John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [10]
But there seemed to be no desire to take up acting as a profession when he graduated in 1925. “When we moved to California, I discovered the ocean, and I loved it,” he said. “My ambition was to become an officer in the United States Navy. I applied to the Naval Academy but was turned down.”
Henry Hathaway cast doubt on this claim, saying, “I never heard Duke say his ambition was to join the Navy. I think that was an invention of either the studio or John Ford, who was in the Naval Reserve. Once a story like that gets the official stamp, it’s hard for someone like John Wayne to turn around say it wasn’t true. As far as I knew, his ambition was to become a lawyer. When he went to university, that’s what he studied—law.”
His high school grades were good enough for his acceptance to the University of Southern California (USC), but for a short while it looked like he would not be able to attend because the Morrison family simply couldn’t afford it. He was saved when he received a football scholarship. During his first year at college, his parents finally separated and were divorced in 1929. Duke was relieved.
Clyde eventually married a saleswoman at Webb’s Department Store in Glendale, and Molly moved to Long Beach, taking Robert with her, where she lived for the rest of her days. Duke had little contact with either parent during his college years, when he was 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:42 PM Page 15
FROM MARION TO DUKE
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learning to become ever more independent. He was also becoming a high achiever at college.
When I spoke to one of Wayne’s lifelong friends, actress Loretta Young, by telephone, she said, “Duke was no dummy, which a lot of people like to think. He did well academically during his freshman year, and he learned from his fraternity brothers how to drink and to play cards. I think that was the beginning of his preference for the company of men who could hold their liquor and play cards. Not that he didn’t like girls. He found himself the center of attention from a number of college girls who warmed to his natural naïve charm and good looks. One of his girlfriends was my sister, Polly Ann Young.
That’s how I got to meet Duke, and we enjoyed a friendship that lasted many years. He always treated the girls he dated with good old-fashioned respect, never swearing in their presence and certainly never getting drunk. But in the company of men, it was a different story. He learned to hold his liquor, he swore when he felt like it, but he was never belligerent and was a nice guy, plain and simple.”
Director Andrew V. McLaglen knew Wayne for many years and directed several of his later movies. When I had lunch with McLaglen at Pinewood Studios in 1978, where he was preparing to film North Sea Hijack, he said, “People think Duke was not an intellectual. Well, he was an intellectual. He read avidly and could hold a discussion about many subjects. He made himself aware of politics both nationally and internationally. Don’t ever mistake John Wayne for being dumb, just because he was big and kind of slow.
That was only a part of his screen persona.”
George Sherman, who directed Wayne in a number of films, concurred when I spoke to him by telephone for a second time in 1979: “I knew Duke when he was still a young man and I can tell you that he was an extremely intelligent guy. He knew what the 1917 revolution in Russia was all about. He knew he didn’t like Communists.”
Another of Wayne’s directors and friends, Raoul Walsh, told me in 1974, “I got to know Duke when he was still very young and the only thing he did that was stupid was to let himself get drunk too often. But when we were making The Big Trail, he proved he was