American Titan: Searching for John Wayne (66 page)

The Desert Trail
(1935) [Actor . . . . John Scott/John Jones]

Rainbow Valley
(1935) [Actor . . . . John Martin]

Texas Terror
(1935) [Actor . . . . John Higgins]

‘Neath the Arizona Skies
(1934) [Actor . . . . Chris Morrell]

The Lawless Frontier
(1934) [Actor . . . . John Tobin]

The Trail Beyond
(1934) [Actor . . . . Rod Drew]

The Star Packer
(1934) [Actor . . . . John Travers] a.k.a.
The Shadow Gang
—USA (DVD title)

Randy Rides Alone
(1934) [Actor . . . . Randy Bowers]

The Man from Utah
(1934) [Actor . . . . John Weston]

Blue Steel
(1934) [Actor . . . . John Carruthers] a.k.a.
Stolen Goods
—USA (alternative title)

West of the Divide
(1934) [Actor . . . . Ted Hayden—a.k.a. Gat Ganns]

The Lucky Texan
(1934) [Actor . . . . Jerry Mason] a.k.a.
Gold Strike River
—USA (alternative title)

Sagebrush Trail
(1933) [Actor . . . . John Brant]

College Coach
(1933) [Actor . . . . Student Greeting Phil] (uncredited)

Riders of Destiny
(1933) [Actor . . . . Singin’ Sandy Saunders]

The Man from Monterey
(1933) [Actor . . . . Captain John Holmes]

Baby Face
(1933) [Actor . . . . Jimmy McCoy Jr.]

His Private Secretary
(1933) [Actor . . . . Dick Wallace]

The Life of Jimmy Dolan
(1933) [Actor . . . . Smith]

Somewhere in Sonora
(1933) [Actor . . . . John Bishop]

Central Airport
(1933) [Actor . . . . Co-Pilot in Wreck] (uncredited)

The Three Musketeers
(1933) [Actor . . . . Lt. Tom Wayne]

The Telegraph Trail
(1933) [Actor . . . . John Trent]

Haunted Gold
(1932) [Actor . . . . John Mason]

The Big Stampede
(1932) [Actor . . . . Deputy Sheriff John Steele]

That’s My Boy
(1932) [Actor . . . . Football Player] (uncredited)

Ride Him, Cowboy
(1932) [Actor . . . . John Drury]

The Hollywood Handicap
(1932) [Actor . . . . Himself]

The Hurricane Express
(1932) [Actor . . . . The Air Pilot]

Lady and Gent
(1932) [Actor . . . . Buzz Kinney]

Two-Fisted Law
(1932) [Actor . . . . Duke]

Texas Cyclone
(1932) [Actor . . . . Steve Pickett]

The Shadow of the Eagle
(1932) [Actor . . . . Craig McCoy]

Running Hollywood
(1932) [Actor . . . . Himself]

The Voice of Hollywood
No. 13 (Second Series) (1932) [Himself, Announcer]

Maker of Men
(1931) [Actor . . . . Dusty Rhodes]

The Range Feud
(1931) [Actor . . . . Clint Turner]

The Deceiver
(1931) [Actor . . . . Richard Thorpe as a corpse]

Arizona
(1931) [Actor . . . . Lt. Bob Denton] a.k.a.
Men Are Like That
—USA

Three Girls Lost
(1931) [Actor . . . . Gordon Wales]

Girls Demand Excitement
(1931) [Actor . . . . Peter Brooks]

The Big Trail
(1930) [Actor . . . . Breck Coleman] a.k.a.
Raoul Walsh’s The Big Trail
—USA (complete title)

Cheer Up and Smile
(1930) [Actor . . . . Roy] (uncredited) [property assistant uncredited)

Rough Romance
(1930) [Actor . . . . Lumberjack uncredited, (props uncredited)

Born Reckless
(1930) [Actor . . . . Extra uncredited]

Men Without Women
(1930) [Actor . . . . [Radioman on Surface uncredited]

The Forward Pass
(1929) [Actor . . . . Extra] (uncredited)

