John Wayne: A Giant Shadow Read online

  JOHN WAYNE

  A GIANT SHADOW

  by

  Carolyn McGivern

  Revised edition by Reel Publishing 2017

  Copyright © C McGivern 2000

  ISBN 978-1905764-47-1

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Revised edition 2017 edited and formatted by

  David J Bradley-Shaw

  Cover by AYBECEDE.XYZ

  This book is dedicated to Katie, Heather

  and Christopher.

  Author’s Note

  Foreword

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  Author’s Note

  The perception of life that most of us share is, in large part, created by the producers, directors, and the stars of motion pictures. John Wayne was perhaps the most powerful of all the Hollywood players during the Golden Age, and hence his image continues to burn brightly today, some twenty years after his death.

  But images are creations and John Wayne was mortal. This is the story of the man who lived in the shadow of the image.

  It is loosely based on transcripts of interviews he gave when he visited the United Kingdom together with the vast collection of material held in the British Film Institute Archive. Also extensively used were the oral histories of the Ronald L. Davis Archive, SMU, Dallas. Most important in providing an insight for me was the personal interviews conducted with friends and employees of John Wayne, particularly Captain Bert Minshall who skippered The Wild Goose for many years. When Bert told me, “There still isn’t a day goes by that I don’t think of Mr Wayne,” I knew I’d got behind the image.

  All photographs are courtesy of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, British Film Institute, Captain Bert Minshall or are from the Author’s collection.

  Foreword

  John Wayne was a very intelligent man, in the sense that he knew the difference between melodrama and real life. He understood. And I loved him.

  He was a great guy.

  He didn’t want me to make 1941. He said to me, “You’re making a mockery of a very serious time … and I read your script … it’s attempting to be a comedy … I for one didn’t laugh.” He gave me such a bollocking about it

  We stayed friends although he was just disgusted that I would make what he thought was a very anti-American picture …

  I make movies that are important to me, but I think he would have loved Saving Private Ryan. I think he would have respected and honored it.

  The above text was authorized for inclusion in this book

  by

  Steven Spielberg.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE WARRIOR

  “I have always been Duke, Marion or John Wayne. If people say “John” ... Christ, I don’t look round.”

  “It was my Dad who worked out the John Wayne walk. He held my hand and told me to put one foot in front of the other. That was walking. Do’er the other way round and that’s walking backwards! I must walk different from other people otherwise why keep mentioning it! But, God, I get hot when they say I wiggled my rear and that stuff.”

  ...On Christmas Eve 1978 a soft mist rolled in over Newport Bay from the Pacific toward the house on Bayshore Drive. Day was giving way to evening and already there was the sight of colored lights being switched on in boats all over the harbor. Hooters and horns sounded. Men, women and children could be heard laughing loudly and calling to one another across the water.

  Inside the house, a man sat very still behind his desk, head bowed in concentration as he scanned the pile of papers in front of him. Huge shoulders were slumped in a gesture of defeat and a symbol of recognition that ultimately fate had not been kind to him. They were barn door shoulders belonging to a mountain of a man, shoulders instantly recognizable from any camera angle, as belonging to Hollywood’s golden icon, John Wayne. He was scarcely aware of his surroundings and yet he shivered and shook his head as the air cooled around him. This was his favorite night of the year and his love of Christmas was childlike, almost unreasoned in the anticipation he felt as he waited for the next day to arrive. Tonight was different. The house was empty, quiet and cold… all the things he most hated… and he felt solitude wrapped round him, something almost tangible.

  He enjoyed the hum of activity that accompanied the visits of his children and grandchildren. He liked to listen as they wandered in and out, usually with a pack of scampering dogs underfoot. He liked to hear Pat, his secretary and now companion, talking on the phone or typing at her desk in the far corner of his huge den. He preferred any noise at all to the deathly silence that was closing in tonight. “Deathly” was so cold. It crossed his mind to get up and put on a warmer shirt but somehow he didn’t have the energy to get out of his chair and he remained sitting in the growing gloom.

  There was something infinitely sad about his eyes as thoughts of other, happier times crowded him. He knew he should have been standing tall and proud, as he always had, but tonight he felt lost, tired and restless. He shrugged as he tried to gather himself, but he simply couldn’t bring the future into focus and instead he allowed his gaze to return to the papers on the desk. He had no interest in anything he saw there either. Reviews, films, Hollywood gossip, political intrigue, murders, none of it mattered anymore.

  He was scared. He felt ill. He knew what was wrong and what was on the horizon even though he didn’t want to look there. He hadn’t mentioned his inner knowledge to anyone else yet. He could not give voice to fears that lay festering along with the dread disease he knew was back. Once he had battled cancer and won the shoot-out but he wasn’t sure he could do it again. Too much had already happened to him, taking a heavy toll and sapping his legendary strength.

