Posts by tinker

What is disgusting about that list is the small number of women on it. Are they saying that not one living woman who is not an actress has not made a ifetime contribution to films.

And even the actresses are pretty thin off the ground, Julie Andrews, Doris Day and Jane Fonda are all still around, as are Goldie Hawn and Sigourney Weaver.

dee

Sorry cannot resist risin g to this one.

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This is an old one, but I just saw it. Women are naturally the "doting" type...always wanting to "look after" their man. I imagine Duke's pain and partial paralysis due to that bullet pressing on his spine gave many women the vicarious thrill of taking care of DUKE!

No they would not have wanted that. They would have just been mad at him lying on their nice bed covers with his boots and spurs on.

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In twenty years there will be enough Muslim voters in the U.S. to elect the
President!

Which will be considerably better than rabid extreme right Christians electing the President as happened when Bush was elected.

Which means that religion should be kept out of politics. And no-one of any faith or no faith should be demonised because of their religious beliefs

Most Muslims (like most Christians, and Jews and any other religion) are just ordinary people worried about family , making a living and extremists of all faiths creating wars.

I am neither Muslim or American. I just like John Wayne.

Duke rode on War Wagon a sandy coloured horse which was actually the same horse that James Caan rode in El Dorado.

And to really confuse matters Kirk Douglas rode Dollor ( different horse to the later Dollar) in War Wagon that John Wayne rode in quite a few films such as the Undeafeated. Musical horses is perhaps what makes it so confusing.

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***I may be mis-remembering, but I thought Chuck said in his book that due to his broken ankle, veteran Cliff Lyons actually did that fall into the gully (where Duke was laying unseen). The Duke popped up-very smooth stuntwork regardless!

Read the book a few months ago and Roberson said it was him, they got it in the shot he broke his ankle.

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"The bucking horse in Hondo is Cocaine, blaze dyed out, with Chuck Roberson on him, with Duke getting on to do the close ups. "

except you can clearly see Chuck Hayward as the rider, not Roberson.

Pretty sure Roberson says its him and Cocaine in the book. He describes using a bucking strap on Cocaine to make him buck but maybe he got pictures mixed up. He mixes a few others up.

Good excuse to read the book again

I think there were two horses. The one he rode in True Grit and the Undefeated (and Kirk Douglas rode in the War Wagon) I think was Dollor which Harry Carey said was a mean horse that kicked everything that came up behind it. The one he used in the later movies was Dollar but it could be the other way around.

Interesting to see the full 90 minutes of the Gene Autry Western tribute. I've only ever seen bits on Youtube before. I am not sure there is any other footage of Wayne and Ford together being themselves. Curious how much Wayne stands behind Ford, not pushing in, unlike Ward Bond, who Ford hastily pushes to one side. Also interesting how much Ford touches Wayne, puts a hand on his shoulder, leg. Very Possessive body language.

I never saw the ending before but in the mock fight with James Arness and the stuntman, you can see Duke crash in and "win" the fight, while everyone around starts laughing. As it was filmed live it looks like it was not planned and Wayne was having fun.

I was really surprised the first time I realised that it was Duke carrying Quincy. I think it was Duke who did the drunk fall off the horse too.

He did an awful lot of his own riding in the Ford films, its usually him doing the galloping on flat ground and climbing up and down cliff scenes and they only use doubles for falls and really dangerous riding, galloping down dangerous terrain. Even galloping on flat ground and in those charge scenes took a really good rider, which Wayne was. He also had beautiful soft hands on the reins. You never see Dollar or Banner or Steel chucking their heads or roll their eyes because their rider yanked the bit to hard.

Its Duke riding in the Indian raid in The Searchers but Chuck Roberson doubled in the galloping away from the Indians after they met Debbie, with Chuck Hayward doubling for Jeff Hunter. Incidently that is a scene where Chuck Roberson shoots "himself" . He is the Indian who fires the arrow that hits Ethan and then Roberson and his horse Cocaine do a massive fall down a sand slope.

Roberson did the ride down the cliffs in Hondo, breaking his ankle when Cocaine did the fall in the gully. The fall is done in one take, Roberson and Cocaine go down and Duke who was hiding in the gully stands up.