Salute
(1929) [Actor . . . . Midshipman Bill] (uncredited) (costumer, uncredited)

Words and Music
(1929) [Actor . . . . Pete Donahue] (as Duke Morrison) [property assistant uncredited]

The Black Watch
(1929) [Actor . . . . 42nd Highlander uncredited] [props uncredited] a.k.a.
King of the Khyber Rifles
—UK, USA working title

Speakeasy
(1929) [Actor . . . . Extra uncredited[

Noah’s Ark
(1928) [Actor . . . . Flood Extra uncredited]

Hangman’s House
(1928) [Actor . . . . Horse Race Spectator/Condemned Man in Flashback uncredited]

Four Sons
(1928) [Actor . . . . Officer uncredited, props uncredited)

Mother Machree
(1928) [Actor . . . . Extra uncredited, props uncredited]

The Drop Kick
(1927) [Actor . . . . Football Player/Extra in Stands uncredited]

Annie Laurie
(1927) [Actor . . . . Extra uncredited]

The Great K & A Train Robbery
(1926) [Actor . . . . Extra uncredited, property boy uncredited]

Bardelys the Magnificent
(1926) [Actor . . . . Guard uncredited]

Brown of Harvard
(1926) [Actor . . . . Yale Football Player uncredited]

ALSO BY MARC ELIOT

Michael Douglas:
A Biography

Steve McQueen:
A Biography

Paul Simon:
A Life

American Rebel:
The Life of Clint Eastwood

Song of Brooklyn:
An Oral History of America’s Favorite Borough

Reagan:
The Hollywood Years

Jimmy Stewart:
A Biography

Cary Grant:
A Biography

Down 42nd Street:
Sex, Money, Culture, and Politics at the Crossroads of the World

Take It from Me:
Life’s a Struggle, But You Can Win
(with Erin Brockovich)

To the Limit:
The Untold Story of the Eagles

Death of a Rebel:
A Biography of Phil Ochs

Kato Kaelin:
The Whole Truth

Walt Disney:
Hollywood’s Dark Prince

Rockonomics:
The Money Behind the Music

Down Thunder Road:
The Making of Bruce Springsteen

Copyright

AMERICAN TITAN: SEARCHING FOR JOHN WAYNE
. Copyright © 2014 by Rebel Road Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-226900-3

EPub Edition NOVEMBER 2014 ISBN 9780062269034

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Footnote

1
  Wayne was married three times, divorced twice, and had seven children. He had four with his first wife, Josephine Alicia Saenz (1933–1945)—Michael Wayne, Mary Antonia “Toni” Wayne, Patrick Wayne, and Melinda Wayne. He had no children with his second wife, Esperana Baur (1946–1954). Wayne married Pilar in 1954 and had three children with her, Aissa, John Ethan, and Marisa. They separated in 1973.

2
  Wayne sometimes varied this story. To Pete Martin, of the Saturday Evening Post, he said that he had gotten the nickname after acting the part of a duke in a high school play. He also liked how close Duke sounded to Doc.

3
  Both films are considered “lost,” due to neglect and deterioration. A “lost” film is defined as a film for which no known prints exist.

4
  Brown of Harvard is available on DVD.

5
  Thought lost after MGM destroyed the negative over a contract dispute, in 2006 a nearly complete print of Bardelys the Magnificent was found in France, missing only reel three. It was restored using production stills and footage from the film trailer to stand in for the missing reel. It was made available in 2008 for U.S. theatrical and DVD release.

6
  The sets were built one-eighth smaller than in real life, to make Mix look bigger.

7
  Available on DVD and instant download from several video outlets.

8
  Released in 1928, produced and directed by John Ford (unaccredited as director). Of the more than sixty silent features Ford made, few survive. Of the thirty-six he made before 1920, at Universal, Ford’s resident studio before he moved to Fox, only ten survive. Mother Machree was a Fox transition-to-sound film, with a song performed in it to show off the studio’s ability to produce sound. Only five of its seven reels remain in existence. Wayne worked as an animal wrangler on the film.

