John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [36]
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JOHN WAYNE
Biographers of Wayne claim that Stagecoach made him a star, but this was not the case. He certainly did not make a great impression with the major studios as none of them attempted to buy his contract from Republic. And there is no evidence to suppose that Republic immediately realized that they had a potential gold mine in their hands.
John Carradine said, “MGM or Warner Bros. should have been breaking down the doors at Republic to get Wayne, but they didn’t.”
Adding to the myth that Stagecoach had made Wayne into a big star is a story that tells how Harry Carey’s wife Olive asked Duke,
“What will you do now that you’re a big star?” And he replied, “I might do something like The White Company” (a tale of English knighthood and chivalry).
Olive Carey gave him the benefit of her advice. “The people have told you how they like you. You must give them what they want, not what you want.”
This conversation did take place, but it was much later, when Wayne had actually become a star. Wayne said that because of Olive Carey’s advice, he did his best to make the films he felt his fans wanted.
There was at least one important filmmaker who recognized that Wayne was star material, even though he had turned Wayne down in 1936, and that was Cecil B. DeMille. He sent one of his assistants to offer Wayne the starring role in his big-scale Western, Northwest Mounted Police. For a long time after, Wayne regretted his response, in which he echoed DeMille’s earlier words of rejection when Wayne wanted the role of Hickok in The Plainsman. He said, “Just tell Mr. DeMille too much water has flowed under the bridge for me to want that role.”
It was a huge mistake, Wayne realized, because a DeMille picture would have brought him major stardom much sooner.
The first of the final batch of Mesquiteers films, The Night Riders, was released in April 1939, a month after Stagecoach. Then came Three Texas Steers followed by Wyoming Outlaw in the summer of 1939.
Film historians and biographers have noted that because of the success of Stagecoach, more people than usual went to see the Mesquiteers Westerns. But that was not the case, as shown in the 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:42 PM Page 65
B PICTURES AND POLITICS
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1939 Western stars poll which indicated that more people saw “The Three Mesquiteers’ series of films than saw Stagecoach. However, Americans were certainly beginning to visualize John Wayne as someone who represented the American way of life. It came at a time when turmoil was just beginning to brew in America for various reasons.
The fourth and final Mesquiteers film, New Frontier, was released in September 1939, virtually coinciding with the outbreak of the war in Europe. America was split between the majority who believed America should stay out of the war, and those few who felt their country should join the European Allies in their fight against Nazi aggression.
For several years prior to the war, Hollywood had been divided over the virtues and vices of Hitler’s Nazi vision for Germany and Mussolini’s Fascist vision for Italy. Some influential figures in Hollywood actually admired the style of what they described as Europe’s “strong men.” Harry Cohn, head of Columbia, was one of them. His studio made a documentary called Mussolini Speaks, which was supported by an advertising campaign that asked the question, “Is this what America needs?” Il Duce was so delighted with it, he invited Cohn to Italy to be decorated and presented with an autographed photograph of Mussolini which hung on Cohn’s office wall until America joined in the war.
Few in Hollywood admired Hitler, though, as many of the studios were run by Jews who took Hitler’s anti-Semitic views—and actions—far more seriously than many of the world’s governments did. A group sprang up called the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, which included Eddie Cantor who was known as a liberal, and a number of Hollywood