John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [145]
“If Mount Rushmore could sprout legs and get up and walk, that’s what Duke would be like. You’d want to get out of the way pretty quick. Well, when we were rehearsing, some of the students would look in and shout obscenities and chant their protests, and this was really getting to Duke. He decided he’d make some changes to his speech, and when he showed me, I said, ‘My God, Duke, if you say those things, you’ll turn those kids into a lynch mob.’ And Duke said, ‘I don’t give a shit!’ and I thought, Well, I’m not standing in his way.
“So on the night, there were kids in the audience who gave catcalls as Duke walked on stage. He just stood there and he just kind of subdued them into silence by his very presence. And he told them what he thought, and they gave him a rousing ovation.”
When I asked Wayne if he remembered what he’d said at that event, he replied, “I think I can pretty much recall it. I said that a university should be a quiet place where people go to learn, not to destroy property that belongs to someone else. I told them that their teachers and professors are people they should treat with respect. I said that getting an education is a privilege, not a right. I told them, ‘We are not going to sit by and let you destroy our schools and our system.’ I told them that this was a great university and 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:43 PM Page 272
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they owed it their best. Then I said, ‘Thank you very much.’ Well, there were a lot of people in that audience that obviously didn’t feel the same way those who were catcalling did, because I got a standing ovation.
“As I came off I said to Bob [Hope] who was waiting in the wings,
‘I hope I haven’t stole all your thunder, Bob.’ He said, ‘The next time I tell you something’s a bad idea, just ignore me.’ I said, ‘I always do, Bob.’ Anyway, Bob went out there and entertained the audience, and we raised a lot of money.
“But, you know? I hate to think of our endeavors going to help students who, like me when I was a kid, couldn’t afford to attend without a scholarship—but then they turn out to be the ones who go out and burn the American flag.”
With John Wayne Westerns continuing to do well, it made sense to do another one, so he made The War Wagon in September 1966.
Duke’s friend and regular costar Bruce Cabot played a crooked mining contractor who owns an armor-plated war wagon transporting half a million dollars’ worth of gold. Wayne was a man who wants revenge on Cabot for framing him for a crime he didn’t commit and for stealing his land. Kirk Douglas played a gunfighter who teams up with Wayne to rob the war wagon of its gold. Also in the cast was Robert Walker as a drunken explosives expert, Keenan Wynn as the wagon driver, and Howard Keel as an unlikely Indian.
Kirk Douglas said of Wayne after his death, “I think he was an artist and a terrific human being. He handled his adversaries with dignity. He was unique.
“We didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things. I was always a Democrat; he was a Republican. He liked to end each day by spending time with the crew and socializing. I only ever had dinner with him a few times. So we weren’t really friends. But when he knew you were right for a part, he’d come to you first. He called me to say he was producing The War Wagon and wanted me to be in it.
“I had to admire Duke. I didn’t realize just how much difficulty he had with just the one lung until we made The War Wagon. We were 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:43 PM Page 273
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on a plane on our way to Durango, and Duke was having trouble breathing and had to use an oxygen mask.
“He had trouble breathing on location in Durango and often had to use his oxygen mask. But he never let his physical