John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [137]
Henry thought the Big C meant the clap and he said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it, Duke. They’ve got penicillin now.’ And JW said,
‘Not that. I’ve got lung cancer, Henry, and I’ve got to have my lung removed.’ Henry had also had cancer, so my father was talking to the right guy, and Henry said, ‘Well, we’ll just postpone the picture for a few weeks, and by then you’ll be okay.’ And so Henry postponed the picture for about four weeks.”
Hathaway told me when I spoke to him in 1975, “I’d had cancer of the colon, and I knew the worst thing was for someone to say,
‘Well, that’s that then. No point in making plans.’ You’ve got to make plans, and I knew I had to make Duke believe that the operation he needed was just a setback. He needed his work. I knew that. So I said, ‘You go and have your operation and we’ll wait around a few weeks and then we’ll start shooting.’ ”
On 16 September 1964, Wayne was admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital, where a tumor the size of a golf ball was found in his left 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:43 PM Page 257
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lung. The diseased lung was completely removed in a six-hour operation.
The next day he woke up and began coughing, ripping open stitches and damaging delicate tissue. His face and hands began to swell from a mixture of fluid and air, but the doctors didn’t dare operate again so soon. Five days later he was back in surgery where doctors repaired stitches and drained the fluid.
Michael said, “He didn’t show that he was afraid, but he’s not stupid, so I knew he was worried—more than he’d ever say.”
While still in the hospital, Duke received the news that his brother Robert had lung cancer.
On 19 October Wayne left the hospital and, knowing the press were outside waiting for him, he somehow found the strength to get out of his wheelchair and walk out. He chatted to reporters, smiled for the cameras, and walked out to a waiting car with blackened windows.
When he got inside, he groaned in agony and used an oxygen tank that had been smuggled into the car without the press noticing.
He had been told by doctors to rest for six months but, after three weeks of inactivity, he got on board the Wild Goose and took a cruise down the Mexican coast. He started to drink again and chewed tobacco. An oxygen tank and mask were always close by.
The true nature of his illness had been kept secret from the press and public. They had been told he had been in the hospital to be treated for lung congestion. Against the advice of his agent and his advisers, on 29 December 1964, Wayne held a press conference in his Encino home, and announced he had been treated for lung cancer—or the Big C, as he preferred to call it.
“I licked the Big C,” he told the press. “I know the man upstairs will pull the plug when he wants to, but I don’t want to end my life being sick. I want to go out on two feet—in action.”
When the press conference was over, he collapsed with exhaustion in his bedroom. But he had told the world, and contrary to the fears of his agent and advisers, the legend of John Wayne simply loomed ever larger. If anyone could beat lung cancer, it had to be John Wayne.
Henry Hathaway had some good advice for Duke: “After the operation, I told Duke, ‘Don’t baby yourself or you’ll become a 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:43 PM Page 258
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psychological cripple. The only way to get over this thing is to forget it ever happened and get on with your life. That’s what I did, and I’m just fine. And you’ll be fine too.’ ”
Although he’d been ordered to rest for six months, four months after the operation in early January 1965, Wayne began work on The Sons of Katie Elder. Hathaway recalled, “Everyone wanted to baby Duke. When we came to film the scene at the bridge over the river, Chuck Roberson said to me, ‘I think I ought to double Duke