From Who the Hell’s in It: Conversations with Hollywood’s Legendary Actors
John Wayne talks about John Ford – this is from an interview he gave to Peter Bogdonavich. I laughed out loud at the last line of this story. Obviously, John Wayne was a very good story-teller.
A funny thing happened with Ford after The Big Trail. He was a strange character, you know. After I did that picture, I came back, and he was making Up the River. I went over and said, “Hi, coach.” Nothing. I thought he didn’t hear me. So I figured, Oh, well, he didn’t even see me. The next time I saw him I went, “Hi, coach, hi.” And again I didn’t get anything. So the next time I just went right up in front of him and went, “Hi, coach.” And he turned and talked to somebody else. I thought, That’s that — he won’t speak to me. I don’t know how the hell I can communicate.
About two years later, I was in Catalina with Ward, having a belt, and Barbara [Ford], his daughter — she was a little girl then — she ran in and said, ‘Daddy wants to see you.” I said, “Whoa, wait a minute, Barbara, you got the wrong boy — must be Ward.” She said, “No, it’s you, Duke.” So I said, “Yeah, honey, run along, you know this is a bar.” So his wife, Mary Ford, came to the door and she said, “Duke, come here. Jack is expecting you out there.” I said, “All right.” So I went out to the Araner, his boat, and I go aboard — I remember Jim Tully was there and four or five guys — and Jack was in the middle of a goddamn story, and he looked up at me and said, “Hi, Duke, sit down.” And to this goddamn day I don’t know why he didn’t speak to me for two years.
You can just hear his voice saying the words too. It’s awesome. Not every actor gets burned into your psyche like this.
Totally.
Not only can you hear his voice, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to think back on this quote WITHOUT hearing it. He had a way of thaking the words he spoke and making them HIS — FOREVER.
Brian – yup. He owned whatever he did.
It goes back to the other quote in another excerpt – where he says: “If you’re going to make a gesture – make it.”
Lauren Bacall tells about how John Wayne came to visit Bogie – when Bogie was house-bound and dying. Wayne basically came to pay his last respects. They were never really good friends, but they had great respect for each other’s work. (And Lauren Bacall would end up being in The Shootist – which would be Wayne’s last film – Wayne was dying at the time)
Anyway, Wayne showed up and had a kind of awkward good-bye with Bogart – Bacall said later: “I think one of the most attractive things about Wayne was how uncomfortable he got in certain situations.”
Seeing a man that big and that sure of himself get kind of flustered is, indeed, one of his many charms. It makes him human – this is one of the reasons why we all have such strong responses to him. It’s also why he can be so FUNNY.
Think about him with Katherine Hepburn … I mean, they were just so FUNNY together, because he was completely being bossed around by this little lady- and it made him mad – but it put him off kilter … It’s a great quality for any huge movie star to have.
All the great ones have it. They are not impenetrable. They are our way IN to the movie’s story.