John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [165]
When I worked for Sturges in 1975, he said to me, “We play a game in the business called Rip-off. You see what makes money and you follow it up with something you hope will repeat its success. In the case of McQ we were all just trying to make a Dirty Harry film but with John Wayne instead of Clint Eastwood.
“It didn’t bother me that we had a pretty poor script and hardly any excitement. I get paid to do my job, and I do it as best I can. Duke Wayne knew we had problems with it, and we did our best to make it work. I liked Duke, and I think he liked me. He didn’t try pushing me around the way I’d heard he pushed other directors around. But then, I’ve been around a long time. So he respected me, and it was mutual.
“It was one of the few films he made in later life where he didn’t have his usual cronies around him, and I think he was kind of lonely and lost. He was living on his yacht while we filmed, and he was pleased when his wife and daughter [Marisa] arrived. But Pilar didn’t stay and Duke was furious. That’s when he told me his marriage was all but over. I’d heard the rumors.
“There were also rumors that Duke was having an affair with his secretary [Pat Stacy—by then Mary St. John had retired]. I think he found her good company—the only company. But I don’t know what went on behind locked doors. None of my business. I just wanted to get the film made. I’d say it was just a fling.”
The “fling” Sturges thought Wayne was having would turn out to be a lot more than that. Sturges continued, talking about Wayne’s age: “He was—what—sixty-seven or something close? He couldn’t run. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t breathe properly. And he had to wear a dark toupee which never seemed to suit him.
“But what he did bring to the role was his amazing charisma. The fact is, his fans didn’t care how old he was or whether his toupee was obvious. I just wished we had a script that gave him more to do, that suited him as he was, rather than try and make it fit his character as it used to be.
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“We did have some good moments. The best scenes were between Duke and Colleen Dewhurst, who played an aging prostitute who gives McQ information and gets killed for it. Although we didn’t show it, McQ went to bed with her, and the fact that they were both getting on and the incredible rapport the two actors had made it work somehow. Just two scenes, but the best two scenes in the film.”
I talked to Colleen Dewhurst by telephone in 1979. She spoke warmly of Wayne, saying, “Duke kept his word about us working together again, and when McQ came up, he told John Sturges he wanted me to play the hooker. It was only a couple of scenes, but they were such nice scenes. John Sturges told me that Duke was pretty tense through most of the filming, but when we did our two scenes, he was relaxed and seemed to enjoy the work. I’m so glad I managed to bring something good into Duke’s life.”
With McQ behind him, Wayne returned home to Newport before heading for New York in December 1973 to accept an award from the National Football Hall of Fame. When he returned home, he found Pilar and all her belongings had gone.
“It was just an awful time for Duke,” said Claire Trevor. “He never really believed that Pilar would leave him, and he certainly had no intention of leaving her. But suddenly she was gone, and he was mortified. I know she still loved him, and he loved her. When I asked him what he was going to do, he said, ‘Well, I sure as hell won’t get married again.’ I said, ‘Duke, she hasn’t divorced you yet.’ He said, ‘I hope she doesn’t. Even if we can’t live together, I don’t want a divorce.
But if she wants one, she can have it.’ It seemed to me that everything about his life was coming to an end. I felt a foreboding back then [in 1973]. It all seemed to begin with the death of John Ford.”
John Ford died in August 1973. I recall sitting in Duke’s trailer on the set of Brannigan