Nobody's enjoying this war but it happens to be necessary. We gave our word." His take on antiwar protesters could be harsh, "As far as I'm concerned, it wouldn't bother me a bit to pull the trigger on one of 'em."
Despite his hawkish position, John Wayne never served in the military. A lack of involvement in World War II was something that troubled him for years; Wayne intended to enlist but his career was on the rise in the early-forties, so he felt he wasn't able to join contemporaries Jimmy Stewart, John Ford, Robert Montgomery and other major Hollywood players who joined the armed forces.
On the other hand, Duke was politically involved in the film industry for decades, serving as president of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals - trust me, this was no left-wing organization.
When fellow actor and friend Ronald Reagan was struggling in his bid for the California govenorship in 1966, Wayne was called on to voice his support, which he did gladly.
"Duke always said family came first, career second, and his interest in politics third," Pilar Wayne wrote in her book My life with The Duke. "In fact, although he loved the children and me, there were times when we couldn't compete with his career or his devotion to the Republican Party."
After Reagan's election, Duke was exiting a victory celebration when he was asked by police not to leave the building - a mob of 300 angry antiwar demonstrators were waiting outside. As you might expect, instead of cowering indoors, John Wayne confronted the demonstrators head on.
When protesters foolishly waved the Viet Cong flag under his nose, Wayne grew impatient. "Please don't do that fellows," Duke warned the assembled. "I've seen too many kids your age wounded or dead because of that flag. So I don't take too kindly to it."
The demonstrators persisted, so he chased a group of them down an alley - wouldn't you just love to have seen that?
Because of his high recognition factor, members of the Republican Party naturally approached Wayne to run for public office. "I can't afford the cut in pay," was his reply. "Besides, who in the world would vote for an actor?"
Eventually the press confronted the actor about rumors that he might run for higher office.
"Bullshit!" was his one word reply.
"C'mon Duke," one reporter persisted. "Are you going to run? Give us a useable quote."
"I just did. You can quote me. Bullshit!"
Like his on-screen characters, John Wayne was a gambler who loved a good card game or professional challenge (he once won the original Lassie in a poker game). In 1968, despite the fact he couldn't get any major studio to sign a distribution deal, Duke decided to direct, produce and star in the first motion picture with a pro-Vietnam war stance - The Green Berets. This was reminiscent of what he went through to get The Alamo made - once again out on a limb due to the courage of his convictions.
He appeared on nine episodes of Laugh-in (the number-one show in the nation) between March and September of 1968 to peak the public's interest in his latest project.
The Green Berets was released to vicious reviews overall - which may have reflected the public's growing hostility towards the war, but in all fairness, it was a pretty lousy movie. The critic for The New York Times wrote, "The Green Berets is a film so unspeakable, so stupid, so rotten and false in every detail that it passes through being fun, through being funny, through being camp, and becomes an invitation to grieve, not for our soldiers in Vietnam (the film could not be more false or do a greater disservice to them) but for what has happened to the fantasy-making apparatus in this country."
This time his gamble paid off - The Green Berets ended up one of the year's highest-grossing movies.
By 1969, Wayne was earning a million dollars a picture along with a third of the profits, so it was in his best interest to hit the TV talk show circuit with each new release.
Although he was unhappy with how his films looked on TV (the aspect ratio was wrong - the vistas that were so much a part of his movies were lost on a tiny square box), that didn't stop Wayne's films from easily garnering a 30-40 share whenever they were broadcast in primetime. It was one of the few surefire programming decisions a network could make. Three years after theatrical release, his movies hit TV as a big event, that's why the nets were paying over a million dollars an airing for the latest John Wayne release.
If John Wayne appeared on a television show, you could be sure his fans would tune in, huge ratings were assured. Using TV appearances as a means to promote his films was a sharp strategy, as a result he never wore out his welcome.
Since one of the costars of True Grit was Glen Campbell, it was only natural that John Wayne turned up on The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on February 19, 1969. Duke pulled out all the stops in the summer and fall of 1969 to push True Grit and bolster his Academy Award chances.