In the winter scenes in the Searchers, it is Terry Wilson substituting for Duke and in the beautiful yellow sunset scene it is Chuck Hayward. In the party scene where the stunt guys were doing the dancing, there is a lovely Ford moment where Chuck Roberson playing a ranger asks Ethan to have a drink , and then for no reason two of the dancers Chuck Hayward and Terry Wilson move into the group. It means Duke is surrounded by the 3 men who doubled him in the film, a nice little moment that not to many big stars would do.

You can see it is clearly Chuck Roberson in a couple of the falls in McLintock in the fight in the general store. It is clearly Duke doing the gallop up the hill to the Indian hanging. Chuck Roberson is riding beside him.

If you want to get an idea of what a good rider Roberson was, in the egg race in McLintock he turns around and mounts a plunging red horse and holds its still. The playing up horse is Cocaine, clearly looking forward to a gallop.

Duke actually rides Cocaine in the Searchers. It shows what a good rider he was that he was allowed to get on Cocaine who was a pretty high strung horse. They must have decided it was better continuity to let Duke ride the stunt horse than switch horses as well as riders.

It is Chuck Roberson who does the ride down the hill to the cave after Debbie but Duke sticking out the horse when it bucks as Martin tries to pull him off it.

It is also Duke who rides at a gallop across the river when the Indians chase them. If you want to know how dangerous that river was watch one of the stuntmen and horses nearly get swept away in the Indian scenes. In the scene used in the film Ward Bond;s horse comes down with him and Jeffrey Hunter stops to help him, one of Ford's famous acident moments, not a stunt. There is an outtake in the documentary on the Searchers there is another shot of that river crossing where Wayne is riding at the back of the group and his horse goes down in the water and comes up with Wayne hanging halfway across the saddle as it plunges to get to its feet. Soaking wet and hanging off the horse he stays in character still shooting at the Indians.

According to Chuck Roberson in his wonderful book The Fall Guy the stunt thta nearly injured Wayne badly he was not even doing. He was standing behind the camera when someone miscued a horse fall and they slide right into him with Wayne ending up under the horse. Ford nearly had an apoplectic fit apparently.

The bucking horse in Hondo is Cocaine, blaze dyed out, with Chuck Roberson on him, with Duke getting on to do the close ups.

In Angel and the Badman, Yakima Canutt does the first scenes, the jump and the running horse that falls, using Wayne's horse Banner, the only time you see Banner do a stunt fall but it is Duke who does the galloping in the cattle chase scene and alot of the buckboeard driving.

I think Gail Russell may have driven the horses up at a gallop in the scene where Quirt sees her for the forst time. The angle make sit pretty hard to hide a driver and extra set of reins under the seat.

In Stagecoach, Yakima Canuut did all the famous jumps onto the team of six but Duke did get on the lead horse and gallop it (bareback no stirrups) for the close up and jump off as it was pulled up from a gallop. He also, only at a trot, in the Western street drives the six up team which is probably the hardest thing to do of all the horse stunts in movies. Andy Devine was beside him ready to grab the reins if something went wrong but I cannot think of another western where you clearly see the star driving six horses even at a walk. They always cut from closeup to very long shot.

By the way the answer to why Duke always rode big red whitefaced horses was because it was easier to get a match for Cocaine than keep dying Cocaine. And as an aside whenever you see in a western movie or TV show the hero or villian on a whitefaced red horse you know a horse fall is coming up. The three best falling horses in Hollywood were Hank Williams Coco, CHuck Roberson's Cocaine and Chuck Hatward's Twinkle Toes and all were red horses with white faces.

And another aside, Twinkle Toes who would have been about 20 at the time was the horse that Duke rode to jump the fence in True Grit, and Cocaine was well over 25 when Chuck Roberson jumped him through the glass window in Chisum.

As an Aussie I find it hard to understand why a rich country like the USA has denied people basic health care for so long. Not to sure how you can balance being against abortion but wanting to deny immigrant children access to health care. Seems to me if you want the children born you should also be wanting them to be cared for.

There are many things wrong with the health care system in oz but at least we have one. If you need what they call elective surgery it can be a long wait but I know after busting and dislocating my ankle last year I was damned glad of the health system.

And for at least some aftercare in terms of nurse visits and other support.

dee

Interesting article but I always get suspicious of articles that get their first facts rong, like the date They Were Expendable was made.

I find it curious that an arch-conservative would be quoting McBride as an authority, because his books are very biased, one of the more left wing writers who sees Ford as the documenter of American social history and has a great deal of trouble reconciling the fact that he used John Wayne in his films.

