John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [13]
‘I’d like to try that again,’ so I got down, but this time, I didn’t wait for him to make a move. I just suddenly drove into him and sent him flying over tables and chairs—and there was horrified silence from everyone who obviously thought, ‘That guy won’t work here again.’
But Pappy just laughed and said, ‘You’ll do all right, now get those fucking geese back in the pen and we’ll try again.’
“Maybe ’cos I’d shown him he couldn’t intimidate me, he took an instant liking to me and made sure I worked for him again on his next picture [ Four Sons]. This time my very important job was to pick up piles of maple leaves and toss them into the air so they could be blown by a giant fan across the set to simulate autumn.
After they shot the scene several times, I misunderstood a signal from Ford and thought the scene was over. So I began the very important job of sweeping up the leaves, and when I crossed in front of the camera, I realized they were still turning. Well, horror was written on every face around me and I figured I was in big trouble. But Pappy just laughed and did something to me he was famous for when he wanted to punish someone for their sins. He told me to bend over, which I did, and then he kicked me in the butt.
He said, ‘That’s what we call assuming the position, so when I tell you to assume the position, you’ll know what to do.’ ”
It’s a great story, and one I’d like to assume is true. The problem is, Ford was a master storyteller, and as time went by, he invented tales about the stars he discovered, and those stars loyal to him, like Wayne, went along with everything Ford said.
For instance, when Ford made Salute, which was about a football rivalry between the army and the navy, Ford requested the use of twenty-five football players from the USC Trojans. His request was turned down, so, goes the story, he got Duke Morrison, who was to have his first talking part in the picture, to pull some strings. Duke supposedly went to the USC president and persuaded him to allow John Ford to borrow the players he needed.
On the morning the Salute cast and crew were ready to pull out of Los Angeles by train to head for the Naval Academy at Annapolis, an extra football player turned up by the name of Ward Bond.
21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:42 PM Page 21
CALL HIM WAYNE
21
Duke Morrison didn’t like Bond and told him, “You’re not getting on this train, Bond. You’re too ugly to be in movies.”
“Screw you, Duke,” replied Bond, and shoved his way on to the train with the other football players.
At the Naval Academy, the players were taught how to drill and act like midshipmen. Finally, Ward Bond called out, “What is this bullshit, anyway?”
Ford asked Duke, “Who is that big ugly guy? The one with the liver lips and the big mouth.”
“His name is Ward Bond,” answered Duke. “He’s just a big loudmouth who thinks he can play football.”
“He sure is ugly,” said Ford.
“He’s a lousy football player too,” said Duke.
“I’m going to use him,” said Ford and, so the story goes, he invented a small part for Bond to play.
Henry Hathaway trashed this whole story for me: “Wayne had no pull with the university. He was probably totally forgotten by the university. There was no way he had the authority to cast the film.
Only a studio executive could do that, and that’s what really happened. No one was handpicked by Duke; Ford chose his team from photographs the studio collected. And Ford never invented a part for Ward Bond. That part was already in the script. I tell you, that Jack Ford really knew how to blarney! And I can tell you, Wayne thought the world of Ward Bond.”
It was just as well that John Ford knew how to blarney; he was carrying out secret activities for the navy. Wayne told me, “He was recruited by Rear Admiral Sims to work with Captain Ellis Zacharias
[who was to become commander of the Eleventh Navy District in San Diego]. They were concerned over the rise of Japanese power in the Pacific. Zacharias ran a semiofficial intelligence unit using local Naval Reserve officers to collect information