While filming True Grit, Duke was trying to keep weight off with drugs - uppers for the day, downers to sleep at night. Occasionally, he got the pills mixed up, and this led to problems on a Dean Martin Show taping in 1969. Instead of taking an upper before leaving for the filming, he took a downer - and was ready to crash by the time he arrived on the set.
"I can't do our skit," Wayne reportedly told Dean when it was time to preform. "I'm too doped up. Goddamn, I look half smashed!"
Naturally, Deano didn't have a problem with that. "Hell Duke, people think I do the show that way all the time!" The taping went on as scheduled.
In November, 1969 he dropped in on The Red Skelton Show to celebrate Duke's forty years in show biz and spoof a number of his best-known films, with Red playing the lead roles and Wayne as his sidekick. Appearances like this meant John Wayne was well on his way to becoming a television institution.
A short time later, Wayne filmed a public service message for the National Cancer Society. "Get a checkup," he challenged TV audiences. "Talk someone you like into getting a checkup. Nag someone you love into getting a checkup. And while you're at it, send a check to the American Cancer Society. It's great to be alive."
Because of this spot, ordinary Americans began making donations to the American Cancer Association in large numbers - and they're still giving because John Wayne made it mainstream.
"Even after losing one lung to cancer in 1964, he had not quit smoking," daughter Aissa Wayne wrote in her 1980 memoirs. "Oh, he stopped smoking Camels, but he started chewing tobacco, then he infrequently smoked cigars, then he was smoking cigars all the time."
John Wayne stepped up the pace of his TV appearances in the seventies to bolster the box-office receipts for his latest detective dramas and rope operas.
The Shootist - 1976
Rooster Cogburn - 1975
Brannigan - 1975
Cahill, United States Marshal - 1973
The Cowboys - 1972
Big Jake - 1971
Chisum - 1970As a return favor for Raquel Welch adding a some sizzle to the True Grit premiere, John Wayne showed up as a guest on her TV special, Raquel!, which aired on April 26, 1970.
On the program, Wayne gave Raquel lessons in gunfighting for a sequence shot on a western backlot, interspersed with clips from some of Duke's famous shootouts. They also toured the Our Little Brothers and Sisters Orphanage, a charity Wayne and his wife Pilar supported.
On the 42nd Annual Academy Awards telecast in 1970, John Wayne was presented with the Oscar for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, his first and only win for Best Actor. He also presented the award for Best Cinematography on the telecast.
On November 29, 1970, Wayne was front and center for an NBC special sponsored by Budweiser. Swing Out, Sweet Land became one of the top-rated television events of all time, reaching into more than 30 million homes.
It was also the most expensive TV special to date, budgeted at a staggering $2 million. The 90-minute production was a Hollywood parade of stars - Red Skelton, Tom Smothers, Lorne Greene, Dean Martin, Bob Hope, Rowan & Martin and others lined up to praise the good old USA in historical sketches and patriotic songs.
In a segment starring John Wayne, Red Skelton and Tommy Smothers, conservative and liberal messages converged in a recitation of Benjamin Franklin's definition of what it is to be an American.
One can't help but think Franklin's words (on the importance of freedom of speech and the right to protest) might be considered too controversial for primetime today: "For, when dissent becomes a crime, hope becomes despair. Dissent, but dissent honorably," Franklin wrote. "Speak out for what you believe in at least as loudly as you speak against the system. For gentlemen, if ours is a generation to say democracy will not administer to the people, let it be a conscious decision arrived at only after every opportunity for man to rule himself has failed."
That same year, John Wayne appeared on the small screen in several TV documentaries including Harry Jackson: A Man and his Art (Jackson was known for his spectacular bronze sculptors of western scenes) and CBS's The American West of John Ford with Henry Fonda and James Stewart. On the latter, Wayne and Ford traveled to the Monument Valley, scene of some of their greatest triumphs, to film recreations of their unique working method.
Wayne appeared on another televised tribute to his favorite director in 1971, this time produced by the American Film Institute. Directed by John Ford was narrated by Orson Welles and directed by Peter Bogdanovich.