I found McBride pretty damn nasty about John Wayne, he seemed to take a quite vindictive pride in telling Navahos that Wayne was racist and making sure they threatened to shoot him if he returned to Monument Valley, (which Wayne did and the Navahos didn't).

And McBride was the writer who lied his way into an interview with Ford and Ford had great fun boasting to Henry Fonda he not revealing anything. McBride claims he was on the set of the Shootist but it sounds a bit like he got short shift from Wayne too. Maybe one of the reasons he is so nasty.

I get a bit annoyed at 70's liberals who have discovered Ford now trying to write their politics into their books about him and John Wayne ( and for the record I'm not a conservative) but some of those writers seem to be running vendettas. McBride amongst them.

dee

Interesting article but I always get suspicious of articles that get their first facts rong, like the date They Were Expendable was made.

I find it curious that an arch-conservative would be quoting McBride as an authority, because his books are very biased, one of the more left wing writers who sees Ford as the documenter of American social history and has a great deal of trouble reconciling the fact that he used John Wayne in his films.

I found McBride pretty damn nasty about John Wayne, he seemed to take a quite vindictive pride in telling Navahos that Wayne was racist and making sure they threatened to shoot him if he returned to Monument Valley, (which Wayne did and the Navahos didn't).

And McBride was the writer who lied his way into an interview with Ford and Ford had great fun boasting to Henry Fonda he not revealing anything. McBride claims he was on the set of the Shootist but it sounds a bit like he got short shift from Wayne too. Maybe one of the reasons he is so nasty.

I get a bit annoyed at 70's liberals who have discovered Ford now trying to write their politics into their books about him and John Wayne ( and for the record I'm not a conservative) but some of those writers seem to be running vendettas. McBride amongst them.

dee

Great Lawyer stories. Another lawyer story.

A lawyer died broke ( I know that's unlikely) without enough money to pay for a burial. A neighbourhood good Samaritan went around to all the people living close by and asked for a donation to bury the lawyer.

He knocks on one door and a little old lady answers.

The good Samaritan tells her he wants $5 for a dead lawyer.

She goes to her purse and gets out the $5 and hands it to him. "So " she says "$5 and you guarantee the lawyer is dead. Sounds like a bargain to me"

You know one of Shakespeare's greatest lines was "First let's kill all the lawyers"

dee

I watched this movie again. I admit I have to be in a certain mood to watch it because it really does haunt you.

Its a beautiful movie and I guess no actor ever had a better send off role. I know John Wayne always acted with his eyes but in this one it just hurts looking at the pain. A couple of things.

Has anyone else noted that for a man who couldn't sing, John Wayne sang in an awful lot of his movies. I can think of the Quiet Man, McLintock, 3 Godfathers. Hatari. John Wayne singing Gilbert and Sullivan in the Shootist must have been a first.

I am not to sure if this was intended or not but notice when John Wayne gets off Dollar in front of the doctor's he steps onto a mounting block, maybe it was meant to indicate Books was in pain or maybe Wayne really needed it.

When he rides up to the boarding house, and goes to get off, the last time he ever will get off horse in the movies, there is a mounting block just in front of the house and presumably it is there for him to use to dismount. However the Duke pulls up just in front and gets off without using the mounting block.

I watched the documentary on the DVD and it seemed to me that the producers were a bit annoyed with Wayne for stopping them using the ending in the book because the ending used made the story about the end of an era not the start of a new one and therefore 'Hollywood'. I also chose to see the taking out the three men is Books symbolically ending his era. Carson City is changing and no longer a town where people should kill each other in saloons and streets. He takes out the remnants of his own era before he goes. Anyway that is my interpretation.

All I can say is that I am glad the Duke stuck to his guns about the ending. I never can understand why film makers have to make non-Hollywood endings which seems to me to be an ego trip at the expense of their audience. It shows a total disrespect for the audience which the Duke didn't do. I don't think audiences mind sad endings but they resent futile one which non Hollywood endings usually are. And the book one would have destroyed all the dignity of the character.

One of the producers claims the 'Hollywood" ending weakened the film but I personally think the book ending would have destroyed it. There is something noble about J.B Books dignity and shooting a man in the back and destroying Gillam's life as he died would have made a mockery of when he tells Mrs Rogers he is maybe a better man than she thinks which the way the character is played is easy to believe.

