John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [31]
A few major Westerns were being made at the big studios, such as Jesse James with Tyrone Power, but mostly they were not interested in investing in prestige Westerns. Ford touted Stagecoach to every major studio in Hollywood, and every one of them turned him down.
It just so happened that independent producer Walter Wanger was looking for a film property to make for United Artists. Wanger was something of a maverick of his day, so Ford took his script to Wanger, who read it, liked it, and took it to United Artists. Like all the major studios, United Artists (which was not a studio but a company that financed the works of independent producers like Wanger) initially balked at the idea of making a Western.
But Wanger persuaded them, partly by agreeing to limit the budget to a modest $392,000. This meant that most of the budget would be spent on the spectacular action that would be shot on location, while the cast, the director, and the writer would all be paid minimal fees. Ford’s fee, for instance, would be $50,000, which, although a respectable amount, could not compare to the $100,000
plus 12 percent of the profits he had received from Fox for The Hurricane in 1937.
In October of 1937, Wanger was able to give Ford the green light on Stagecoach and they began putting together a cast of character actors who were not superstars but who would each bring their previous screen and stage experience to the project to flesh out the well-rounded characters. They chose George Bancroft as the sheriff, John Carradine as the gambler, Thomas Mitchell as the drunken doctor, Donald Meek as the whisky peddler, Andy Devine as the driver, Louise Platt as the officer’s wife, and Claire Trevor as the prostitute.
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Wanger had notions of casting Gary Cooper as the Ringo Kid, but the tight budget meant they couldn’t afford him. Ford claimed he didn’t want Cooper anyway.
Years later, Pilar Wayne (Wayne’s third wife) asked Ford why he had waited so long before ever offering Duke a major role. She recounts in her book that Ford’s reply was, “He wasn’t ready. He needed to develop his skills as an actor—and more than that, I wanted him to lose his boyish looks, so he’d have some pain written across his face to offset the innocence.”
But John Carradine told me, “I promise you, if Cooper had said he’d do the film for the paltry fee Wayne got, Ford would have jumped up and down with glee. He knew he needed John Wayne because Wayne was known as a screen cowboy, and Ford also knew that by this time, Wayne had really learned his business. He could act well, and his name would attract an audience who had followed him through his years at Monogram and Republic. So it was good commercial sense to cast Wayne, and a good artistic choice too.”
Certainly, Ford’s explanation to Pilar Wayne doesn’t ring true.
Ford needed an actor who was a convincing cowboy; someone who had a following; someone who would not demand a high salary (Wayne’s fee was $3,700 as opposed to $10,000 for Andy Devine, $12,000 for Thomas Mitchell, and $15,000 for Claire Trevor. Only John Carradine was paid less, at $3,666). That person was John Wayne.
Having it in mind at some point to cast John Wayne as Ringo, Ford knew it was going to be difficult to persuade Wanger. In fact, Wanger went ahead and tested Bruce Cabot, whose only real claim to fame to date was as the impresario in King Kong, which meant he would come cheap and the public would know his name. But his test was a failure, much to the relief of Ford, who still intended to cast Wayne in the part.
Ford had recently wound