On a lighter note, Duke turned up on The Super Comedy Bowl (January 10, 1971) hosted by Lucille Ball and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Jack Benny But Were Afraid to Ask (also in 1971) with George Burns and Lucille Ball.
He was the special guest on The Glen Campbell Show recorded September 2, 1971 at CBS Television City for airing September 14th. The highlight of the show was yet another riff on True Grit, along with a lighthearted filmed segment with the two costars touring the John Wayne Theater at Knotts Berry Farm, where Wayne's latest picture Big Jake had its premiere. Props and costumes from a lifetime of work were displayed there.
When asked by Campbell what his favorite project was, Duke replied, "Well, you like... each picture for... a different reason. But I think my favorite will always be the next one."
Naturally, Wayne was expected to participate in the silly comedic banter that was the backbone of TV variety shows:
Campbell: "Well, Duke, I can't tell you how flattered I am that you're here to do my opening show."
Wayne: "Well, I was happy to be here. I'm beginning to like TV. I want to thank you for going on that special for me this last year."
Campbell: "Hey, that was fantastic, and what a rating. I guess everyone in America was watching it that night- except for my family, of course."
Wayne: "Why, didn't they see it?"
Campbell: "Well, no. You see, it was on opposite my show, and there's a rule at my house, you know, when daddy's show's on, everybody watches daddy's show... or else."
Wayne: "That's funny, 'cause your kids wrote me a fan letter."
Campbell: "Well, two people definitely didn't see it then, my wife and I."
Wayne: "No? Well, she phoned me and said she liked it."
Campbell: "I guess I'm the only one that didn't see your special. I mean, I didn't see all of it. Aww, let's face it, I saw all of your special."
Wayne: "Glen, your mom and dad liked it too."
Campbell: "Well, it just goes to show you. You don't know what lonely is until you've been opposite a John Wayne special."
John Wayne sat down for an intimate, one-on-one interview with David Frost in 1972, on September 10, 1972. He was one of the presenters in a Salute to TV's 25th Anniversary where he told the story of getting Jim Arness the role of Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke, and he appeared on the '72-73 season opener of Laugh-in in a ridiculous bunny suit, filming segments over a two day period that would be spliced in at various times during the year.
By now, television was generating millions for Wayne and his company, Batjac - True Grit alone cost ABC over four million dollars for one primetime airing. Wayne did so much promotion around the film's release and at Academy Award time that when True Grit was first broadcast in 1972, nearly half the TVs in the nation were tuned in.
"I don't know if I love it or hate it," John Wayne said about television in 1972, "but there sure has never been any form of entertainment so... so... available to the human race with so little effort since they invented marital sex."
On New Year's Day 1973, Wayne served as Grand Marshal of the Tournament of Roses Parade. The theme was Hollywood and the movies.
Glen Campbell hosted John Wayne on an NBC special which explored The Musical West on March 8, 1974 along with Burl Ives and Michele Lee and Duke turned in a memorable performance on Maude (Maude Meets The Duke, September 9, 1974) where his conservative ideals clashed with the outspoken liberal Maude. It was a seminal television moment that Wayne played with relish.
Meanwhile, another of John Wayne's films was turned into a TV series for the fall of 1974 - The Cowboys. This time, there were four original cast members brought over from the film but the weekly TV western format was a relic of the past by the mid-seventies. The show was cancelled within a few months.
Perpetually on the promotion circuit, John Wayne joked around with Don Rickles' on his 1975 special. On the show, he tried to get Don to read a cue card he had prepared:
Wayne: "Read it, Don!"
Rickles: "OK, Duke. But gee whiz, you're not right for the jokes, Duke. Boy, anything you say. I don't want to upset you..."
Wayne: "Well then, go ahead and read it."
Rickles: "OK (reads) John Wayne's new picture, Branigan, which will soon be showing all over the country... wait a minute, this is no joke."
Wayne: "You bet your life it's no joke, it's bread and butter for me."
While filming a 1975 Bob Hope Special (where he played a western Archie Bunker in a skit, then complained about having to play Bob's father), Wayne, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope surprised Tonight Show guest host Don Rickles by walking out on stage unannounced, sending the shocked audience into hysterics.