Anyway I think this is a beautiful film and I am glad that it was John Wayne who made it because I suspect with any of the other actors who were considered, it would have been about the violent ending of the last of the Wild Bunch and not the ending of John T. Chance.

dee

I just watched the original again after not having seen it for years. It really is a lovely film. I know its about as close to a chick flick as John Wayne made but it was fun. I know all the rubbish talked about John Wayne not being able to act but they don't talk much about his comic timing which many a so called good actor can't do and the Duke is great in this one. His reactions to the "other" suitor when he is churning the icecream are very funny, as he is with then baby. Gail Russell was just beautiful and Penelope really was a heroine who had some gumption. Just because she was good does not mean she was a little wimp. She sure had Quirt under control.

They also had some nice moments. Quirt was wearing a black hat when he seduces Penny. He is back to wearing a white hat when he is feeling guilty about it and proposes. The black hat returns when he goes off to kill Laredo.

Noticed also with the horses John Wayne is riding Banner throughout the film. In the scene where Quirt holds the basket full of donuts while the neighbour mounts, Banner is having a fine old feast of donuts. His head is stuck in the basket then you can see him eating. John Wayne does not stop him so I guess it must be intentional, part of the jokes about food

And Harry Carey was great. Great chemistry with him and John Wayne on screen. Its a pity they did not do more.

There were some good references to other films that John Wayne made. They had characters. Hondo and McClintock. I assume the other film was called McClintock as a tribute to Harry Carey. They also mentioned Casa Verde where Cherry Valance in Red River came from. The stolen herd of cattle came from there.

dee

I found this interview that John Ford did in the early 50's about John Wayne. It says alot about the way he felt about Duke.

I really like the bit about hats because it just may explain why John Wayne wore the same hat he wore in Stagecoach for twenty years .

Quote

Now that Duke Wayne sits on top of the world, the time has come to declare that he is, has always been, and always will be my pal. I have liked Duke’s style since the first time I saw him in 1928, when I went to USC to recruit a bunch of athletes to play in a football game in Salute, a film I was shooting at the Annapolis Naval Academy.
Duke was not as strong or as developed as the other young men I saw. He was just a lanky kid who had grown too fast and was wearing clothes that were too small for him. However, I was struck by his self-assured manner. I also liked his smile—easy and natural. So, that same evening, in the university hall, I asked him to choose the young men that would join the film set in Annapolis. I have never regretted my decision because that moment marked the beginning of a friendship that has brought joy into my life.

The following summer, Duke came to visit me in Newhall, where I was shooting a Western, and asked me for a job. He started as a truck driver and before the end of the summer, he became a props assistant. He liked that job so much that he never went back to school and his choice probably saved the campus furniture from wear and tear.
Duke possesses a tremendous energy. He is convinced that an athletic looking person can challenge him/herself to do anything better, harder, and longer than anybody else can. He never feared hard work. On the other hand, I remember the day I scared him to death when I asked him to replace an actor who hadn’t shown up on the set for a bit part.

“Yes, you, big boy,” I yelled back. “Come here and put this jacket on.”

Duke was far from memorable in his early acting career, especially when it came to love scenes. It is not easy being romantic when your heart is pounding.
However, he displayed that masculine ease which is the secret of success on the
silver screen.

Duke has made more than one hundred fifty films; he is a well-respected
actor and one of the most bankable Hollywood names. Over the last two years,
From Hollywood, I spent most of my free time fishing in Mexico with John Wayne. You can tell a lot about people when you watch their behavior as they fish. I am not talking about the way they bait the hook or reel in the fish, and not even about how many fish they catch; instead I mean their ability to enjoy themselves and relax,to put manners aside and be completely carefree.

Duke has always been able to savor life, to swallow and digest it in big bites,without chewing them. Depending on the situation, he can be either reckless or a perfect gentleman. He plays very risky and costly games of poker. As far as fighting goes, he has had enough fist fights to give conclusive proof that he is the kind of man you don’t want to come to blows with. However, he has also learned, effortlessly, to behave with dignity and manly kindness. I am happy to say that my affection for this man is well placed. My time in Hollywood would be quite trying if he did not come by my office every day, or if he didn’t call me on the phone to discuss a problem, an idea, or an interesting piece of news.

Therefore, my claim that Duke’s lively mind and enthusiasm for new projects makes him a dear friend should come as no surprise.

I might sound overly sentimental when I remark that for years Duke has been trying to make his hats look as worn out as mine are. He has sat down on them, dipped them in water, furiously stepped on them, and he has even managed to switch his with mine when I wasn’t looking. Yet, those hats look ill at ease on his head.