  “Duke, are you in there?” Pat called. She had let herself in and run straight to his den, knowing where he would be and what he would be doing. He glanced up to see her bounce in through the doorway. Their eyes met and held for a split second before he looked away; careful not to let her see any trace of fear or any of his most private thoughts. The quick shift of his eyes was a familiar action now; no longer the steadfast, steely blue gaze of old, no more openness as he shielded himself from every acquaintance. When he had been making movies he had learned, in the hands of the best directors, to lay himself bare, to expose his emotions, but here in the real world, he couldn’t let anyone close enough to touch his pain and so he was completely isolated and adrift with it...

  ...The first-born son of Molly and Clyde Leonard Morrison made his entrance at 224 South Second Street, Winterset, Iowa, on May 26th 1907. The circumstances surrounding the birth of the mighty thirteen pounder, following a long and torturous delivery, indelibly colored the way the new mother related to her offspring; she had resented her heavy and ugly pregnancy, hated the pain of labour, and detested the instant of birth which was almost a month premature. His early arrival may have led to some tongue-wagging in the sleepy mid-west town and the socially conscious Molly blamed him for coming too soon.

  Stand-offish, sharp-tongued and waspish, the woman wasn’t well-liked in Winterset in any case; she was a generally unhappy woman who felt life had treated her harshly when she was presented with a tiny replica of Clyde, the husband she was already so bitterly disappointed with. Things took a turn fo
r the worse as she added shame and embarrassment to her long list of grievances. In those first days she could hardly bear to look at the baby and she was never comfortable with the howling infant from the moment he was forced into her unyielding arms.

  The birth was registered at the town hall and he was christened Marion Robert Morrison. However after the Morrison’s second son was born, Molly underwent a change of heart and called the new, preferred arrival, Robert. Much was later made of name changes and plenty of confusion surrounds the enigmatic situation but Wayne himself attempted to make light of it, saying after becoming famous that his name was “supposedly changed to Marion Michael Morrison.” There is no legal record of any change although he was registered in school as Marion Mitchell Morrison, “my grandfather’s name - never corrected.” Perhaps not corrected, but there never was any actual change at all and just as his birth certificate recorded the baby as Marion Robert Morrison, so too did the man’s death certificate so many years later.

  After becoming John Wayne he may have brushed the name question away impatiently but in fact it deeply imprinted his identity for the rest of his life. Of course it wasn’t “Robert”, “Michael” or “Mitchell” that caused the complication. His stern mother had informed the world that her second child would be called Robert and the older boy, already resentful and confused by a sibling rival entering his domain, was naturally hurt and offended that he’d also lost the more acceptable element of his given name. Molly openly doted on Robert and had no time for Marion and, later Wayne admitted that he had felt unloved by his mother and confused by his name, he rarely talked about it but said he stubbornly ignored anyone who used the severe title he found himself saddled with, “The name Marion made me a target for every bully in town. I was regularly taunted. They called me little girl - asked why my mother dressed me in pants instead of skirts - did everything they could to make my life miserable.”

  In 1911 the family moved to Palmdale at the edge of the Mojave Desert. Marion continued taking many schoolyard beatings and frequently arrived home cut, bruised and with his clothes torn and dishevelled. The name remained the target of course, but he was also singled out because he was skinny and already ludicrously tall. In those early years the shy, sensitive, gentle boy was too afraid to fight back and life was tough until he acquired a more dignified title and some boxing lessons at the age of nine.

  On most morning his faithful hound, a giant Airedale called Duke, followed him to school. Their daily journey took them past the neighborhood fire station and the lonely boy often stopped to talk and to watch the men at work. One was particularly sympathetic and took him under his wing. He taught the youngster how to throw an effective punch; he also gave him the nickname “Little Duke” after the dog at his heels. Marion was delighted with it and from that time on, except when he signed legal documents, “Duke” was the only name he ever acknowledged, “I hated my given names. It didn’t matter what I chose to call myself.”

  But back then young Duke had a lot more to cope with than the bullies at school and his earliest memories were full of an anxiety rooted more deeply in the unhappy home life that affected every aspect of his development. He was unsure of his position there, insecure in the relationship he had with his bad tempered mother. Whilst he was the first to concede that Molly, more than anyone else, shaped and created the man he later became, he acknowledged his fear and admitted her unpredictable moods scared him right through to adulthood. On the other hand he also recognized her extraordinary sense of humor and was strangely attracted to her wit and brightness. Even as a child he grudgingly found the acidity of her tongue amusing, particularly when the sharpness was directed at someone else. He longed for her attention and always did his best to win her over. Nothing worked and when Bobby arrived their relationship deteriorated rapidly until she became almost frosty toward him.

  Increasingly he turned toward his marshmallow-like father, Clyde, or “Doc” as he was known. Duke thought he shared much of his mother’s personality, “I inherited too much from her. I got my own hot temper from her.” But in fact he was more like Doc, an introverted man who was quietly spoken, soft and charming. Father and son were serious, shy and retiring, kind and gentle and both faced stern criticisms from Molly. Her attitude toward her son had a lot to do with the fact that he looked so much like his father and he couldn’t help but remind her of Clyde’s many weaknesses. Duke’s own daughter later said that Molly heaped so much torment on him about it that he came to loathe any sign of softness in himself, “He was left deeply scarred. It was why he always acted so tough.”