In 1976, John Wayne dropped out of the box-office top ten for the first time in 25 years while at the same time generating tabloid headlines that screamed - 'John Wayne Madly In Love With His Secretary!' In fact, Wayne had spilt with his wife Pilar and was dating his much younger assistant, Pat Stacy.
His health failing, Wayne limited his TV appearances mostly to narrations and tributes like Chesty: A Tribute to a Legend, a 1976 documentary partially directed by John Ford (before he died in 1973), celebrating the life of General Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, the most decorated man in the US Marines. He also released a patriotic recitation of The Pledge of Allegiance as a 45 single to celebrate the bicentennial.
ABC mounted an All-star Tribute to John Wayne with a litany of major celebrities saluting the legendary actor. Frank Sinatra, Maureen O'Hara, Glen Campbell, Jimmy Stewart, Ron Howard, Lee Marvin, Bob Hope and others gathered at the Warner Bros Burbank studio on November sixth to hear Wayne deliver a special message to his fans - "And to all you folks out there, I want to thank you for the last fifty years of my career. And I hope I can keep at it another fifty years - or at least until I can get it right."
As for what Duke thought of all of these trophies and tributes he claimed somewhat facetiously, "You can't eat awards. Nor, more to the point, drink 'em."
In 1976, John Wayne starred in his last motion picture. The plot closely mirrored his current situation - both he and his character in The Shootist were dying of cancer, only Wayne didn't know it yet. (Or maybe he did subconsciously - he insisted the screenwriter be more graphic about what would happen to his character when the cancer took over.)
To support The Shootist, Wayne was interviewed on Backlot USA, a 1976 summer show hosted by Dick Cavett, the Donahue show, and the film was the subject of an episode of NBC's Big Event. The movie stiffed at the box office despite excellent reviews.
More tribute show appearances followed like America Salutes Richard Rodgers: The Sound of His Music and CBS Salutes Lucy: The First 25 Years airing November 28, 1976. A few weeks later he traded jokes on Bob Hope's Comedy Christmas Special.
Although he actively supported Ronald Reagan's failed presidential bid in 1976, Duke paid a visit to the White House as a guest of President Jimmy Carter for his inauguration. "I'm pleased to be present and accounted for in this capital of freedom to witness history as it happens - to watch a common man accept the uncommon responsibility he won 'fair and square' by stating his case to the American people - not by bloodshed, beheadings, and riots at the palace gates. I know I'm a member of the loyal opposition - accent on the loyal. I'd have it no other way."
Putting partisan politics aside again, he adopted a controversial stance on the Panama Canal Treaty. He favored the turnover of the canal to the Panamanian people, an issue that Ronald Reagan used as a political wedge against the incumbent in his successful run for the presidency in 1979. As with Vietnam, it came down to the nation giving its word.
John Wayne filmed some TV commercials in the Monument Valley (site of Fort Apache and The Searchers) for a 1978 product launch - Datril 500 pain reliever. He didn't particularly enjoy the experience and offered up his own concept for a future campaign - "We'll show the meetings, the discussions with the attorneys and ad executives, all the chaos I went through. And then I'll step before the cameras and say, 'This really gives you a headache. Take Datril 500. It's strong medicine!'"
In August, 1978, Wayne rode up on horseback in full western garb to film the first of several 30-second commercials for Great Western Bank. Filmed in Grants Pass, Oregon, the spots were broadcast in the California TV market. A magnificent, full sized bronze statue of the actor still stands on Wilshire Boulevard in front of the bank's former Beverly Hills branch.
In 1978 a TV-movie, True Grit: A Further Adventure, aired with Warren Oates cast as Rooster Cogburn with Lee Meriwether (Time Tunnel) as Annie Sumner. This was a pilot for a weekly series that didn't sell, Wayne was not involved.
Duke delivered a testimonial for the American Film Institute Salute to Henry Fonda in 1978 then, after recovering from heart surgery, hosted General Electric's All-star Anniversary special, which featured luminaries like Jimmy Stewart, Lucille Ball, Penny Marshall and Bob Hope saluting the venerable corporation with a long history in broadcasting (GE owns NBC).