I told him a thousand times that until a hat grows with the man who wears it, it will not belong to his head.

Duke has been able to learn a decent amount of things about filmmaking by keeping his eyes and ears open. During a career that spanned twenty years, he was a props assistant, an electrician, a stuntman, an extra, a bit part actor, an assistant director, a producer, and a star. I would not be surprised if one day he directed a film that will induce jaw dropping among the Hollywood establishment. Over the past two years, Duke has devoted an inordinate amount of energy to his work; he acted in a half dozen films while also working on production.

Any other man in his place would have collapsed. Last year he installed some workout equipment in his garage because he did not have time to go to the gym, and then realized that he did not have time to work out either. I could not help but laugh. Moreover, if physical fitness were the only criterion to measure life, Duke would probably be the last man to leave this earth.

However, he has started to pay close attention to his health lately. From time to time, he convinces himself that he is at the end of his rope and walks around looking like he cannot even breathe. Then he jumps in his car and drives to a spa in La Jolla, where he stays for a couple of days at the most. When he comesback to Hollywood, he tells everybody he has never felt better. That place must be extraordinary. . . .
Actually, Duke is always so busy that he cannot even afford the leisure activities he enjoys most. With the exception of last year’s brief vacation in Santa Catalina, he has heroically given up his favorite pastimes: hunting and fishing.

A few years ago, however, he resolved that he needed a hobby that would allow him to work with his hands. He kept thinking and thinking about it until he met a screenwriter who made pottery in his garage in his spare time. Duke decided that pottery was the ideal hobby. As his birthday was coming up, his wife Chata bought him all the necessary equipment: an oven, shelves, clay, and pyrometric cones.
The other day, at lunchtime, the screenwriter happened to be sitting at the same table as Duke and asked him about his progress in the art of pottery. Duke replied that he had not yet had time to try it but that the oven was an ideal storage space for his shoes!

While shooting a film it is customary to have one day when everything seems to go wrong; a horse whinnies right as the hero is whispering very important sweet nothings into the heroine’s delicate ear; the stuntmen miss their cue; or the sun hides behind the clouds as the camera starts filming the most difficult long shot of the day.
When things go wrong, Duke’s presence becomes very important. He is the one who runs to the opposite side of the plain to tell the second crew that we are going to do another take of the same scene. He rarely asks somebody else to do something that he is capable of doing himself and for this reason, the technicians adore him.
We went to the most desolate places to film our Westerns. We shot Rio Grande near Moab, in Utah, and Duke was able to spend time outdoors in close contact with nature. I am sure that he would have been quite unhappy had he been confined to work in the studio sets; it would be the equivalent of putting a mountain lion in a cage. On the other hand, Duke needs to challenge and be challenged by nature.

When Duke works in interiors or in a studio set, it becomes very difficult to make him sit still. I have read somewhere that homemakers walk an average of three miles per day while they perform domestic duties. Duke walks an equal distance, and smokes half a dozen cigarettes, while he is waiting to shoot a scene.

I could not think of a more cruel torture than tying Duke to a chair and forcing him to watch people walking on a screen. He would go insane, I think.

Duke is now at a point in his career where all the honors that Hollywood and the fans can bestow upon an actor are coming his way.

Last summer I went to Reno with him to attend John Wayne Day, during
which he received the yearly award that the city gives him for his role in a Western.
That year he was honored for She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Duke was far more interested in the people he met than in the trophy he received. “Nice, eh?” he said as he showed me the award. “But it is not as important as the ideas behind it.”

Quite frankly, I am convinced that Duke can wear any prize with dignity as the gentleman he really is, despite his stern appearance.A few years ago, just before Stagecoach, I told Duke that a great future lay ahead of him. If it were not so obvious, I would say the same thing today.
He is my pal.
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dee

I found this interview that John Ford did in the early 50's about John Wayne. It says alot about the way he felt about Duke.

I really like the bit about hats because it just may explain why John Wayne wore the same hat he wore in Stagecoach for twenty years .

