John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [156]
I remarked to Wayne that the character he played had a rather unfortunate name—John Henry Thomas. Wayne gave his lopsided grin and said, “What’s wrong with being called John Thomas?” I didn’t argue.
Durango was a location that Wayne and Andy McLaglen loved, even though the high altitude meant that Duke had to use his oxygen tank a lot. McLaglen told me, “Both Wayne and I love Durango.
People say to us, ‘Why are you going to that horrible hole?’ But there are some beautiful houses where we always live when we go there.
“In the evenings we eat something of a speciality out there which is a little suckling goat roasted over a spit that they butterfly, and with it you drink a little tequila to keep you relaxed.”
About Wayne’s legendary “bullying” of directors, McLaglen said,
“I feel that I’m the best director for Duke, and nobody admires Wayne more than I do. Let me say that I feel he really respects me and I certainly respect him. He never tried to take advantage of me.
I started directing him when he was fifty-five and I directed him right up until he was sixty-six.
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“I always knew how to make him look his best. I never put him in a situation that’s gonna make him look bad. When we do a scene I can say, ‘Cut!’ and he’ll say, ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘Your stomach is a little bulky.’ ‘Okay!’ Or I can say ‘Cut! You slurred over that word,’
and he’d say, ‘Oh, I did?’ and he’d do it again without argument.
“A lot of guys are afraid to say boo to him in case he blasts them out of their director’s seat. He’s never pushed any of his authority around me.
“It was when we were making The Undefeated that Duke fell and fractured a couple of ribs. He couldn’t work for almost two weeks.
Then he tore a ligament in his shoulder and couldn’t use an arm at all. I said, ‘Don’t worry, Duke. The way we’ll shoot this, nobody watching the picture will ever know.’ He appreciated that kind of concern. He didn’t care that he was in terrible pain. He just didn’t want to let his fans down.”
Although filming The Undefeated started with Wayne in high spirits, he finished it in a somber mood. Rock Hudson told me,
“Duke’s wife, Pilar, hated Durango, but she was up there with him because he liked to have her with him. And I think she wanted to be with him—but not in Durango. She played chess pretty good, and she, Duke, I, and anybody else we could round up would play chess every night. But I could sense things weren’t good between Duke and Pilar. I never interfered. Then, before the picture was over, Pilar left. Duke told me they’d had an argument. I said, ‘If you want to talk about it . . .’ He told me a lot about the problems he and Pilar had. It wasn’t all her fault, and it wasn’t all his fault.
But they were going in different directions. She’d become a Christian Scientist, which puzzled Duke. He told me that he could cope with her being a Catholic because he’d had Catholic wives before, and he felt Catholicism was a universal religion. But he didn’t get Christian Science. And he didn’t want to know. I don’t have a lot of experience with these cultish religions, but I do know that when you’ve got one partner involved and the other isn’t, there’s problems. She didn’t smoke or drink, and she didn’t really like anyone else doing it. Duke didn’t smoke cigarettes, but he certainly liked a drink, and I think Pilar frowned on that but never actually said anything. Those unspoken words can wreck a 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:43 PM Page 293
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relationship. I felt sorry for both of them. But I understand they tried to work it out over the next few years, although Duke told me that he and Pilar weren’t sleeping together anymore. I told him how sorry I was.”
It’s no wonder that, in 1974, Wayne told me, “That Rock Hudson.
He’s a really great guy. The kind you felt you could rely on him if you were in trouble. Damn, how can the guy be queer?”
In June 1969, True Grit was released after much anticipation. The