9
  Prior to Mother Machree, Wayne appeared in Jack Conway’s Brown of Harvard as an unbilled football player, King Vidor’s Bardelys the Magnificent as an unbilled swordfighter, Lewis Seiler’s The Great K and A Train Robbery as an unbilled extra in the Tom Mix feature, John S. Robertson’s Annie Laurie, released in 1927, as an extra in one scene wearing kilts; Millard Webb’s The Drop Kick, released in 1927, as an unbilled football player. He and ten other college football players from Stanford, USC, and UCLA all appear as stand-ins and extras during the film’s climactic game.

10
  Francis Ford, John’s older brother, began as a stage actor before heading to Hollywood to become a movie star. One opening night in New York, the lead actor got drunk, and Francis, the understudy, went on in his place. The actor’s name was Ford. According to John Ford, “From then on he could never get rid of it; neither could I.”—Peter Bogdanovich, John Ford, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1978, revised edition.

11
  Thirty-three years later, in 1947, the university made Ford an honorary doctor of humanities. Later, the school named its Dramatic Arts division after him. He jokingly told reporters that if the school had treated him better when he was a student, he never would have left and gone to Hollywood.

12
  “Eventually, Wayne bonded with his stepsister, who later became Nancy Marshall, and with his stepmother, and he played an important role in their lives. As gracious letters from Nancy Marshall to John Wayne indicate, he quietly provided financial support for his stepmother’s medical bills in her declining years, and he gave Nancy Marshall occasional work reading and evaluating novels for possible motion picture consideration. . . . Wayne’s actions reflect his abiding sense of basic loyalty.”—Goldman, John Wayne: The Genuine Article, p. 28.

13
  In 1973, Wayne gave a speech to the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame, in which he claimed it was his leg that had been broken, not his shoulder. There is no evidence that it was his leg, and all other accounts say it was a shoulder injury.

14
  Four Sons was thought to be lost for seventy years until a print was found in Portugal that was restored by the Film Archive at the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Fox. The Duke’s face is plainly visible in the restoration. Ford claimed it held the attendance record at New York’s Roxy when it was first released.

15
  The only existing print of Strong Boy is believed to be in a private collection in Australia.

16
  Speakeasy is considered lost, although some of its sound track is believed to have survived on Vitaphone-style disks.

17
  Words and Music still exists but may not be currently available in complete form.

18
  The Black Watch is occasionally shown on Turner Classic Movies.

19
  Salute is available on DVD.

20
  The Forward Pass is believed to be lost, but some elements exist at UCLA’s Film and Television department. The Lone Star Ranger was the third remake of a popular novel. Ford’s version was billed as “Zane Grey’s first all-talking picture.” A print exists in the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Men Without Women exists as an international sound version held by the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City.

21
  Cheer Up and Smile is available on DVD. Rough Romance is available on DVD.

22
  There are several versions as to where Wayne got his trademark walk from. Later on, Wayne would give the credit to Enos Edward “Yakima” or “Yak” Canutt, a former rodeo rider and stuntman, who, when he realized he could get paid for being thrown from a horse in the movies, became one of the most sought-after stuntmen in Hollywood, especially for western films. Canutt also taught Wayne how to fall from a running horse without getting hurt, the physical techniques of staged barroom brawling, and the right way to draw and shoot a gun. Wayne gave Canutt a fair measure of credit for helping develop the famous stylistics of his familiar stance: “I even copied Yak’s smooth-rolling walk. And the way he talks, kinda low and with quiet strength.”—John Wayne from Don Allen, The American Weekly, November 30, 1957. Also influential in helping Wayne to “screen fight” were stuntmen Allen Pomery and Eddie Parker. Harry Carey Jr. claimed Wayne’s walk didn’t fully develop until nearly a decade later, and that it was Paul Fix who helped Wayne find his trademark trot: “Duke was kind of heavy-footed and used to trudge more than walk. Paul told Duke to point his toes when he walked, and the ‘John Wayne walk’ was born . . . When Duke first did it [in Stagecoach], it was ballsy as hell. As the legend began to form, the walk became more pronounced.”—Harry Carey Jr., Company of Heroes, pp. 72–73.