Henry Fonda also taped a segment for that special and candidly stated, "He seemed to be the same old Duke. He was thinner, which isn't bad except he hadn't got his clothes to fit his new weight yet, sort of loose at the collar. But he was in marvelous spirits."
Wayne was on hand to salute another network in 1978; on ABC's Silver Anniversary program, he looked back on the alphabet net's western series from the past twenty-five years and posed for an historic picture with the lead actors from Maverick, Kung Fu, Big Valley, Cheyenne, Rin Tin Tin and other shows.
Thanks in part to thirty years of constant TV exposure, John Wayne scored number one in the 1978 Performer Q rating which measures the popularity of well-known people.
THE END
On November, 4, 1978 Wayne filmed a Perry Como Christmas Special in historic Old Williamsburg. He was experiencing severe stomach problems throughout the shoot; after the holidays, doctors discovered cancer once again. The day before he was to undergo a major operation to remove his tumor-ridden stomach, John Wayne appeared on a Barbara Walters Special on March 13, 1979.
Walters had a habit of catching major celebrities for their last interviews. Duke touched briefly on his mortality, "Listen, I spoke to the man up there on many occasions and I have what I always had; deep faith that there is a Supreme Being. There has to be, you know; it's just to me, that's just a normal thing, to have that kind of faith. The fact that He's let me stick around a little longer, certainly goes great with me, and I want to hang around as long as I'm healthy and not in anybody's way."
Three months after the nine-hour operation, Duke made his last public appearance on the April 9, 1979 Oscar telecast. Before announcing the Best Picture winner, Duke spoke to the assembled, "Believe me when I tell you I'm mighty pleased that I can amble down here tonight. Oscar and I have something in common. Oscar first came to the Hollywood scene in 1928. So did I. We're both a little weather beaten, but we're still here and plan to be around a whole lot longer."
With that Oscar appearance and the Barbra Walters interview (recorded before the procedure but broadcast immediately after the awards show), the viewing public could believe that John Wayne was on his way to beating the 'Big C' one more time. It was not to be. Desperately ill at the Oscar ceremony, he barely made it through the experience.
He died just weeks later, on June 11, 1979.
John Wayne was eulogized by President Jimmy Carter. "He was bigger than life. In an age of few heroes, he was the genuine article. But he was more than a hero. He was a symbol of so many of the qualities that made America great. The ruggedness, the tough independence, the sense of personal courage - on and off screen - reflected the best of our national character."
Other video clips
Back in the days when people actually went to movie theaters, other activities went on besides actually watching the film. This short was created to play in theatres where they were collecting for the Will Rogers fund, and is hosted/narrated by John Wayne and probably played before/with the trailers.
Dean Martin and John Wayne sing 'Everybody Loves Somebody'
Famous quotes from the Duke
"There've been a lot of stories about how I got to be called Duke. One was that I played the part of a Duke in a school play, which I never did. Sometimes, they even said I was descended from royalty! It was all a lot of rubbish. Hell, the truth is that I was named after a dog!"
- John Wayne
"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people and I require the same from them."
- John Wayne in The Shootist
"A man's gotta do
what a man's gotta do."
- John Wayne
"Courage is being scared to death - and saddling up anyway."
- John Wayne
"Talk low, talk slow,
and don't say too much."
- John Wayne on his acting style
"I ain't had a drink since breakfast! And I only wear this coat in your court. It was always good enough when you needed what was in it."
- Rooster Cogburn (1975)
"Speaking of politics, where we're going there are only two parties, the Quick and the Dead."
- Dakota (1945)
"We can't turn back! We're blazing a trail that started in England. Not even the storms of the sea could turn back those first settlers - and they carried it on further, they blazed it on through the wilderness of Kentucky. Famine, hunger, not even massacres could stop them. Now we've picked up the trail again and nothing can stop us, not even the snows of winter north peaks of the highest mountain. We're building a nation, but we've got to suffer. No great trail was ever blazed without hardship. And you've got to fight, that's life. And when you stop fightin',that's death. What are you going to do, lay down and die? Not in a thousand years! You're going on with me."
