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He waved a hand, making it clear he didn’t want anything.

Wanting to do something, I went to the fridge, found bottled water, poured some into a cup, and sat silently by him, waiting until he was ready to take the cup from me. Then I discovered the secret that had been kept from the public. He reached for an oxygen tank and took some deep breaths. Nobody but those who worked with him knew he needed oxygen close by for times like this. It took a while for him to get control again, but he was finally able to take the cup from me and drank it.

“Sorry,” he rasped.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to call someone?”

“Don’t fuss!” he said impatiently. “I’ll be okay.”

He never allowed anyone to make a fuss of his health problems and always shrugged off any suggestion he was unwell. I realized he was desperate not to give any hint to the public that he was not quite the man he once was. More than that, I think he didn’t want to allow himself to believe he was not the strong man he always seemed on the screen.

When, in 1980, I met Don Siegel who directed Wayne in The Shootist just several months after Brannigan, I told him about the incident in Wayne’s trailer.

Siegel told me, “You were with a man who was slowly dying.”

I’d had no idea. But in retrospect, I can see that time was, indeed, running out for him.

Thanks to Wayne, I spent several days on the set of Brannigan at various locations in London. Mostly I observed director Douglas Hickox, but each day Wayne would come over to me and say, “Tell 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:43 PM Page 319

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you what, kid, we’ll have a coffee and a talk till they’re ready for me.”

The premise of Brannigan was a good one. A tough American cop comes to London to extradite a villain Scotland Yard have in custody. Unfortunately, Scotland Yard have lost him, so Brannigan sets about finding him with the help of a lovely female detective, played by Judy Geeson.

Geeson seemed to have struck a chord with Wayne. He told me,

“Judy’s young enough to be my daughter. A lovely girl. I like the irony of the script that she’s there trying to look after me.”

I didn’t get a chance to talk to Judy Geeson on the set, but I did interview her a few years later when I was at Photoplay. She told me,

“Oh, I loved John Wayne. He was just so charming and easy to work with. Although we shot the film in London, it was like making an American movie just because you were working with John Wayne.

It was also very funny to see the look on people’s faces when we were filming. We’d pull up in a car in a London street, and you’d see these people looking at him and they must have been thinking, ‘That man looks just like John Wayne. But, oh, it can’t be.’ I think he got a kick out of that.”

Wayne also enjoyed working with Richard Attenborough who played a top Scotland Yard detective. Said the Duke, “I love the way he calls everyone ‘darling’ and ‘sweetie.’ Just cracks me up. I like working with English—I should say British—actors. Like Laurence Harvey. These guys really know a thing or two about acting. Richard is my kind of movie actor. He doesn’t go in for all that violent stuff and nudity. His films are the kind you can go to see without being afraid you’ll get embarrassed because you’ve got your kid with you.

And he’s a funny guy too. He comes across as all upper-crust, but he’s got a wonderful sense of humor.”

I had the chance to chat a bit with Richard Attenborough, who said, “I’ve worked with a few American stars. James Stewart [in The Flight of the Phoenix], for instance, and Steve McQueen [in The Great Escape and The Sand Pebbles]. I don’t suppose all Hollywood stars are like them, but those men are real pros. And Duke is just a lovely man. He and I are like chalk and cheese in so many respects, which is why I think we make good casting in our respective roles.

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JOHN WAYNE

He’s the big tough cop from America, and I’m the small, gentlemanly detective. It’s a caricature, of course, for both of us, but that’s