Quote

Now that Duke Wayne sits on top of the world, the time has come to declare that he is, has always been, and always will be my pal. I have liked Duke’s style since the first time I saw him in 1928, when I went to USC to recruit a bunch of athletes to play in a football game in Salute, a film I was shooting at the Annapolis Naval Academy.
Duke was not as strong or as developed as the other young men I saw. He was just a lanky kid who had grown too fast and was wearing clothes that were too small for him. However, I was struck by his self-assured manner. I also liked his smile—easy and natural. So, that same evening, in the university hall, I asked him to choose the young men that would join the film set in Annapolis. I have never regretted my decision because that moment marked the beginning of a friendship that has brought joy into my life.

The following summer, Duke came to visit me in Newhall, where I was shooting a Western, and asked me for a job. He started as a truck driver and before the end of the summer, he became a props assistant. He liked that job so much that he never went back to school and his choice probably saved the campus furniture from wear and tear.
Duke possesses a tremendous energy. He is convinced that an athletic looking person can challenge him/herself to do anything better, harder, and longer than anybody else can. He never feared hard work. On the other hand, I remember the day I scared him to death when I asked him to replace an actor who hadn’t shown up on the set for a bit part.

“Yes, you, big boy,” I yelled back. “Come here and put this jacket on.”

Duke was far from memorable in his early acting career, especially when it came to love scenes. It is not easy being romantic when your heart is pounding.
However, he displayed that masculine ease which is the secret of success on the
silver screen.

Duke has made more than one hundred fifty films; he is a well-respected
actor and one of the most bankable Hollywood names. Over the last two years,
From Hollywood, I spent most of my free time fishing in Mexico with John Wayne. You can tell a lot about people when you watch their behavior as they fish. I am not talking about the way they bait the hook or reel in the fish, and not even about how many fish they catch; instead I mean their ability to enjoy themselves and relax,to put manners aside and be completely carefree.

Duke has always been able to savor life, to swallow and digest it in big bites,without chewing them. Depending on the situation, he can be either reckless or a perfect gentleman. He plays very risky and costly games of poker. As far as fighting goes, he has had enough fist fights to give conclusive proof that he is the kind of man you don’t want to come to blows with. However, he has also learned, effortlessly, to behave with dignity and manly kindness. I am happy to say that my affection for this man is well placed. My time in Hollywood would be quite trying if he did not come by my office every day, or if he didn’t call me on the phone to discuss a problem, an idea, or an interesting piece of news.

Therefore, my claim that Duke’s lively mind and enthusiasm for new projects makes him a dear friend should come as no surprise.

I might sound overly sentimental when I remark that for years Duke has been trying to make his hats look as worn out as mine are. He has sat down on them, dipped them in water, furiously stepped on them, and he has even managed to switch his with mine when I wasn’t looking. Yet, those hats look ill at ease on his head.


I told him a thousand times that until a hat grows with the man who wears it, it will not belong to his head.

Duke has been able to learn a decent amount of things about filmmaking by keeping his eyes and ears open. During a career that spanned twenty years, he was a props assistant, an electrician, a stuntman, an extra, a bit part actor, an assistant director, a producer, and a star. I would not be surprised if one day he directed a film that will induce jaw dropping among the Hollywood establishment. Over the past two years, Duke has devoted an inordinate amount of energy to his work; he acted in a half dozen films while also working on production.

Any other man in his place would have collapsed. Last year he installed some workout equipment in his garage because he did not have time to go to the gym, and then realized that he did not have time to work out either. I could not help but laugh. Moreover, if physical fitness were the only criterion to measure life, Duke would probably be the last man to leave this earth.

However, he has started to pay close attention to his health lately. From time to time, he convinces himself that he is at the end of his rope and walks around looking like he cannot even breathe. Then he jumps in his car and drives to a spa in La Jolla, where he stays for a couple of days at the most. When he comesback to Hollywood, he tells everybody he has never felt better. That place must be extraordinary. . . .
Actually, Duke is always so busy that he cannot even afford the leisure activities he enjoys most. With the exception of last year’s brief vacation in Santa Catalina, he has heroically given up his favorite pastimes: hunting and fishing.

A few years ago, however, he resolved that he needed a hobby that would allow him to work with his hands. He kept thinking and thinking about it until he met a screenwriter who made pottery in his garage in his spare time. Duke decided that pottery was the ideal hobby. As his birthday was coming up, his wife Chata bought him all the necessary equipment: an oven, shelves, clay, and pyrometric cones.
The other day, at lunchtime, the screenwriter happened to be sitting at the same table as Duke and asked him about his progress in the art of pottery. Duke replied that he had not yet had time to try it but that the oven was an ideal storage space for his shoes!

