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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