  He suspected himself, however, that whilst he shared his father’s handsome looks and charm, he was in fact much more like her in the depths of his being and was completely motivated by the same drive and desire for success. He hoped he was not as nasty, mean or petty as she was, but still, he fought a lifelong battle against any tendency toward those characteristics that he suspected lurking inside. Whenever he knew he had been unkind to someone he was tormented by feelings of guilt, and was always quick to beg forgiveness.

  Duke was unflinchingly devoted to his father and stood squarely, in true John Wayne fashion, right at his side. His dad couldn’t stand up to his mother so he tried to do it for him, instinctively, even then, the protector. Unfortunately he was also particularly ill-equipped to handle his mother’s venom and whilst he was resolute in his determination he also became silent, withdrawn, sulky, angry, and all but uncontrollable. Highly strung, he suffered bouts of insomnia from his earliest childhood as a result of the continuous friction. He didn’t understand what was happening but knew his mother was sorely dissatisfied with both him and his father. He remained forever trapped in it and, caught squarely between his parents, his tough stance was forced on him by his mother’s indifference. Choosing sides caused him to feel great guilt and he spent much of his later life in atonement. He craved his mother’s admiration, then and later, but she continued to snub him all her life. “I don’t give a damn about him,” were words the biggest film star in the world never got used to hearing and he rejected them, never giving up on his attempts to please her. She offered him no comfort and as a child he often curled up with big Duke, falling asleep in the dog basket, wrapped up next to the Airedale. He needed close physical contact all his life and when his mother rejected his childish advances Big Duke and Doc had to satisfy his craving. Duke later suspected his mother had been jealous of the close and warm relationship that existed between him and his father. He understood she was an unhappy person who best expressed that in acts of spite against him and his dad. He knew they should never have married and that they were completely incompatible. Their marriage and his own happiness were things doomed from the start.

  He hated thinking about those days and rarely mentioned them. When he did talk about his childhood he deliberately presented an incomplete picture, believing the truth somehow demeaned him, that it was his own failure that he never won his mother’s love. Even Molly’s parents, his grandparents, felt sorrow and sympathy for his plight and they showered him with affection in compensation. Whilst his own mother could barely tolerate the sight of him others took to him easily and his grandfather particularly appreciated his soft voice, twinkling intelligent eyes, his sense of the ridiculous and his raucous laughter. He often took him for long walks, weaving wonderful tales of the Wild West as they went.

  They grew close and Grandfather did his best to pacify the unhappy boy when he cried childish tears on his shoulder, “Marion, you’ve always been a wriggler, a fidgeter, always running, pacing and jumping around, you give your mother no peace, you’re full of undirected energy that none of us can keep up with. She doesn’t know how to be with you, she can’t cuddle you because you’re never still for long enough.” He decided when he was still a boy, crying about his loneliness to his grandfather, that when he had children they would get all the love he had been starved of. Years later he fulfilled the promise and was often pictured holding his own kids cl
ose, he was rarely seen without one or other of them perched on his knee, their faces all full of beaming smiles.

  But Grandfather had been right. Marion couldn’t keep still, he was powered by a restless energy that he could never contain. He felt uncomfortable with it but how much worse it must have been for his mother. She was tired, he never slept. As an infant he cried constantly, demanding her when all she wanted was to sleep and forget about him. She wanted him to leave her alone and finally had no option but to leave him alone. If his demands had been less constant she might have been better able to deal with them, as it was she simply gave up on him. He embarrassed her and she took no pleasure in him. As he grew out of infancy she was increasingly disturbed by his wriggling and fretting, especially on Sundays in church when he ran up and down the aisles, out of control. If he was afraid of her when she raised her voice it was also easy to see why she felt uncomfortable with him.

  He often felt the need to escape and even as a five year old he frequently ran away from home. He took to jumping on passing rail cars, forcing Molly to make phone calls to friends and neighbors as she tried to track the little monster down. Many times he woke up on the floor of a train not knowing where he was or the havoc he had left behind.

  Folk eventually became good at organizing search parties for Duke and his dog, at tracing train destinations, and at completing the task of getting the spitfire home again, usually much against his furious wishes. The childish attempt to gain Molly’s attention worked, although her reaction often brought stinging tears to his eyes. Equally, it could have been the effort he put in here that stood him in such good stead later when he had to survive in a difficult and often hostile world. He couldn’t win the affection of his mother, instead he acquired the happy knack of making others like him. He was forced to learn early, and though he and Molly were destined to remain poles apart, coming at life from opposite directions and forever clashing head on, it was a direct a result of her attitude toward him that he became so good in the art of charming the birds from the trees.