While shooting a film it is customary to have one day when everything seems to go wrong; a horse whinnies right as the hero is whispering very important sweet nothings into the heroine’s delicate ear; the stuntmen miss their cue; or the sun hides behind the clouds as the camera starts filming the most difficult long shot of the day.
When things go wrong, Duke’s presence becomes very important. He is the one who runs to the opposite side of the plain to tell the second crew that we are going to do another take of the same scene. He rarely asks somebody else to do something that he is capable of doing himself and for this reason, the technicians adore him.
We went to the most desolate places to film our Westerns. We shot Rio Grande near Moab, in Utah, and Duke was able to spend time outdoors in close contact with nature. I am sure that he would have been quite unhappy had he been confined to work in the studio sets; it would be the equivalent of putting a mountain lion in a cage. On the other hand, Duke needs to challenge and be challenged by nature.

When Duke works in interiors or in a studio set, it becomes very difficult to make him sit still. I have read somewhere that homemakers walk an average of three miles per day while they perform domestic duties. Duke walks an equal distance, and smokes half a dozen cigarettes, while he is waiting to shoot a scene.

I could not think of a more cruel torture than tying Duke to a chair and forcing him to watch people walking on a screen. He would go insane, I think.

Duke is now at a point in his career where all the honors that Hollywood and the fans can bestow upon an actor are coming his way.

Last summer I went to Reno with him to attend John Wayne Day, during
which he received the yearly award that the city gives him for his role in a Western.
That year he was honored for She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Duke was far more interested in the people he met than in the trophy he received. “Nice, eh?” he said as he showed me the award. “But it is not as important as the ideas behind it.”

Quite frankly, I am convinced that Duke can wear any prize with dignity as the gentleman he really is, despite his stern appearance.A few years ago, just before Stagecoach, I told Duke that a great future lay ahead of him. If it were not so obvious, I would say the same thing today.
He is my pal.
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]

Display More

dee

I love the documentaries on The Searchers two set disc. I particularly like the home video's of John Wayne and John Ford.

The one that is really interesting is John Ford looking over the edge of the huge rock that they used for Marty to be swung down. The crew are all standing around watching as Ford looks over the edge. John Wayne in full costume a Ethan is back a few steps with a good hard grip on his wrist making sure Ford does not topple over the edge.

dee

I watched this again and really enjoyed it ( except I wish I did not know John Wayne killed n elephant) but it was the time and another film I love African Queen killed of a few animals when John Huston when big game hunting when he was not filming. I guess you just have to accept it was a different time.

Because I had not seen it for a while and I went over to IMDB to check out some things.

Something in the trivia really annoyed me

Quote

There was enormous criticism for making a film in Africa under the apartheid regime. However, John Wayne was a staunch supporter of the apartheid system and segregation, so he ignored the critics.

Now I politically would not have agreed with John Wayne about many things but gee talk about giving a guy a bad rap 30 years after he's dead and can't say anything back. And talk about ignorance. The whole of Africa was not an apartheid state. South Africa was. The film was made in Tanzania which at that time was just out of British rule and in a relatively peaceful transfer was an independent state with Tanzanian government. Tanzania is actually a fair way from South Africa.

I am not sure if John Wayne ever said anything about African politics so I can't honestly say I have any idea what he thought about it all but it really annoys me when I see people painting horns on someone because their views were different and getting away with leaving it there for all to believe. That is making it up. Telling fibs. And not being called on it.

I do have to make one supposition though. If that really was John Wayne doing most of those stunts, and it sure looked like it the way he kept turning his head to the camera so you could see it was him, he was putting an awful lot of faith (like his life in their hands) in the African guys on the truck with him and helping moving the animals around. In quite a few scenes you can see them hanging on tight to actors (including John Wayne) when things looked rough. I never get the impression that the Duke was someone who would be blissfully unaware they were protecting him or ungrateful.

dee

I watched Stagecoach again. I really wonder how much the relationship between the marshall Curly and Ringo is a reflection of John Wayne's and John Ford's relationship. Curly always seems pretty rough on Ringo even to the way at the end Curly makes Ringo go right to the wire about keeping his word before he sends him on his way.

When you watch it, check the dates in the family bible. If you look carefully you see Katie got married in 1850 and died in 1865. So it looks like John Elder was supposed to be around 44-45 and Bud Elder was 18. 26 or 27 years between them which is just about possible

dee