- The Big Trail (1930)
"It isn't always being fast or even accurate that counts. It's being willing. I found out early that most men, regardless of cause or need, aren't willing. They blink an eye or draw a breath before they pull a trigger. I won't."
- The Shootist (1976)
"Alright, we've seen what you can do with a boy. How are you when they come a little bigger?"
- The Cowboys (1972)
"Now you'll show up at my place first Monday after school at 5 AM, and come with grit teeth, because, gentlemen, that's when school really begins."
- The Cowboys (1972)
"I'm lookin' at a tin star with a drunk pinned on it."
- El Dorado (1967)
"Well, I know those law books mean a lot to you, but not out here. Out here a man settles his own problems."
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
"There's no land anywhere worth a hoot, till it's flowed with good honest sweat."
- Three Faces West (1940)
"I taught you what to do when the snow comes, how to survive in a blizzard. I taught you how to deal with men, but women, nobody knows what's on a woman's mind."
- The Undefeated (1969)
'Duke' Trivia
His production company, Batjac, was originally to be called Batjak, after the shipping company owned by Luther Adler's character in the film Wake of the Red Witch (1948). A secretary's typo while she was drawing up the papers resulted in it being called Batjac, and Wayne, not wanting to hurt her feelings, kept her spelling of it.
He was offered the lead in The Dirty Dozen (1967), but went to star in and direct The Green Berets (1968) instead. The part was eventually given to Lee Marvin.
Upon being cast by Raoul Walsh in Fox's The Big Trail (1930) the studio decided his name had to be changed. Walsh said he was reading a biography on General "Mad" Anthony Wayne and suggested that name. The studio liked the last name but not the first and decided on "John Wayne" as the final rendition.
Arguably Wayne's worst film, The Conqueror (1956), in which he played Genghis Kahn, was based on a script that director Dick Powell had every intention of throwing into the wastebasket. According to Powell, when he had to leave his office at RKO for a few minutes during a story conferance, he returned to find a very enthused Wayne reading the script, which had been in a pile of possible scripts on Powell's desk, and insisting that this was the movie he wanted to make. As Powell himself summed it up, "Who am I to turn down John Wayne ?"
Just on his sheer popularity and his prominent political activism, the Republican party in 1968 supposedly asked him to run for President of the USA, even though he had no previous political experience. He turned them down because he did not believe America would take a movie star running for the President seriously. He did support Ronald Reagan's run for governor of California, though.
Eagerly sought the role of Gen. George S. Patton in Patton (1970), but was turned down by the producer.
During the filming of The Undefeated (1969), he fell from his horse and fractured three ribs. He couldn't work for almost two weeks. Then he tore a ligament in his shoulder and couldn't use one arm at all. The director, Andrew V. McLaglen, could only film him from an angle for the rest of the picture. His only concern throughout was not to disappoint his fans, despite being in terrible pain.
Regretted playing Temujin in The Conqueror (1956) so much that he visibly shuddered whenever anyone mentioned the film's name. He once remarked that the moral of the film was "not to make an ass of yourself trying to play parts you're not suited for."
He made several films early in his career as a "singing" cowboy. His singing voice was supplied by a singer hidden off camera.
In 1977 he had a script commissioned for a film called "Beau John" in which he would star with Ron Howard, but due to his declining health it never happened.
Of his many film roles, his personal favorite was that of Ethan Edwards from The Searchers (1956). Wayne even went so far as to name his son Ethan after that character.
Turned down the role of Marshal Dillon on "Gunsmoke" (1955) because he did not want to commit to a weekly TV series. He recommended his friend James Arness for the role, and gave the on camera introduction in the pilot episode.
He turned down Dirty Harry (1971) because he felt the role of Harry Callahan was too far removed from his screen image. When he saw the movie he realized it wasn't so different from the roles he had traditionally played, and made two cop dramas of his own, McQ (1974) and Brannigan (1975). Director Don Siegel later commented, "Wayne couldn't have played Harry. He was too old. He was too old to play McQ which was a poor rip-off of Dirty Harry."
Later,
Kenaz
http://www.live365.com/profiles/theeternalkenaz-profile
